Friday Finds: Curating California

Golden State is a celebration of all things California, so for this edition of Friday Finds we wanted to shine a light on a few products from some of our favorite makers based here on the West Coast.

When it comes to grooming products, most men are notorious for not reading the fine print and putting God knows what on their face or in their hair. Jack Henry started in California in 2017 and grew out of a desire to create products that were clean, effective and simple, from the ingredients to the packaging and design. No synthetics, toxins, alcohols or aluminum in their formulas, 100% recyclable amber glass bottles and jars for the product, and a disarmingly simple design aesthetic that looks sleek on your shelf. Their Essentials Kit features Jack Henry’s top three best sellers—Cleanse+, Deodorant, and a Clay Pomade—so you can sample a little from their hair, face and body categories. Punch in the code GOLDENSTATE at checkout to get 15% off your order.

Next up is something that most of us can’t live without: coffee. There are so many great roasters in California but today we’re highlighting Santa Cruz’s Verve Coffee, who make everything from instant coffee to thoughtfully curated espresso blends. Their latest creation, a line of Flash Brew nitro cold coffees, employs a unique process that brews hot then is flash chilled to produce a smoother feel and more approachable taste than regular cold brew coffee, which can often be quite bitter. A little nitrogenated action also gives Flash Brew a mildly creamy consistency without being overly sweet. Verve offers three delicious variations, including a Vancouver Decaf, that you can buy directly from their site in 12-pack options, or use this tool to find out where their products are sold in your area.

Staying with the liquids, Gardena, California’s CALI Distillery is up next. As a California kid with Kentucky roots, I was mildly skeptical of a company that wasn’t distilling out of the Bluegrass State, but husband and wife team Howard and Marni Witkin have created a winning formula with each of their three spirits: Riptide Rye, Mavericks Doublewood (a high rye bourbon that starts in a charred American Oak barrel and finishes in a toasted French Oak barrel), and the spiced CALI Whiskey, which is perfect neat or works great as a more flavorful alternative in your Old Fashioned recipes. Like their other two offerings, CALI is a small-batch creation so you won’t be able to find it everywhere, but with the holidays approaching you might want to seek out a distributor and have a bottle on hand that you can cozy up to.

Now that you’ve got your hair on point, you smell great, and you’ve got a nice glass of either coffee or whiskey by your side, you’re ready to ease back and relax to some beautiful music. Based out of San Diego, Wrensilva creates handcrafted HiFi record consoles that are the epitome of form meets function. Their flagship unit, the M1, will set you back $10,000, but the smallest console, the Loft, is perfect for smaller spaces and budgets. It features a bespoke solid-state preamp that puts out 100 watts per channel. The belt-driven table uses an Ortofon OM5E cartridge, and the piano black platter looks stunning next to the aluminum rotary knobs and switches. Between the lower metal shelf and a recessed groove to the left of the platter, you can fit 60 of your favorite albums. But the pièce de résistance is the ability for the Loft—as well as the other Wrensilva consoles—to switch between vinyl and streaming music, and the option to pair the unit with an existing SONOS speaker system to bring sound throughout your living space. Truly the ultimate gift for the audiophile in your life that yearns for a more conversational piece that doesn’t skimp on quality.