Bold as Love
When I was 14, I bought the Jimi Hendrix Experience Greatest Hits and a sweet Hendrix blacklight poster for my bedroom. This was just after Wayne’s World was released in theaters, and I remember going straight to Foxy Lady and Fire and listening to these tracks over and over again. Slowly, but surely, I fell in love with his sound. It wasn’t like the sound of James Taylor or the smooth jazz my parents played. This was raw. This was real. I could hear the emotion and how it influenced many of the popular artists of that time: Nirvana, Soundgarden, and the new Seattle sound. This was truly the beginning of my personal musical discovery.
Flash forward eighteen years to 2013. I decided to step out on my own and open Drip Cafe. In the days leading to our opening, I had a crew throughout the restaurant cleaning, organizing, painting, and preparing for the unknown that laid before me.
I always obsess over the music I put on when others are with me. Whether I am showcasing a new band I found, or diving into live concert footage from the ‘70s; I have always loved sharing music with people.
Naturally, I had to put some thought into the first song that would be played at Drip Cafe. As I put together some of the original playlists for the restaurant, I carefully picked out tracks that I personally loved and represented me. Tracks that I wanted to share with my new customers.
On the morning of April 22nd, 2013, Drip Cafe was ready to open, and I landed on the title track from Jimi Hendrix’s 2nd studio album, Axis: Bold as Love. “Anger - he smiles towering in shiny metallic purple armor,” rang out into the empty dining room at 6:30 in the morning. Jimi’s guitar circles and swoons as he describes all of the colors of love. Bold as Love is all of the many impressions that humans are prone to in their minds. And the axis is the point where all things meet. At that moment that morning, I was standing at an axis point for my life.
So much has happened since that fateful morning in the Spring of 2013; a roller coaster of emotions difficult to quantify and describe. To be an entrepreneur is to be bold, and to love your passion and craft. Over the next 7 years we have won six Best of Delaware awards, catered many events, renovated our original location, built a second location, and greeted thousands of guests at our doors. As we started this past year, we were set on launching another new beginning: our own coffee roasting company, Drip Roasting Co. This allows us to serve the freshest coffee available to our customers time and time again.
Knowing the history of the cafe and the song, a life-long friend suggested the name Bold as Love for Drip Roasting Co.’s signature coffee. A blend of Central American coffees that is chocolatey, rich & bold, with a lovely, smooth finish. As we stand in this new axis point and look forward, Bold as Love is a fitting name to our first house coffee.