We did it!  The first Club-Mate Across the USA has now SOLD OUT.  91 cases went to individuals, the rest are going to Ada’s Technical Books in Seattle.

We have the Club-Mate, we bought a van and we’re heading out from Washington, DC tomorrow.  Our first stop will be Raleigh, NC.  More details on the specific route coming soon!

View Club-Mate Across the USA! in a larger map

We’re now down to our last 42 cases, only one pallet left!

We’ve also gone up to 22 cities!  The East Coast has been picking up with orders from Union City, NJ and Providence, RI.

We’ve been studying the map, and thanks to a recent order from Sioux Falls, ND, we’ve decided to bifurcate the route.  More details on that soon, as well as the hat!

Nick Farr will be on Off The Hook tonight at 19:00 (7 PM) Eastern to talk about the project and what a great success it’s been so far.

What an incredible weekend!  We’re now almost halfway through the available stock with a week to go before the scheduled departure date of August 16.  Here are some notable developments that made this weekend huge:

• More hackerspaces are on board!  Heatsync Labs ordered 3 cases, and the Dallas Makerspace ordered their first case.
• We got our first big challenge to see if we could move a whole pallet (40 cases) in one drop-off point in a short time period.  In just two short days, we’re already 50% of the way through the challenge with more sales expected shortly!
• The first retail space to carry Club-Mate in the USA was announced.
• Portland, Palo Alto, Dallas, Phoenix were added to the standings.
• We found a hat that resembles the Club-Mate man.  More on that (with pics) tomorrow.

We still have a lot of places left to look and a trip schedule to finalize.  More updates in a few hours.  Thanks again to everyone who’s supported this effort, we hope you’re having as much fun with it as we are!

Live in Seattle?  Love Club-Mate?  Starting August 25th, you’ll be able to head down to Ada’s Technical Books and pick up Club-Mate by the bottle.  In addition to being Seattle’s first technically oriented bookstore, Ada’s is the first retail location in the USA to sell Club-Mate and we hope to add a few more throughout the country before this trip is out!

You can grab a cold bottle at Ada’s for $5.  Feeling like a case?  You’ll be able to pick them up at Ada’s as well.

We’ll be hosting our Seattle tasting party and retail Club-Mate sales debut there the evening of August 25th!  Would your retail location like to carry Club-Mate?  Interested in a vending machine?  Even if you know of a good store or location for a vending machine for Club-Mate, e-mail us to let us know!

Well, it’s been a very busy day.  Lots of potential ups, coupled with some very real downs.  Sales slowed down, as is to be expected after the initial wave of enthusiasm.  We had some cancellations in Seattle, as Jesika McEvoy ended up discovering accidentally.

In the potential ups category, our first retail outlet deal is almost ready.  Another crazy deal in San Francisco that might line up some financing, but the sales volume was kind of tepid after announcement.   We also lined up our first tasting party, and have a better idea of what the schedule across the country is going to be.

Now that we’re slower, please talk to your friends!  Buy cases!  If you live in San Francisco, that deal really, really has to sell out in the next few days or we could be losing out on a big financing deal.

Club-Mate Sales:  You get used to it.

Los Angeles passed 10 cases today, thanks to a strong showing from Nullspace labs.  Thanks to M and the crew, we’ll be throwing a tasting party there the evening of Saturday, August 21.  The specific time and more details to follow.  Come and check out the refreshing and envigorating properties of Club-Mate…or go straight for what will probably be the wildest Tchunk-fueled party in US history.

In addition to the party on the 21st, we’re scheduled to be in San Francisco on the evening of the 22nd.  More details and the Day 3 sales recap to follow.

Even though we’re busy selling mate and getting ready for our Club-Mate Across the USA trip, we’re also busy booking HoaP 4.0: Hackers in Japan in November.  Thanks to strong demand from folks in the Washington, DC area and a good nod from our travel partners, we’re proud to announce service from Washington-Dulles for no additional charge!

The flight from IAD leaves the evening of November 3 and includes a one night stay in San Francisco at no extra charge.  Passengers from Washington will meet up with fellow HoaP Japan passengers in San Francsico before boarding the main flight on November 4.  The direct return flight back to IAD will depart in the late afternoon on the 21st.

Demand is still very limited, so be sure to book your trip now.  Not only is it a great deal for a 17 day trip to Japan, it’s your chance to learn new skills and make friends in Japan while building the global hacker scene.

Today was HUGE! We were mentioned on the MAKE blog twice, once for Club-Mate across the USA and again for HoaP 4.0: Hackers in Japan.

We also added 6 new cities today! Santa Cruz CA, Louisville KY. Flagstaff AZ, Raleigh NC, Columbus, OH and Cleveland OH!  Seattle is now also tied with Los Angeles for first place.  However, all that could change very easily.  The largest order placed yet came from Santa Cruz, CA today!  One very thirsty Mate drinker ordered 4 cases!  Two more orders like that and we’ll have to whip up that Club-Mate Banana Pudding recipe in honor of the Banana Slugs.

Thanks also to LVL1, coming in with the first official order from a hackerspace and putting Louisville, KY on the map!

@huertanix helpfully pointed out that we completely failed to mention how many bottles were in a case of Club-Mate.

Just so you know, there are 20 bottles of Club-Mate in a case, as this helpful picture from Simon Law points out.  What you can’t see is that each bottle is 0.5l, or half a liter.  The Club-Mate article on wikipedia lists the ingredients, but not the nutritional facts.  Maybe someone should fix that.

Photo courtesy Simon Law via flickr

There are many great things about traveling with Hackers on a Plane.  The first thing we do is introduce you to the culture, customs and the scene without hitting you over the head with scheduled activities.  Instead of scripting everything, we leave a lot of room open for our friends to suggest really awesome things to see and do.  Mitch Altman’s friend Stuart Woodward just offered to be our tour guide on a day trip to Hakone:

“I’m willing to lead a day trip to Hakone, that involves travel on a switch-back mountain railway, cable car, ropeway, fake Spanish Galleon & bus with a stop at a sulphurous Volcanic hotspot from where you can see Mount Fuji.  It’s a full day when starting at Tokyo, start early & get back late.”

A day trip to hakone is just one of the many activities we have going for us in our 18 day trip to Japan.  Get your spot now before they’re all gone.

Photo courtesy mahiro1322 via flickr