Charlie Friedmann

Charlie Friedmann grew up in Montreal in a family that ran a frozen chicken company; he has said the family invented the dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget, sold under the name Dino Buddies. He attended McGill University for his undergraduate degree and then NYU Law School. He currently lives in Toronto.^[1]

Friedmann trained as a corporate lawyer, working in securities law — including IPOs and stock offerings — at a large New York law firm after the 2008 financial crisis, roughly from 2008 to 2011. He later moved into restaurant consulting in New York City, helping open several concepts and building their wine and cocktail lists. His broader background before joining Acid League also includes food and beverage start-ups and co-founding a direct-to-consumer men's athletic apparel brand.^[2],[3]

He worked as a freelance food, wine and travel writer for roughly two years, publishing in the Globe and Mail, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and Wine Enthusiast, among other outlets. For the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, he wrote a series of three stories about the natural wine movement in Canadian restaurants.^[1],[3]

Friedmann also worked at City Winery, an urban winery in New York that brought in grapes from California and Long Island, where he learned winemaking techniques including stomping grapes.^[1]

After Proxies split from Acid League, Friedmann became president of the independent brand in October 2022.

Friedmann co-founded Proxies alongside his cousin Scott and chief product officer Devin, a winemaker who had traveled the world working in wine and returned to Canada during the pandemic to help develop the concept. Scott was a co-founder of Acid League, which was itself founded with two food scientists from the University of Guelph and a designer.