While legacy drink accelerators like AB InBev’s ZX Ventures and Distill Ventures have largely wound down or folded, 2026 has plenty of places where scrappy founders and new-to-world brands can find the support needed.

If you are looking to scale, here are the programs, incubators, and accelerators you should have on your radar:

💵 Incubators & Mentorship Programs 🎓

These programs are generally “non-dilutive,” meaning they don’t take a chunk of your company. They focus on coaching, community, and, in some instances, bridge capital.

• Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream: The current gold standard for support. They provide coaching, pitch competitions with capital prizes, and counseling for F&B small businesses.

• Pilot Project Brewing: A dedicated “brewery incubator” that allows pre-launch and early-stage brands to grow from concept to taproom without the heavy capital expense of building a dedicated production facility.

• Seed Spot Impact Accelerator: Specifically for social-impact beverage brands, this virtual intensive accelerator and training for diverse entrepreneurs ready to drive meaningful change.

• Tory Burch Foundation Fellows: A community-based program providing education and networking for women-led brands. It’s less about “liquid” and more about the “leader.”

• The Hatchery Chicago: A non-profit incubator providing commercial kitchen space and a clear path to retail for founders who need physical infrastructure without the massive overhead.

• Rutgers Food Innovation Center: A globally recognized hub that supports beverage companies in the “unsexy” but vital areas: R&D, food safety, and manufacturing compliance.

• PepsiCo Greenhouse: This program offers global mentorship for the next generation of functional and “better-for-you” drinks. It focuses on APAC-based companies.

🛒 Retailer-Led Programs 🛍️

These programs are specifically designed for small business to “test and learn” with bigger players.

• 7-Eleven “Brands with Heart”: The gateway to the convenience channel. Selected "purpose-led" brands pitch to 7-Ventures for a chance at a regional in-store test to prove their velocity with "on-the-go" shoppers.

• Walmart “Open Call”: A high-stakes "Golden Ticket" opportunity for American-made products. Founders get one-on-one pitch meetings with merchants for a shot at local, regional, or national shelf space.

• Target Takeoff: A premier retail accelerator for brands ready for mass-market. It offers direct access to Target’s merchandising team and network of experts to help you prep for a national shelf set.

• Whole Foods Market Local and Emerging Accelerator Program (LEAP): A 12-week “Retail MBA” for early-stage brands. It offers scaling education, buyer mentorship, and a potential $25,000 equity investment, often resulting in immediate regional shelf placement. Note that this program does not have a dedicated web page (so far as I could tell), so you’ll need to do some serious research to find it.

• Fusion Partnership Lab: Diageo’s collaboration-focused lab. They don’t fund brands so much as they partner with the tech around them—sustainability, packaging, and operational innovations.

📈 Equity & Investment Accelerators 🚀

These programs typically provide capital and operational “hand-holding” in exchange for a percentage of your business.

• SKU: This is “CPG Harvard,” a 12-week high-intensity and mentor-driven program. It requires proven traction (usually $100k+ ARR) and takes an equity stake in exchange for participation.

• Pronghorn: A platform dedicated to diversifying the spirits industry. Backed by in part by Diageo, it offers capital and mentorship to scale brands owned by underrepresented founders.

• Beyond CPG: A tactical growth program designed to grow emerging brands through expert retail strategy. Requires a 5% equity exchange.

• Big Idea Ventures (Global Food Innovation Fund): A fund and accelerator targeting the next generation of products that use sustainable proteins.

• InvestBev Accelerator: Think of this as a “compact MBA” for beverage founders. It serves early stage brands that are readying themselves for distribution. This program has an associated cost.

Who did I miss? If you’ve been through a program that fundamentally changed your business, drop it in the comments below. 👇

In an industry built on relationships, “AI slop” outreach isn’t going to grow your business. When the cost of generating content is lower than ever, content isn’t an edge; your 753-word email isn’t a business generator anymore.1

Instead, use AI to build context.

Here are 3 ways a sales rep can deploy AI easily and effectively:

• Agentic Monitoring: Use “web-browsing” agents to monitor local retail portals and e-commerce listings across your zip codes. Instead of manual checks, set alerts for when your SKU hits zero or a competitor drops price. 🌐

• Scaled Social Media Audits: Use AI to crawl and summarize the social feeds of your top 50 accounts. The output is a monthly “Vibe Sheet” that synthesizes their current philosophy—like a shift toward low-ABV or sustainability—so you walk in knowing their values, not just their name. 📱

• The Personal Data Analyst: Don’t wait for corporate reports.2 Upload your raw depletion CSVs to a secure LLM to spot “proven patterns” in seconds. Ask it to find the “hidden gems”—accounts with high velocity but narrow distribution—and generate your target list for the week. 📊

The goal? Reclaim 5 hours a week to actually care 10% more. You aren’t competing with AI; you’re competing with the rep who uses AI to serve their accounts. 🤖🤝

Your cap table is not tuition for "finding yourself" or figuring out your brand.

I see a lot of beverage-industry founders try to charge their learning curve to investors—buying into national retail without local velocity or dropping $100k on a rebrand before selling a single case. Investors are looking for growth and exits, not covering the cost of an expensive education.

You’ve graduated when your strategy is driven by depletion data and repeat velocity, not "gut feelings." You aren't scaling a guess; you’re scaling a proven pattern.

Investor capital is leverage for more, not permission for different. Investors are paying to accelerate the execution you’ve already mastered. 📈

Call it the “Great Bifurcation” or the corporate version of the K-shaped economy. Whatever the label, the shift is transformative. 🔄

The big players and major PE firms are still hunting for scale. Mark Anthony Group’s $325M acquisition of The Long Drink Company confirms that “convenience” remains the industry’s North Star. 🌟 While other giants fill white spaces—GALLO (Four Roses), Sazerac Company (Dirty Shirley), and Constellation Brands (Hop Wtr)—Paine Schwartz Partners is betting $25M on functional energy with Lucky Energy‘s Series B. ⚡️

But a tactical new model is emerging: the professionalized roll-up. 🛠️

No Sleep Beverage Inc. just launched its platform by acquiring Whiskey Del Bac, Nine Banded Whiskey, and UME Plum Liqueur. This isn’t just a collection of brands; it is a platform company formed to introduce efficiencies and scale “cultural touchstones” through the current “down” cycle. 🥃✨

As No Sleep CFO David No points out, “selling costs” are the primary barrier for startup success. By sharing infrastructure and professionalizing operations, an agile platform creates the leverage needed for profitability. This model allows “consumer-centric” brands—like the mesquite-smoked Whiskey Del Bac or the sessionable Ume Plum Liqueur—to focus on building emotional relationships while the platform handles the heavy lifting. 🤝🚀

The market is hotter than the headlines suggest, but the criteria have shifted. 🔥 Whether it’s giants buying mindshare or platforms buying potential, the goal is the same: leverage over luck. 🎯

Dave Infante just made his “Fingers Buzzwords of the Week” free.1 It’s an essential resource for thinking founders because it catalogs the exact phrases you should never use.

Corporate clichés like “empathy-first” or “rooted in counterculture, craftsmanship, and community” are more than just vapid; they are a crutch for brands devoid of actual connection. When a brand lacks a clear identity, it reaches for a buzzword.

Martin Amis famously noted that “all writing is a campaign against cliché.”2 Branding is no different. To stake a claim on consumer mindshare, you have to kill the corporate-speak.

Beverage brands must avoid the cliché for three reasons:

• Invisibility: Cliches turn your brand into background noise. In a crowded cooler, a word like “craftsmanship” is now a synonym for “nothing.”

• The Trust Gap: Over-polished jargon smells like a script. Authenticity is found in the specific and the idiosyncratic, not the generic.

• Friction: Because buzzwords are so empty, they demand the consumer do the work of translating your “values.” If they have to think that hard, they’ve already moved on.

Brand and their companies need to stop “operationalizing” and recognize that connecting means communicating like a human, preferably one that avoids clichés.

In 1982, William Goldman began writing Adventures in the Screen Trade at the “nadir of Hollywood despair.”1 At the time massive flops like Heaven’s Gate and Raise the Titanic! had film studios paralyzed.

As one worried executive told Goldman about audiences:

“We don’t know what they want. All we do know is that they don’t want what we’re giving them.”

Goldman’s legendary takeaway?

“Nobody knows anything.”

By the time his book hit shelves, the “immobilized” industry was in the middle of a historic boom. 1982 and 1983 didn’t just recover; they delivered E.T., Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 1984 brought us Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters. The panic was simply the prologue to a slew of blockbusters.2

The beverage industry is currently feeling that same “Heaven’s Gate” anxiety. Volumes are soft, and the old playbooks are missing the audience. But history shows that the hardest times force the most radical—and successful—reimaginings:

• Napa Valley’s Post-Prohibition Revival: A decimated industry spent decades in the wilderness before the 1976 Judgment of Paris proved that “the experts” had no idea what was coming.

• The Whiskey Slump: In the ’70s and ’80s, American Whiskey was “dead” stock. That despair forced the innovation of small-batch and single-barrel bourbon that redefined global spirits.

• New Zealand’s Pivot: Born from a surplus of uninspired grapes and a desperate need for a new identity, NZ Sauvignon Blanc turned a local crisis into a global category leader, sustaining a growth story that lasted more than 30 years.

When executives say, “The audience doesn’t want what we’re giving them,” it’s usually an invitation to stop giving them the same thing.

Volatility is not a death knell; it’s a filter. It clears out the “me-too” products and forces the reflection, reinvention, and innovation that easy money never could.

If you feel immobilized by the current market, remember Goldman. By the time the “experts” figure out what’s wrong, the next blockbuster era has already begun production. 🥃🎬

The goal for a brand is to be the path of least resistance. Consumers don’t buy because a product is “good to think about.” They buy because it’s easy to feel about.

A great brand demands zero cognitive load.

It “feels right” long before it “makes sense.” If a customer has to solve a puzzle to love you, you’ve already lost.

However, for sales reps, the path of least resistance—competing on low price or generic features—is a trap.

Selling the “easy way” minimizes your relationship to a mere transaction. It’s a race to the bottom where you are easily replaced by a portal or a cheaper competitor.

To build enduring value, a rep must provide the meaningful resistance: the insights, the troubleshooting, and the "caring" that a brand’s cognitive ease cannot provide.

Here’s my recommended reading for drink entrepreneurs:

• Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work by Uri Gneezy

• The Wines of California by Elaine Chukan Brown

• Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses by Nancy Harhut

• Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups by Ali Tamases

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

• Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer1

What are you reading this spring?

Expertise is often just a fancy word for caring 10% more than the person next to you. We mistake “genius” for what is actually a relentless obsession with the details everyone else ignores.1

The Anatomy of Caring

In our trade, we love certifications.2 To this end, consider this: knowledge is reading the textbook, while expertise is being able to point out a mistake in it. Note that what’s interesting about this dynamic is that you don’t actually need to have read the textbook to be able to find a mistake. In fact, if all you know is the textbook, you’ll never spot the errors.

Enter caring. This “shortcut” to expertise is comprised of genuine, unscalable interest. This means being:

• Endlessly curious about the topic/product/industry/question

• Critically skeptical about received wisdom

• Tirelessly empathetic with all stakeholders (employees, suppliers, customers, and consumers)

Examples from History

• The Wright Brothers: While the Smithsonian-funded elite chased raw horsepower, two bike mechanics obsessed over the “unsexy” physics of lateral control. They didn’t have a bigger budget; they just cared more about how a wing actually turns.

• Early Linux: It wasn’t built by a corporate mandate, but by developers who cared enough to troubleshoot kernels at 3:00 AM for free. Expertise was the byproduct of their stubbornness.

• James Dyson: 5,127 failed prototypes. That wasn’t that he possessed some “spark of genius.” It was his refusal to stop caring about airflow friction.

The Beverage Reality

Here’s what this looks like in action for the:

• Sales Rep: Caring enough to fix a broken draft line when the technician won’t show up. This entails first caring enough to know how to fix it, even if it isn’t part of your job description.

• Buyer: Caring enough to dig into a producer’s soil health instead of just checking a “90-point” box.

• Portfolio Manager: Caring about the long-term “fit” and health of the book, rather than just filling a spreadsheet with “me-too” SKUs.

• Start-up Founder: Obsessing over the “why” behind every single door, rather than just the “how many” on a depletion report.

If you want to be the expert, start by being the person who gives a damn, or at least much more than the competition. The rest will come with time.

Fear of AI negatively effecting distributors and beverage sales reps ignores a historical constant: technology doesn’t kill service; it forces evolution.1

Take these examples:

• 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: There are more today than in the '90s. While Expedia handles flights, people want experts for the "safari" level of complexity. 🧳

• 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀: As Michael Kitces noted on an recent episode of Animal Spirits, tech hasn't killed advising; it shifted the work. Advisors now focus on complex planning over simple stock-picking.2 🏦

• 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀: ATM adoption actually increased teller counts by making branches cheaper to run and shifting their focus to relationship management. 🏧

For beverage distributors, AI doesn't mean 200 accounts per dashboard. It means lower client loads and deeper service.

• 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Middle managers will be replaced by data strategists (or need to take on those duties) supporting the "boots on the ground." 🥾

• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘅: Automating "commodity" work like order entry frees reps for human-centric value: staff training, menu engineering, and brand building. 🏗️

To thrive, reps must make three strategic pivots:

• 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲": Use AI insights to tell profit stories, not just read reports. Explain exactly how a SKU solves a specific buyer problem. 📊

• 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁, 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹: Shift from "pushing cases" to "optimizing operations." Own the nuance that an order portal can’t touch. 💼

• 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘆: Predictive analytics will help plan for reorders, but AI can’t read a bar’s "vibe" or a buyer’s burnout. High-trust is an asset that won't be commoditized. 🥰

Founders constantly ask for 15 minutes of investors’ time; they want a quick call, some simple feedback, or the cliché “opportunity to pick your brain.” 👉🧠

Since investors already have capital, the thing they rightfully hoard is their time.

Remember: time spent on general advice to founders outside their portfolio is time taken away from supporting their current companies.

If you want to earn that time, your request must meet these three criteria:

• 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 < 𝟭𝟱 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲𝘀 (𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗳 < 𝟱): The ask must be surgical and efficient. Can you pitch your ask in less than two minutes? Brevity builds trust. ⏱️

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺: They’re not going to walk through a 27-page deck.

• 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁: If you haven’t researched their thesis, you won’t know if or how your ask will appeal. 📚

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺: Don’t show a lack of preparedness by asking a generic question anyone can answer like, “What do you think of our packaging?” Show that you value their expertise by addressing it in your ask.

• 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲: “Free” time is an investment in a future relationship. Making an ask too early is a surefire way to signal how not ready you are. 🤝

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺: In most cases, strategics aren’t having conversations with drink brands that have less than $3-5 million in an annual revenue. Start with angels.

Design your deck so that it can be viewed on a smart phone.

No one should need to zoom in to be convinced of you and your brand's brilliance. They should see it, clearly and simply.1

The beverage industry deserves better metrics. Of course, it gets only what it’s willing to settle for. Too often that simply amounts to a tally of PODs and a snapshot of velocity

The real “gold” is in behavioral data. This is the stuff that reveals insights into brand health and personnel performance.

Here are some of the metrics that matter in 2026 for sales reps, distributors, and suppliers.

𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘀

💰 TTM Revenue per Account: (Dollars). Measures revenue over the trailing 12 months (and whether that is up or down). Unlike a lifetime "lifespan" metric, this tells you who your current "whales" are—preventing you from over-servicing accounts that are yesterday’s heroes, but today’s zeros.

📱 Sales Call Conversion: (Ratio). Measures successful orders vs. total visits or points of contact. Tells you if you’re about to close an account or are just wasting time.

⏱️ Time-to-Reorder Per Account: (Days). Measures the gap between orders placed specifically through the rep. Tells you if you’re owning the relationship or if the account is bypassing you for the order board. This is an often overlooked performance metric.1

👻 "Ghost" Account Rate: (Percentage). Measures the percentage of "active" accounts that haven't placed an order in 60-90 days. This is an early warning system for churn. Many reps focus on new PODs while their "back door" is wide open. This metric predicts revenue decline before it hits the monthly P&L.

𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀

🍷 SKUs/Producer: (Ratio). Measures portfolio depth per partner. It reveals if you are over-extended with a single supplier. A high ratio (when married with a low velocity) warns that you are likely warehousing "dead stock" rather than moving a productive range.

🗓️ Invoice Cycle: (Days). Measures time between automatic or organic retailer orders. This brand health metric tells you if the liquid is actually pulling through the shelf without needing a rep to “push” it. Unlike “Turns” (warehouse flow), this measures retailer loyalty and shelf velocity.2

🏪 Average # Brands per Account: (Ratio). Measures portfolio breadth per door. Tells you how “sticky” your relationship is with that buyer. The more brands you have in one door, the harder you are to replace.

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀

💵 Promo Spend per New POD: (Dollars). Measures cost to gain one new independent door. Tells you if your incentives are actually ROI-positive.

🍾 Rep Activation Rate: (Percentage). Measures the number of distributor reps selling your brand over total reps. Tells you if the whole team is engaged or just a few specialists.

📦 Advertising & Promotion (A&P) per Case: (Dollars). Measures marketing spend vs. volume. Tells you if you are buying growth or building organic brand equity.

👟 Velocity per Door Type: (Ratio). This it measures the difference in sales speed between “High-Image/Influencer” accounts and “Standard” retail. It tells you if your marketing is actually creating Cultural Capital. If you have 250 PODs but your velocity is only high in discount liquor stores, you aren’t brand-building.

The data is only as powerful as we demand it is.

What metrics are you looking at this year?

Looking back at past recessions, the beverage industry’s resilience created a dangerous complacency. Because alcohol weathered the hard times (the dot-com bubble, the Great Recession, and the pandemic), we walked away with dangerous fallacies.

For decades, the “good times” of booze business masked faulty logic and “prayer-based” marketing. We thought we were making good choices when it was simply a matter of having the wind at our backs. This is what writer Annie Duke calls resulting, our tendency to judge the quality of a decision based solely on its outcome.

Among the false lessons we learned:

• Alcohol is recession-proof. 💪

• Double down on tradition, legacy, and heritage because that has always worked in the past. 🎩

• Celebrity clout is a permanent competitive moat. 🤩

The current market correction lays bare today’s realities:

• Consumer values change faster than production cycles. 🛒

• Brands must constantly evolve or face retail delisting. 🚨

• Data-driven strategy must replace “gut feeling” and hype. 📊

• The “liquid” and/or brand must solve a specific problem. 💡

• Velocity must justify shelf space; distribution without demand is just expensive warehousing. 🚚

• Wellness and non-alcoholic categories are now part of the pie, and increasingly important. 🥧

These changes needn’t represent a wrecking ball, but they do follow the same course as a pendulum. This one is likely far from reaching it’s extreme position.

A new flavor is not an innovation; it’s a line extension. It adds a choice, but it rarely solves a problem. 💡

In the beverage industry, true innovation transforms how we pack, pour, or purchase.1 It’s about solving friction. Some of the most impactful breakthroughs aren’t technically advanced—they are just overdue.

Consider the “delay” of obvious ideas in other domains:

• Wheels on Luggage 🧳 We landed on the moon (1969) before we thought to put wheels on a suitcase (1970). The modern version with the telescoping handle wasn’t invented until 1987!2

• Pantone 🎨 A system for matching color didn’t exist until the early 1960s, long after we had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA (1953) and developed the polio vaccine (1955).3

• The High Five 🙏 This universal gesture wasn’t even popularized until the late 1970s.4

Innovation can be a new distribution model, a functional packaging shift, or a data-sharing tool for retailers. It’s about noticing the “unobvious” solution hiding in plain sight.

If it doesn’t fix a headache for a bartender, a distributor, or a consumer, it isn’t an innovation—it’s just another SKU.

Stop looking for the next “Spicy Watermelon.” Start pursuing wheels on suitcases. 🚀

A few months ago, my college advisor, Stacy Pies, passed away. Stacy was an incredible inspiration; it was through her encouragement that I found the bravery to pursue a career in beverage some twenty plus years ago. She recognized that opportunity is rarely just a function of passion—it is a function of courage. She helped me find that within myself.

At Stacy’s remembrance, her colleague George Shulman remarked that she often taught that “metaphor has the power to turn things into signs.”

That is exactly what appealed to me when I first embarked on my professional trajectory. Stacy’s worldview informed me that wine wasn’t just alcohol; it was wonder. It was Homer’s sea and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “bottled sunshine.” It possessed the ability to intoxicate the imagination.

It’s easy to dismiss these ideals as romanticism at a time when the alcohol industry is reeling from changes it has yet to fully understand. It’s lazy to assign blame and say that too many drink brands exist in a vacuum, void of cultural context and personal connection.1

I firmly believe that most brands have stories, narratives built atop all manner of metaphor. The problem isn't a lack of story; it's the reliance on tired ones. Yesterday's metaphors cannot carry a brand into tomorrow’s culture. In speaking with many successful drink brand founders, the one thing today’s winners share is clear: they are telling new stories. They are drafting their own fates.

If a brand is to exist, it must possess three things:

1. A Specific Audience: A brand should not—and cannot—be for everyone. If you are speaking to everyone, you are whispering to no one.

2. An Intentional POV: A brand must be a risk-taker. Its perspective should inform everything from its visual aesthetic to the way it handles difficult conversations with employees and consumers.

3. Metaphorical Context: A brand must anchor itself in the world. It must move beyond the “thing” on a shelf to become a sign.

How does a beverage transcend commodity? How does it embrace meaning and harness metaphor?

There’s no one route, no singular way, but here are some provocations:

• For your beverage, place of origin is not the setting of its story, but the author. A setting is interchangeable; an author is unique. If your brand’s story could be told with a different zip code and remain the same, you haven't harnessed a metaphor.

• Consumption occasions must evolve into “ceremonies,” develop into traditions, or tap into pre-existing rituals.

• The pack must be beautiful or ugly, but never forgettable. Is it a trophy, a canteen, or a calling card?

  • A trophy is conspicuous, a totem to display. Examples include The Dalmore, Don Julio 1942, Clase Azul, and Ace of Spades (Armand de Brignac) Champagne.

  • A canteen is something that sits on the table. It is ergonomic, tactile, and unpretentious; it begs to be passed around and sipped from. Examples include La Gritona or the stubby, utilitarian bottle of Red Stripe.

  • A calling card is is a silent introduction. It is a signal of taste and tribal alignment, meant to be seen in your hand or on your bar to tell others exactly who you are without saying a word. Examples include the minimalist elegance of Grey Goose or the rebellious, counter-culture aesthetic of Liquid Death.

• Flaws are not failures; they are fingerprints.2 Standardized perfection is a commodity.

• The price is a gate, not just a number. Is your pricing a barrier to protect a community, or an invitation to join one? A brand must decide if its meaning is found in its exclusivity or its accessibility.

• Brilliance is born through iteration. If your brand isn’t evolving, it’s dying of irrelevance.

• Every detail matters. Every choice an opportunity to mean something to someone.

If you aren’t creating a metaphor people use to understand their lives, you aren’t brand building. People don’t understand their lives the way they did 10 or 20 years ago.

Meaning isn’t an accident, it’s the purposeful authorship of metaphors.

Stacy taught me that. Her life was a sign, richly textured, unafraid, filled with conviction and love. Gone too soon, she’ll be missed, for all she was and all she meant to those who knew her.

In beverage, is the fame game worth playing? Does it offer the shortcut to scale so many hope for? Or have we finally reached “peak celebrity” when it comes to drinks?

I crunched the numbers (read: aggregated a number of relevant reports) to separate the fact from the fiction.

The Big Picture 🖼️
While hundreds of famous faces are flooding the aisle, the data shows the market is likely oversaturated, growth is stalling, and most brands are failing to stick. 📉

By the Numbers 📊
Since 2018, the number of celebrity-founded liquor brands has exploded by 1,525%—from roughly 40 brands to over 650 today. (Hot Start)1

• Most are shrinking: Despite the hype, looking at the Top 50 celebrity brands, only 16 are actually growing in dollar sales. (3 Tier Beverages)

• Declining sales: Over the past 4 years, the total dollar volume for celebrity brands has declined, even as they’ve pushed into more stores (distribution is up, but sales are down). This signals a potential delisting “tipping point” at retail 🛒. (3 Tier Beverages)2

• The exit myth: Everyone is chasing George Clooney’s billion-dollar Casamigos payday, but only 7 brands have achieved meaningful exits above $100M since then. 💰 (Hot Start)

Why It Matters 💡
The basic “post on Instagram and get rich” strategy is dead. The data shows that celebrity brands are actually declining faster than their non-celebrity counterparts in key categories.

• Tequila trouble: While celebrity tequila brands saw massive growth in 2022 (40%), they are now declining at a much faster rate (-13.2%) than the overall tequila category (+7.7%). (3 Tier Beverages & IWSR)3

• The “moat” problem: Most of these brands lack a competitive advantage beyond a famous face. Without proprietary liquid or unique IP, they are just “commodity juice in a fancy bottle” fighting for the same 50 shelf spots.

The Silver Lining 🩶
Not every category is crashing:

• Non-Alc is booming: Celebrity non-alcoholic brands are surging, with sales up 113.3% compared to a year ago. Stars like Tom Holland (Bero) and Katy Perry (De Soi) are pivoting to “sober curious” consumers. Here is where celebrities have the opportunity to solve unique problems rather than just copying a formula. (3 Tier Beverages)

• Whiskey & Rum: In 2023, celebrity whiskies grew 8% (vs 2% for the category) and rums grew 11% (vs -4% for the category), showing there are still pockets of opportunity for the right product. (IWSR)

The Bottom Line 🏁
Fame can get you on the shelf, but it can’t keep you there. As retailers look at the declining sales data, expect a massive “shakeout” where underperforming star-studded bottles are cleared for brands with actual consumer loyalty.

This doesn’t mean we won’t keep seeing a deluge of new entrants, just fewer clear cut winners.

Happy Holidays!

There won’t be any new posts this week, but Ah So Insights will return on Friday, January 2nd.

Mint Mobile sends me a holiday card. Spotify “gifts” me my own listening data.1 Both are nearly free, yet they build more loyalty than a generic $50 gift basket ever could.

For drinks brands, you don’t need a huge budget to thank the bars, restaurants, and retailers that move your liquid. You just need to be personal.

Here are four ways to give a “Wrapped-style” thank you for under $3:

• 📊 The Performance Snapshot: Send a “Year in Review” card. “You poured 4,200 of our Spicy Margaritas this year—that’s 12 miles of lime garnishes. We couldn’t do it without you.” Data is a gift.

• 🤳 The Social Shoutout: (Where legally permissible) dedicate a high-quality post or “Story Highlight” to their venue. Promoting their business to your followers is a high-value, zero-cost gift.

• 🎓 The “Education Hour”: Gift 15 or 30 minutes of your time for a pre-shift staff training. Empowering servers with 3 “quick-sell” facts helps them earn better tips and makes the manager’s life easier.

• ✉️ The Founder’s Note: A handwritten card from the founder to the bar manager, referencing a specific win they had this year, costs $1 or 2. Have 100s or 1000s of clients? Use a company like Handwrytten to scale the process.

The Rule: If your logo is bigger than their name, it’s an ad. If their name is the hero, it’s a gift.

In the drinks industry, the difference between the best and the rest is one’s command of data. Yes, you’ve got to track everything, but you also have to understand what it means and how to use it.

To help you sharpen your analytical edge and avoid the common statistical pitfalls, here’s my:

📖 Required Reading for Drinks Professionals Who Want to Understand Statistics and Data Analytics 📊

How to Lie With Statistics

A classic for a reason. This short book is your essential guide to not being fooled by the numbers—whether they are from a competitor, a Nielsen report, or your own internal team.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: You’re constantly presented with data (market reports, consumer surveys, sales pitches). This book teaches you to spot the hidden biases, flawed averages, and manipulated graphs that can sink your strategy.

𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮: All data is vulnerable to misrepresentation. Learn the tricks so you can’t be tricked.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁:

• ✍️ Written by Darrell Huff in 1954, yet startlingly relevant today.

• 🔍 Breaks down 10 common statistical fallacies, from the “Gee-Whiz Graph” to the “Semi-Attached Figure.”

• Presents a foundational skepticism required for all data-driven decisions.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:

🍸 Imagine a competitor claims their “average” cocktail tastes better. This book warns you about the “mean” vs. “median” trap. If ten people rate a drink (0-10), and one person rates it a 10 (the rest rate it a 5), the mean is higher than the median. In this case, averages can obscure the reality that most consumers are indifferent.

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

If the thought of statistical terminology makes your eyes glaze over, this book is the antidote. It makes fundamental concepts like regression, correlation, and probability genuinely entertaining and clear.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: How do you know if that $50k marketing campaign caused the sales spike, or if it was just a coincidence (correlation vs. causation)? This resource builds your vocabulary and conceptual understanding so you can confidently debate the efficacy of your operational and marketing spending.

𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮: Statistics are the language of life’s (and business’s) biggest questions, and you can become fluent without being a math wiz.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁:

• ✍️ Written by economist Charles Wheelan.

• 💡 Uses entertaining, real-world examples to explain complex ideas.

• Demystifies everything from the Central Limit Theorem to the difference between a standard deviation and a variance.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:

✈️ The book uses the story of “Selection Bias” in World War II planes when engineers were deciding where to put the armor.

• The Flawed Logic: Engineers wanted to reinforce the areas of returning planes with the most bullet holes.

• The Correct Conclusion: Reinforce the areas with no bullet holes. Why? Because the planes that got shot there didn’t make it back.

HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers

This collection of Harvard Business Review articles focuses less on the how of crunching numbers and more on the so what for executive decision-making.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: This book hones the critical skill of asking the right questions of your data and translating complex analyses into actionable business strategies for distribution, inventory, and marketing.

𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮: Data is only as valuable as its ability to drive profitable decisions.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁:

• ✍️ A curated collection from the world’s leading business thinkers.

• 🛠️ Focuses on closing the gap between the analytics department (or contractor) and the C-suite.

• Includes frameworks for managing the shift to a data-first culture, which is crucial as your team grows.

𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗺: “Figures lie and liars figure.” In other words, seek the truth over the cherry-picked data that supports your thesis.

🔮 We’re already seeing a lot of predictions for next year.1

• Will it be the year Sotol finally breaks through?

• Will 2026 finally be the “year of rum?”

• Will Calvados have its moment?

There’s a low likelihood that 2026 will be “The Year of X.” 🗓️

That’s just the hard math. The probability isn’t great.

But there is a much higher chance that at some undetermined point in the future, the category you are betting on will finally have its time.

This demands a shift from betting on “if” to preparing for “when.”

Design your business accordingly: prioritize sustainable growth and operational excellence over chasing a single year’s hype cycle.

Slow and steady wins the race when you’re building brand and a category for the long haul. 🐢>🐇