In this episode, we talk with Tom Baker, co-founder of Mr Black, America’s best-selling premium coffee liqueur. Tom shares the serendipitous beginnings of his company, the divine intervention of the "coffee gods" that led him to his co-founder, and how Mr Black carved an unexpected niche in the spirits industry. We track the brand's rise from a small Australian startup to a multi-million dollar company, diving into the challenges Tom faced in the early days, launching a coffee liqueur as craft s...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 45
Today we’re diving into a topic that’s not just about sipping whiskey but about legacy, innovation, and breaking barriers in the beverage industry. We’re thrilled to welcome Fawn Weaver, founder and CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. Fawn Weaver is no ordinary founder. She’s a trailblazer who’s not only resurrecting the legacy of Nearest Green, the first known African-American master distiller, but she’s also shaking up the whiskey world in a big way. Under her leadership, Uncle Nearest has b...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 41
In this episode, we're joined by Brandon Joldersma, CEO of Surely and Arlow, two exciting players in the non-alcoholic and low-alcohol wine space. Brandon brings a wealth of experience from the beverage industry, having worked in restaurants, hard cider, and whiskey before taking the reins at Surely. We discuss Surely's origin story, its growth strategies, and its transition from direct-to-consumer to national retail on the path to racking up $20 million in sales over the past three years. Then ...
Oct 16, 2024•49 min
Welcome to the Business of Drinks podcast. Today we're joined by Erik Segelbaum, founding partner of SWIG Partners, to discuss the complex world of beverage alcohol distribution in the United States. Erik brings over 20 years of industry experience, having worked his way up from chef to sommelier overseeing $100 million in annual beverage sales across 42 restaurants. Now, as a leading beverage consultant and co-founder of SWIG Partners, he helps brands navigate the challenging three-tier distrib...
Oct 02, 2024•57 min
Looking to raise funds? You’re in luck. Today we’re talking with Kat Weaver, co-founder of Power To Pitch. She’s a top pitching coach who’s helped hundreds of startups raise capital. Kat was able to scale and sell her first company she started out of her college dorm room. After winning 22 of 23 pitches she entered, she founded Power To Pitch to help founders build a winning pitch, deck, and fundraising strategy to help them get funded faster. To date, Power To Pitch has helped founders raise ov...
Sep 18, 2024•52 min•Ep. 35
Today, we’re talking with Justin Fenchel, a co-founder and the CEO of BeatBox Beverages. For those unfamiliar with the brand, it’s an 11% ABV, wine-based RTD party punch in flavors like Blue Razzberry, Pink Lemonade, and Fruit Punch. Sound like fun? Well, fun — and fun flavors — are its main selling points, and this brand is on fire, especially with Millennial and Gen Z audiences. BeatBox did more than $100 Million in sales last year, and is on track to double that again this year. The brand fir...
Sep 04, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 37
Today we’re talking with Issamu Kamide, co-founder of the LA-based Wonderwerk House of Fermentation. What the heck is that, you might ask? "We are primarily a flavor-forward, progressive wine company," Issamu explains. Wonderwerk is innovating with new-to-world wine products by focusing on flavor and occasion. In doing so, they’re making wine more accessible and appealing to younger consumers, who are less concerned with traditional markers like appellation, vintage, and varietal. In fact, most ...
Aug 21, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 36
Today we’ve got a true innovator in the house. We’re talking with Britt West, executive vice president and general manager of Spirit of Gallo. If you’re not familiar with Gallo’s spirits division, it has quietly become one of the most formidable portfolios in bev alc. Over the past 6 years, Britt led the division up the ranks from the No. 8 spirits supplier by volume to No. 3. And that’s largely due to its innovation program, with products like High Noon. As many listeners will know, High Noon i...
Aug 07, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 35
Ready for a meteoric growth story?! Today we talk with Clement Pappas, co-founder and CEO of Stateside Brands, the maker of Surfside Iced Tea + Vodka, and Stateside Vodka and Stateside Vodka Sodas. For listeners who are not on the East Coast, this brand is suddenly everywhere. Last year, the Surfside line alone grew by 1 million cases to 1.3 million cases. And they’ve already surpassed that amount this year — by mid summer! In fact, year-to-date Surfside is the No. 1 fastest-growing spirits RTD ...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 34
Is your beverage brand in fundraising mode? If so, this is the episode for you! We talk with Giuseppe Infusino, a partner and the chief investment officer at InvestBev, a private equity firm that deploys growth capital to drinks brands. He leads InvestBev’s investment sourcing, diligence, and structuring processes, and partners with portfolio companies to increase their likelihood of success. In this masterclass, Giuseppe shares his proprietary, 4-part framework for fundraising success — Plan, P...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 33
Today we’re talking with Allison Luvera, co-founder and CEO of Juliet, a wine company that’s reshaping the narrative around boxed wine. Allison has a really interesting background having worked in fashion advertising for Vogue and InStyle magazines, then later as director of Pernod Ricard’s luxury marketing division, as brand marketing lead for Perrier-Jouet Champagne, Martell Cognac, Tequila Avion, Absolut Elyx, The Glenlivet, and Chivas. Juliet is an interesting product because it forged new t...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 32
Some exciting news to share! The Business of Drinks podcast is growing by leaps and bounds, and with it — some new voices are coming onto the airwaves. First up, Scott Rosenbaum is joining as the show’s new co-host. If you’re not yet acquainted with Scott, he’s a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Currently, he is the North America search manager at Distill Ventures, the world’s first drinks industry accelerator. He was formerly vice president at T. E...
Jun 20, 2024•56 min•Ep. 31
Today, we’re talking shop! That is, how to work with mass-market retailers. For those who are new to the industry, mass retail refers to big-box stores like Target, Costco, and Walmart as well as supermarket chains like Safeway and Kroger. And what most people don’t realize is that these types of stores have their own ways of doing business, and even their own terminology (do you know what a cut-in is? Or a reset?). So it’s important to get up to speed before trying to pitch your product into th...
Jun 12, 2024•45 min•Ep. 27
Today’s episode is a case study on how a 140-year old winery was able to quickly shift its consumer base from Boomers to Millennials. Aly Wente, a 5th generation vintner and Wente’s vice president of marketing and customer experience, shares key learnings and insights relevant to all brands looking to engage younger consumers. For those of you unfamiliar with Wente Vineyards, it was founded in 1883, and is located in Livermore Valley, east of San Francisco. Until recently, the brand had a consum...
May 29, 2024•53 min
WYNK is a cannabis drinks brand with a fascinating backstory. WYNK was founded in 2021 by Casey Parzych, Angus Rittenburg, and Shawn Sheehan, three friends (a beverage distributor, mechanical engineer, and energy trader) looking for a new opportunity in the cannabis beverage market. Their challenge: find a way to dose the seltzer with THC legally, as current laws for dispensary distribution require dosing in the states where the drinks will be sold. Selling in Massachusetts? Dose in Massachusett...
May 15, 2024•43 min•Ep. 26
In this episode, we talk about one woman’s quest to bring non-alcoholic adult beverages to the masses. Our guest is Emily Heintz, founder of Sèchey. Sèchey is a retailer focused on alcohol-free and functional drinks — and also low dose THC products – that launched in 2021. Sèchey has a bricks-and-mortar shop in Charleston, South Carolina, an ecommerce platform that ships nationwide, and a curated collection of products within Target stores nationwide. Emily has a fascinating story. After the ret...
May 01, 2024•53 min•Ep. 27
Today we’re talking about digital-first distribution solutions. Erica hops on with Cheryl Durzy, founder and CEO of LibDib, to discuss the on-demand distribution platform. The name is short for Liberation Distribution, and that should give you a sense of Cheryl’s approach. Cheryl launched LibDib in 2016 out of her own frustration as a supplier navigating the byzantine distribution landscape. LibDib is now a distribution solution for some 1,200 wine, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks brands in 15...
Apr 17, 2024•42 min•Ep. 22
At the Business of Drinks, we’ve been talking with many founders lately about their struggles finding funding. So if you’re looking for investment — or just want to know more about how VC investors think — this episode is for you! We talk with Mike Warren, founder and managing partner of Alethia Venture Partners. It’s a $50 million fund dedicated to investing in alcohol and non-alcohol drinks brands in their Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds, with investments ranging from $250,000 to $5 millio...
Apr 16, 2024•31 min•Ep. 25
JW Wiseman of Curious Elixirs is a bonafide audience whisperer. After working as an early marketing hire at the media startup Thrillist, he went on to found a growth marketing firm. That experience unlocked the key audience expansion strategies he’s employed at his cult-y non-alcoholic RTD brand, Curious Elixirs. This is a brand you won’t find on store shelves. It’s nearly all DTC subscriptions, with a bit of prestige on-premise placements (like the Blue Note jazz club in NYC). Curious Elixirs w...
Apr 16, 2024•43 min•Ep. 24
Cannabis drinks are showing substantial growth, and even displacing alcohol among younger consumers. I got the scoop on how this emerging category is shaping up — and the legalities around THC-infused drinks — from Diana Eberlein, president of the Cannabis Beverage Association (CBA), a non-profit trade association established to represent and advocate on behalf of THC and CBD beverage brands. She’s also an expert in THC emulsification, as the VP of Marketing & Business Development at SōRSE T...
Apr 16, 2024•48 min•Ep. 23
Are cannabis drinks on your radar? If not, they probably should be. Right now, THC-infused beverages are just a sliver of the $15.8 billion cannabis category, but the segment has grown more than 40% since 2021, and keeps expanding. As the THC drinks segment grows, those dollars are going to be pulling from other categories — namely alcohol. To learn more about this segment, I decided to bring on one of the most influential innovators in the cannabis drinks space, Jake Bullock. He’s co-founder an...
Apr 16, 2024•44 min•Ep. 22
More than 70% of all wine produced in the world is what’s known as bulk wine, which means it’s shipped to its destination in Flexitanks. In this revealing episode, we speak to Florian Ceschi, the European Director of Ciatti, the world’s biggest bulk wine broker. He’s the man who knows what wine is being produced in the world, where it’s being shipped, who’s buying it — and what they’re doing with it. This episode will take you right into the engine room of the global wine business, exploring how...
Apr 16, 2024•51 min
When Erica and Felicity walked past the Giesen stand at a 2023 wine fair, they knew they had to stop and find out why the guy pouring wine seemed so happy, when everyone else around him was gloomy about wine’s downturn. It turned out that Kyle Skene, the Group General Manager of New Zealand’s Giesen Group, has a lot to be optimistic about. When they found out why, they immediately invited him on the podcast. Giesen is a major player in New Zealand wine, and the company has a culture of creativit...
Apr 16, 2024•48 min
Back in 2016, Ben Witte was stressed. He knew that he needed to calm down, and after the election upended the country, he figured everyone else needed to calm down too. That’s when he had his big insight: There were drinks for stimulation, like Red Bull, or drinks for intoxication, like cocktails, but there was nothing for relaxation. And so Recess, the drinks brand for people who want to slow down and take a break, was born. In this episode of Business of Drinks, he explains to hosts Erica Duec...
Apr 16, 2024•45 min
When beverage startups are looking for advice before they launch their brands, Bryan Roth is the man they turn to. Bryan is a product and market analyst for Feel Goods Company and managing editor, news editor, and podcast host for its publication, Good Beer Hunting. Bryan has covered the beer industry as a reporter and analyst for more than a decade, and leverages that knowledge to help drinks brands develop innovative products. And, crucially for this conversation, he knows what’s trending in t...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 9
Today’s guest is Shehryar Hussain, co-founder and CEO at AccelPay. If you’re unfamiliar with AccelPay, it’s an ecommerce platform specifically built for bev-alc brands. It handles everything from payments to fulfillment and customer support — so any brand can sell on their own website while being 3-tier compliant. Their goal is to make it easy to sell regulated products online, and enable new digital experiences for consumers. But before we get too far, a declaration of conflict of interest. Acc...
Apr 16, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 8
When Sarah Hoffman had the idea to put premium wine into cans, she had no idea how revolutionary it was. But soon, she and her co-founders were convincing winemakers to trust them with their wines — and were kickstarting an entirely new category with their company, Maker Wine. In this episode of Business of Drinks, Sarah tells us how her background in digital marketing led her to launch the company, which makes high-quality, affordable wine available to everyone. Sarah explains how she learned t...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Remember the lockdowns? It was a time when too many people spent their time drinking too much. But Nick Bodkins’ wife was pregnant, so he gave up alcohol in solidarity. And, immediately, he confronted a problem that needed to be solved — non-alcoholic beverage options for adults who want something more sophisticated than a soda to drink. So he took the leap and created Boisson, a chain of non-alc stores with a DtC arm — and he’s secured more than $34 million in funding, including a recent $5 mil...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Bill Shufelt, co-founder of Athletic Brewing, hasn’t just built a successful drinks company — he’s revolutionized the entire American market for non-alcoholic beer. And he’s done it in just six years. Bill gave up a comfortable life in finance because he knew that if he was interested in drinking non-alcoholic beer, other people would be too. But it was an uphill battle, because non-alc beer has been a stigmatized product in the U.S. almost since Prohibition. He was turned down by almost every b...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Heidi Dillon is a mover and shaker who’s innovated in the functional foods sector, launched energy bars, and is now coming for the drinks sector — alc and non-alc alike. She’s the managing director of Distill Ventures, a company that supports founders and helps grow drinks businesses — and she was tapped to come in and turbo-charge the low- and no-alcohol landscape. In this episode, she discusses why generic is out, and storytelling around ingredients and a sense of place and authenticity is in,...
Apr 16, 2024•54 min
