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Liminal beers, hoppy hops, green monsters

We’ve written about this before, but are drinks getting to be a bit much? There’s something joyful about the simplicity of just having a beer, or just having a soda.

Iin contrast to this, we’re noticing a lot of early stage bev brands bundling their liquids with extras. For example: ARMRA, a new colostrum soda.

Of course it’s not just the newbies. Legacy brands are also pushing outside of their lane, with Heineken launching Outdoor Brewing – an alc-free beer with electrolytes and Vitamin C. Its tag line is ‘crafted for after’, which feels quite pleasing. However it still seems to float in a strange, liminal space. Are they replacing energy drinks? Sports drinks? Are they for the pub? The bar? The hike? Your front room?

It’s a question we’ve asked time and again: what occasion do these drinks belong to? Do we want to mix our supplements and our drinks? Are we blurring enjoyment and wellness? Is this a good thing? And do these brands have the ability to truly go long-term, once we’re past the horizon of the buzzy trend moment?

Speaking of trends… we know and love hops for their alchemical role in beer, but what about elsewhere? There’s signs that hoppy non-beer drinks are on the move, with HPWTR being acquired by Constellation Brands and Fabric launching their zero non-alc hop water. Of course there’s also Tamworth Garden White Mountain Gin - made with three kinds of hops.

Finally, a message for brands: find your own theme. If you see another, distinctive brand that’s doing very well, it’s natural to feel the stirrings of envy.

You, as a founder or marketer or CEO wouldn’t be human if you didn’t look at another business and think: yes, they’re onto something, why didn’t I think of that? But the reason that brand is doing well is because it’s doing its own thing. The world already has one BuzzBallz and it doesn’t need any more (we’re looking at you, Global Brands, for buying Quadz and you, Boston Beer Co with your Lytt electric coolers).

WE BRING YOU BEER NEWS

-Molson Coors is bringing back value beer brand Keystone Ice - which was discontinued in 2021. Reports suggest it’s a move to broaden its offering.

-Alc-free beer brand Days has been acquired by Sunrise Beverages – a house of fellow beer brands including Efes and Gipsy Hill. Days founder Mike Gammell says they’d always planned to find a partner to help the business scale, and that this collab should bring the brand to “more consumers, more occasions and more places than ever before”.

-ABInbev CEO Michel Doukeris is all smiles on CNBC, talking about rising beer sales and lightly hinting that they might be considering making a protein beer.

-In the NA beer space, Crazy Mountain co-founder Rande Gerber thinks he’s cracked the secret to building a zero-beer company: great distribution, great liquid, and a willingness to tap into people’s rituals without lecturing them.

Speaking of celebrity-founded beer brands…. Bero’s VP of Marketing says that celebrity doesn’t guarantee success, in an interview going into some of her thought’s behind Bero’s brand-building.

OPINIONS PLEASE

-Why is the spirits industry so obsessed with the short term? Why aren’t more marketers thinking about building their brand over the next 30 years, rather than the next three? Zak Oganian, CEO of Origen X, shares thoughts with The Spirits Business.

A HAND FOR THE LEGACY BRANDS

-Absolut’s Tabasco edition really got people excited. The global Vice President of Marketing for Absolut, Malibu and Kahlua (what a job) says they’re pinning their hopes on tabasco vodka for the next three years, and adds that most vodka brands aren’t exciting enough (we paraphrase).

Our take: coming up on The New Rules, we speak with a true legacy vodka brand who also believes the category runs the risk of fading into nothingness.

-The world’s best tequila? Herradura Reposado, according to the 2026 London Spirits Competition. Forbes has more on the story, but it’s worth pointing out that this tequila was launched back in the 70s and was the world’s first commercially available reposado.

-Sazerac continues to snap up brands. The latest? Canned cocktail brand SIPMARGS.

-Say goodbye and goodnight to Schlitz. Its last batch was just brewed.

EVER-SHRINKING BOOZE

-Go into any hip liquor store or bottle shop and you’ll spot them: tiny little tins of cocktails that are pocket-sized but rocket-fuelled. So it makes sense that Diageo is getting in on it, with their own mini RTDs. Can’t help but wish they’d made the packaging a little more exciting.

-Diageo hs also released an RTD version of its Ritual Zero Proof.

Our take: Nice, but why does the packaging look so… pharmaceutical?

-Some brands do tins. ARKAY is doing Tetrapaks.

ALCOHOL FREE, BUT HAPPY

-Margarita-lovers rejoice: Giffard NA triple sec is coming to the UK. Note the part where they talk about how this is made using a traditional shrub technique. There’s growing new appreciation for trad methods of working with bitter flavors and fermentation.

BRANDS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

-Heineken has invented ‘The Clinker’ - a band that goes around your beer can, and lets fellow drinkers know whether you have shared interests.

Our take: One the one hand, this feels fun and novel. On the other, weirdly complicated?

-Who wouldn’t want a gigantic bottle of tequila. Sazerac’s ‘Extra Grande’ edition of Tromba is fun and novel AND, allegedly, greener.

-Angostura now does sugar syrups, and they sound DELICIOUS.

-Brewdog founder James Watt is back, and hes…. launching another beer brand? It’s called Second Best.

STORIES FROM THE REAL WORLD

-Forget the marketing and the branding. What are people actually drinking? Substacker Kate Daykin asked 61 people what their go-to drink is at a fancy bar, and at a dive bar - and the answers are interesting.

-Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Name a trend and it shall manifest. It happened for Quiet Quitting. The Great Resignation. Girl Dinner. Now it seems to be happening for the ‘Boy Martini’.

-Did you know, the first nude poster printed in Japan, in 1922, was actually a Suntory advert for its Akadama Port Wine? Town & Country has a nice piece about the storied history of the brand.

-If you enjoyed reading about Suntory, how about making a coffee and reading about another successful bev brand, but one at a very different stage? Vinepair has the story behind St Agrestis, which sold its Phony Negroni to The Wine Group earlier this year.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency

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In the crowded landscape of modern tequila, where premiumization has shifted the focus from hype to producer-led craftsmanship, building something that truly stands out is a feat. So many brands start with a formula and look for a story. Sofía Paloma Juárez did the opposite.

She spent nine years building CASA J. It is a project rooted in heritage, meticulous R&D, and the simple desire to bottle a memory. It’s also beautiful.

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The road to tequila

The story of CASA J begins in Jalisco, Mexico. “I wanted to bottle a memory,” says Juárez, who nine years ago reconnected with her dad, a native of the region.

“That memory was driving over the rolling hills of Jalisco for the first time with my father... it was a sweetness in the air that I had never smelt in my life with this fiery, ashy, smoky natural earth and wood.”

Coming from a high-level background in luxury brand building, including stints at Veuve Clicquot and Belvedere, Juárez understood that a great story is not enough. You need the liquid to back it up. She spent years visiting distilleries and building relationships with maestros tequileros before ever going to market.

Something that struck me about this interview with Sofia is just how clearly she has articulated her story. Its tight. I mean, really tight.

The ensemble innovation: old world meets new

While the tequila industry is flooded, CASA J is carving out a niche as an ensemble – a term traditionally used in the world of mezcal to refer to different agave species being distilled together.

CASA J uses an ensemble of traditional and ancestral production techniques. This is a rare technical achievement in the tequila space, utilizing a blend of 93% traditional production and 7% ancestral methods.

• The ancestral soul: The 7% ancestral portion is the brand’s soul, cooked in stone and adobe ovens over wood fire, hand-macerated in hollowed tree trunks, and distilled in copper stills over direct flame.

• The traditional foundation: The 93% traditional portion provides balance, using stone brick ovens, roller mill maceration, and stainless steel distillation with copper coils.

“It’s a marriage of both old world and new world,” Juárez explains. “We wanted to bridge the old, be inspired by the historic, but be a contemporary brand that would be lasting and future-proof.”

A vessel with purpose

Juárez knew that in a crowded spirits market, the bottle needed to be as intentional as the liquid. She wanted a design that bridged historic Mexican architecture with a contemporary, contemporary aesthetic.

To realize this, she partnered with John Gilsenan of IWANT Design, whose work for other female-helmed brands like Wölfer Estate Vineyards and H&H Talea Beer had already earned her admiration.

The resulting ceramic vessel reflects a deeper mission: empowering Mexican artisans. Juárez spent years identifying a ceramic factory in Pachuca, Hidalgo, that shared her values, specifically one that empowers working mothers with flexible schedules and provides full-time roles for individuals with disabilities.

Every bottle is handcrafted by these artisans using natural raw materials, turning the packaging into a tangible commitment to the community behind the brand.

The case for ultra-premium

CASA J enters the market at an SRP of $129, a price point that positions it firmly in the luxury category. In an era where consumers are trading up for products with authentic connections to heritage and additive-free status, Juárez is betting on the intelligent, educated consumer.

Currently, the brand is available throughout New York State and via their website, where they ship to over 40 US states. Despite being in the early stages of distribution, the brand has already caught the attention of experts. Without paying for a single placement, CASA J has secured incredible organic press, including a 92-point score from the Tequila Report and recognition from Agave Matchmaker and Taste Tequila as one of the best spirits of 2026.

“Consumers are now becoming highly intelligent on this spirit,” she says. “It is not something that brands should hide, their production method, but rather be very frank to the consumer about.”

By focusing on the “additive-free” movement and the superior quality of her ensemble production, Juárez is justifying that premium price not through marketing gloss, but through transparency and integrity.

Her thesis is that when you have a story that is authentic paired with a high-quality product, aligned consumers will gravitate towards it.

What’s working?

CASA J just launched. Already, sales are split 50/50 between on-premise and retail, with a strong focus on face-to-face connection. Juárez is a regular at her own tastings, meeting the skeptics who have been “ruined by tequila” in their past and proving that the spirit can be a refined, high-integrity experience.

For the next five years, the focus is simple: keep the integrity high, continue crafting with the maestros, and collaborate with the chefs and mixologists who are shaping the future of the category.

There’s a patience in Sofia’s approach I found incredibly refreshing. With trends constantly shifting, and the spirits market in serious flux, I see a lot of “rush to market” and “rush to prove” and “rush rush rush” all around. Sofia isn’t bending to that. She’s taking her time to do it right.

In New Rules tradition we asked:

What’s the brutal truth you’ve learned about building a bev/alc brand?

“It is not as simple as doing business here in the United States for many reasons. I had many agreements that fell through and distilleries that changed their process. You have to be incredibly patient. But if you have that high level of integrity and you really take the time to build authentic relationships, it pays off.”

Is there anything you would do differently or tell other founders to do differently?

“I would tell them to trust the process of discovery. I spent nine years doing R&D and community building. It might have felt like a long time, but it ensured that when we launched in early 2026, we were not just another brand. We were a product with a soul.”

THE NEW RULE

Innovation is not always about creating something brand new. Sometimes, it’s about having the patience to honor an old-world tradition, finding the right partners who share your values, and refusing to cut corners just to get to market faster.

If alcohol has to stand up to any major competitor in the coming years, it’s going to be THC. It’s increasingly legalized around the world (although the looming federal ban in the USA is going to be interesting), it’s increasingly socially accepted, and brands are absolutely ready to tap into that.

Field Trip is one of those. They describe themselves as “a new American spirit”, delivering 3mg of THC per pour, and with messaging that emphasizes gentle, steady connection. Or, as they put it, “feeling good, not gone”.

“We were seeking a drink that offered a little lift in social situations, enhanced our creative thinking, and generally elevated our everyday moments without any of the negative effects of alcohol,” the brand’s Head of Social Content Sam Livingston tells us. “The 3mg dosage keeps things light and manageable, and we liked the idea of a citrus-y, botanical flavor that took the place of gin or tequila in cocktails”.

Field Trip is new. Really new.

We spoke with Sam just months after Field Trip was set up, so we really caught them in the earliest stages of building the business.

However, although the brand itself is newborn it’s benefited from a lot of different experience feeding into it. The team comes from across creative fields – art direction, product development, photo, video, social media, web development – and all of those skills are shaping Field Trip, including its admirably minimal branding.

With a product like this, there are some obvious design directions they could have gone in, and it’s notable that they haven’t. Sam says that’s a reaction to other THC brands that “try to do too much”, either by adopting obnoxious graphics, going kitsch, or hiding behind clinical visuals.

“We think restraint is a form of respect for the consumer that says, ‘we trust you to get it’,” she explains. “When you strip a product down to only what’s essential, what remains has to be true.

“We wanted Field Trip to feel dignified enough to be quiet. The shape, the weight, the way it sits on a table or bar cart: all of that is doing the work. If those things are right, you don’t need to shout.”

Explanation is part of the challenge

It’s not just about avoiding stereotypes, it’s also a messaging job. People know what alcohol is and what it does, but for many, THC is a different beast. There’s hesitation, there’s lack of understanding, and those are feelings Field Trip is at pains to combat.

Sam says they’re doing this with repetitive, and gently insistent language that’s used time and time again to reassure people that Field Trip is a low-dose option that offers a gentle, controllable high. It’s also interesting to note that the brand is being centred around socialising and being creative.

“It allows you to maintain an enjoyable experience socially,” says Sam, “to work on creative projects at home, lounge at the park, and so on, without, say, the effects of an intense edible or several cocktails or glasses of wine.

“That also hopefully comes across in our imagery: we’re sharing craft drink and dessert recipes, and any portraits we post consist of people peacefully spending time together or working on something creative.”

How the brand grows

Field Trip’s launch and growth strategy is, for now, focused on paid and organic social content that aims to show what’s possible via recipes for citrusy drinks, gummies and desserts that people can make at home. Their website and Insta has directions for classic cocktails like Negronis and Palomas as well as Gimlet jello shots.

Events are also an important part of the strategy. Sam says their focus is on popping up in Los Angeles and New York and giving people firsthand experience of Field Trip. Watching them encounter the brand has also given them invaluable product insight. They’d always intended it to be an alcohol replacement – a stand-in for gin or tequila in a cocktail – but Sam says they’ve realised people are equally happy to drink it on its own, over ice.

And although this brand is still fresh, they’ve already learned plenty about building in this space. We asked Sam to reflect on these early days:

What’s the brutal truth you’ve learned about building a bev/alc brand?

“Regulations are constantly changing, so we’ve been working on alternate products in the event that we’re unable to sell our current product going forward. We’re incredibly excited about what we’ve got on the way, but it takes a lot of effort and experimentation to stay a few steps ahead in this specific industry.”

Is there anything you’d do differently, or tell other founders to do differently?

“We think of FIeld Trip as a point of view: how people deserve to feel in their everyday lives. The best companies know that when building a brand, what you’re really creating is a relationship with the consumer. The object (or liquid, in our case) is just the contact point. Build the brand like it’s the product – not a label on the product, not a story wrapped around the product, but the product itself. When a brand is working well, it’s not a visual identity, it’s a consistent point of view that will allow people to trust wherever you take them next.”

THE NEW RULE

Branding can be loud and exuberant, but it doesn’t have to be. Understanding what you want to say and communicating it quietly, confidently and consistently is a totally valid way to connect with people – especially if you’re building in a space that’s less familiar.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency. Need design support for your brand? Reach out! hi@nihilo.agency

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“We don’t want you to drink this in a leather chair. We don’t want you to drink this in a saloon exclusively. Take it and do whatever you want with it. Pour it over ice cream. It’s meant to be fun and meant to be empowering.” ~Charlie Rodman

“The bourbon aisle is a sea of brown liquid, sepia labels, and stories of dead white guys who may have nothing to do with the product on the shelf.” ~Charlie Rodman

For some, this is very appealing. For others, it is not.

In many ways, the bourbon category has an intimidating “culture of connoisseurship.” Between the gatekeeping of mash bills and the reverence for specific spring water sources, many potential consumers feel excluded - and frankly, uninterested.

No Sleep Beverage – an alcohol beverage investment and consulting platform in the United States that acquires, supports, and grows emerging, culture-focused alcohol brands – is betting on a new brand that they recently acquired: Nine Banded Whiskey.

Charlie Rodman, CMO of No Sleep, describes this brand as the “gateway to bourbon, not the gatekeeper.”

Having shifted from minority investor to full owner of Nine Banded Whiskey, No Sleep is bringing to fruition the vision for the brand with an updated positioning and visual identity they built with the brand’s founders.

I sat down with Charlie, (for the second time! See our first interview here: How No Sleep Beverage is building transcendent brands), to discuss how they are repositioning Nine Banded.

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The strategy: rolling up the “iconic”

For No Sleep, the acquisition of Nine Banded was a foundational move in a broader roll up strategy. By taking majority positions in brands that address a distinct brand whitespace in the category., No Sleep can focus on the heavy lifting of professionalization.

Charlie explains that brand is a significant differentiator because it offers a shortcut to pull marketing. In a sea of 4,000 SKUs, most founders over invest in the liquid while under investing in the commercial system.

“We like to think of consumers as rational actors. It’s b*******,” Charlie says. “If you can do the things that help you stand out and win in the four seconds that someone evaluates the shelf when they’re shopping for something new, that’s the easiest chance you have to convert the sale”.

The No Sleep strategy is to identify brands with transcendent potential and then use shared infrastructure to scale them. By saturating local markets (what No Sleep calls “deepen before you broaden”), they create a proof of adoption that is far more valuable to a future acquirer than a wide but shallow national presence.

The move to a single SKU: radical simplification

Perhaps the most contrarian move in this rebuild is the decision to move Nine Banded toward a single SKU model. While most bourbon brands chase growth by lining the shelf with endless variations and details about origin and method and barrels and yada yada, No Sleep is simplifying.

The logic is rooted in consumer psychology and the accessible price point. Most consumers shopping at this level are not whiskey nerds; they’re looking for a versatile, reliable spirit that fits their lifestyle.

By focusing on one flagship product, No Sleep eliminates the paradox of choice. This single SKU is designed to be the ultimate Swiss Army knife of bourbon. This simplification does not just help the consumer; it streamlines the entire supply chain and allows the brand to win the shelf instantly.

The rebrand: from utility to good, plain fun

Truth be told: I’ve been wanting to talk about this rebrand since I first spoke to Charlie about it last July. But I could not. I had to stay silent. I was entrusted with this, and by God, I kept my word.

Well, folks, the time has come.

The bottle’s visual identity, developed with Quaker City Mercantile (QCM) (see our interview with QCM founder Steve Grasse who is amazingly hilarious + spot on), sits at the intentional intersection of a wanted poster and a concert poster.

It swaps traditional bourbon browns for a color palette inspired by the saturated tones of a Texas sunset.

Liquid Authenticity: From MGP to Texas

A critical component of this rebuild is the transition of the liquid itself. In its previous iteration, the brand was MGP-sourced (a bulk supplier out of Indiana). While MGP produces quality spirits, it lacked a unique connection to the brand’s roots.

With a new repositioning focused on inviting drinkers to “show up as their true selves,” it was vital that the brand representing Austin did the same. As a result, No Sleep is committing to sourcing Nine Banded whiskey exclusively from within Texas.

By moving away from a generic spirit and embracing a locally produced liquid, Nine Banded better aligns its values with its promise to consumers. This transition allows the brand to remain authentic while maintaining an accessible price point.

Cha-ching!

The New Rules:

1. Fun leads to engagement; fear leads to avoidance.

Bourbon has become gatekept by expertise, turning a purchase into an intimidating exam. The insight for Nine Banded was to remove those barriers. Internally, the rally cry is “all for fun, fun for all,” emphasizing the individual’s choice over the industry’s rules.

2. Tension creates intrigue.

By taking things that should not work together (like a whiskey bottle and a concert ticket) and binding them through a cohesive vision, you create cool. “Tension creates intrigue, but it’s so hard to deliver authentically because you’re deliberately taking things that should not work together and you need some element that binds them or it’s just going to come across as forced.” ~CR

3. If it only sells when you demo it, you’ve failed.

A transcendent brand must connect by itself.

“If it only sells when you’re demoing it and telling the story, you’re already failing as a brand. You need it to be able to tell the story and connect by itself.” ~CR

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency.

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Every month we watch what’s going on in the bev/alc industry, and then we serve our subscribers a perfectly mixed dose of news and views from the sector: who’s releasing what, what’s on founders’ mind, big rebrands, campaigns and announcements, where the money is going.

We call it Happy Hour, and we’re happy you’re here to enjoy it with us.

Pre-gamers, ‘better’ booze, kids drinks for adults

Pre-gaming, pre-drinking, pre-loading, getting ready… whatever you want to call it, it’s not a new ritual. HOWEVER, it is having a moment in the sun.

The WSJ recently reported on this, saying that drinks are now so expensive that people are going back to their college era and drinking beforehand. You can see signs of this in some recent moves: Global Brands just bought Quadz – portable, high ABV, colorful in a way that’s very reminiscent of another buzzy brand – and Pernod Ricard has launched a pink Malibu that’s being marketed for the ‘getting ready’ moment.

In a completely different direction, there’s a movement to embed a sense of self-care into the bev space. You’ve got Vodkade, a sports drink-feeling brand that’s just launched a sugar-free line; Future Chateau, a wine brand that sells low ABV, low calorie wine marketed to give you less next-day regrets; and Lucky Saint launching an electrolyte lager.

There’s also the continuing fascination with weird, hybrid booze that is both bad for you and good for you - eg, it’ll get you tipsy, but it’ll also give you electrolytes or nootropics or adaptogens. Esquire’s story on protein cocktails (yes, really) conveys some of the strangeness of it all.

If wellness isn’t your thing, there’s always nostalgia. We’re spotting brands that are building in the ‘kids drinks but for adults’ space, including Popsicle-flavored hard malts, Mirth sparkling fruit juice, and even Monster Energy’s new brand FLRT which, on purpose or not, looks like a teen magazine.

Now, time for your quick-scroll news:

WINE IS FINE

We’ve shared a few stories this year about the state of wine: in short, it’s difficult right now. Semafor reports that China is importing less wine, some producers are holding a lot of excess inventory, and young Chinese people don’t find wine especially compelling.

Bringing in a slightly fresher perspective, there’s Nice – who have a new and very not snobby new brand by Earthling Studio.

Young people love Bordeaux, it seems - perhaps down to pricing, and perhaps down to producers going on a courting spree.

THE CREATIVE STUFF

Creative studio Stranger and Stranger have revamped Martini’s vermouth line. The textured glass, in particular, is quite lovely.

Allora plans to open their own bar in a lemon grove in Italy’s Procida. The design sounds considered, conscientious and intensely on-brand.

Well done to How&How for their work with THC soda and gummies brand Out of Office. The writing is fun, so is the brand, and if you’re a TNR subscriber you’ll know we believe alc/bev brands really need to loosen up.

NO ALCOHOL FOR US PLEASE

Constellation Brands now owns sparkling water brand Hopwtr.

Our take: Mixed feelings about this. Hops as a flavoring are criminally underrated (seriously, try making kombucha-flavoured with citra hops), and Hopwtr is onto something here. On the other hand, they’re throwing a lot at the situation: adaptogens, nootropics, tea... Somewhere in there the message might get lost.

Coors now comes in a 0.0% version

The Wine Group now owns Phony Negroni.

Our take: some of the best NA options are the bitter-flavored bevs (Iessi and Ghia being obvious ones). We predict more moves like this into the bitter end of the flavor spectrum.

It’s barely been five minutes since George Clooney launched his alc-free beer brand Crazy Mountain, and already it’s chugging down investment.

FLAVOR ADVENTURES

People really do love novelty flavors. Does matcha or hibiscus belong with beer? Ceremony says yes.

How about olive distilled vodka from Ammos? (served from an excellently goaty bottle).

Or lemon Madri?

Or, coming in hot in the weird brand crossover category, pickle beer from PBR and Grillo’s?

COLLABS

Saint James Tea just announced a crossover with Tarte Cosmetics, and it makes an awful lot of sense.

Our take: Brand collabs are certainly nothing new, and in the last decade they’ve struck an increasingly fevered attitude, as companies outdo one another to come up with the most bizarre brand combos. That said, bev brands x beauty brands feels right somehow.

EVERYTHING IN A TIN

You can now get your Aperol spritz in a can.

Jam Shed now serves red wine in a can, mixed with cola.

TO BOOKMARK FOR LATER

“So much of human creativity, sex and culture has for centuries been marinated in alcohol. What’s going to happen if that stops?” So writes Henry Jefferys, in a piece that sings the praises of wine.

818 Tequila look like they’re having a lot of fun building their brand. Their ECD shares thoughts on how they’re thinking about world-building with People Brands and Things. (TLDR: they spend a lot of time on the small details, and that’s what makes it work).

Cocktail bars in South East Asia are doing some interesting things – writing in-depth stories about their serves, putting homemade ferments on the shelves and fully embracing local culture. More on that here.

The NY Times dives straight into the BuzzBallz mania.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency

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We’re about to say something controversial: ‘beautiful’ branding isn’t everything. Perfectly matched typefaces, lofty slogans and slick visuals aren’t always the answer.

As evidence of that, there’s a whole world of bev/alc brands making bank with some of the most chaotic, mismatched, un-honed and unfiltered design you can imagine. (BTW, that doesn’t mean it’s not strategic… but more on that later).

While these brands are raising money, winning over young people and changing the sector, there’s a stable of stalwart old bev/alc brands convinced that doing things the way they always have is the answer.

The same old language, the same old selling points, the same old labels. You only have to look at recent rebrands of some of the biggest names in spirits and beer to wonder if they’ve forgotten how to have fun.

Alcohol brands need to loosen up

People drink for a lot of different reasons. Maybe they want to spend time with friends, or mark an occasion, or come back down after a day sent from hell itself. But for most of us, it’s very simple: we want to enjoy ourselves.

Most consumers don’t want to be told: this beer is going to do you good, or this RTD comes with a moral message you can get behind, or this bottle of spirits was made by blind monks in a 500-year-old distillery. For the most part, they don’t care that your crest dates back to the 1920s, or that your slogan conveys some vague but aspirational message that, really, could mean anything.

They want to see something that catches their eye and makes them think to themselves: yes, I’ll enjoy this, I’ll buy it.

It’s a simple relationship, so why do so many drinks brands make it so complicated? In the alc space, the message frequently leans into the blandly smug, while in the NA space it’s often moralising. As Botivo founder Imme Ermgassen recently commented in a post about how playfulness is “achingly missing” from the category:

“Shouldn’t we all be having a little more FUN with non alc?”

As a response, they’ve just partnered with lingerie brand Coco de Mer on a special, aphrodisiac edition.

When Heineken shares a press release about its ‘ultimate’ alc-free beer – no calories, no alcohol, no sugar, you have to ask, what’s the appeal here? What’s the point of this intensely joyless liquid?

When companies make cocktails that have negligible amounts of adaptogens, and build their brand around those apparent benefits, who is that for? When is it for? How much mileage does that trend have?

Why is it that when Elton John, the master of ostentation, released a NA wine it looked like this? How did Tanqueray manage to hire someone as charismatic as Sarah Jessica Parker, and still make this campaign so bland?

Why do so many drinks brands take it so seriously?

Meet the chaos brands

I want to preface this by saying that I’ve written a lot about branding. As the former deputy editor of a well-known design magazine in the UK, I spent years of my life sifting through press releases from agencies and studios. And I’m fully bought into the power of branding; I’m as susceptible to a beautiful label or a clever tagline as anyone else.

But branding comes in many forms. And right now, the bev/alc brands that are winning are the ones that are cleverly chaotic. They’re ‘unpolished’, unfiltered, experimental. They embrace being unserious. And by doing so they appeal to young people still figuring out what they want to drink – and hence susceptible to what stands out on the shelf – as well as older consumers seeking novelty.

Look at Cueva Nueva, who we recently interviewed. Founder Phi Peinado told us:

With Cueva Nueva, we wanted to build the brand we felt should exist, but didn’t. At the end of the day, it’s booze. It doesn’t need to take itself so seriously. We want to have fun and invite other people to have fun with us.

Consider BuzzBallz. This brand is absolutely everywhere, beloved by seemingly everyone, and I think it’s fair to describe their branding as gloriously unpretentious. What about Surfside, named by Forbes as the fastest growing alcohol brand in America, and reported to be selling nine cases a minute across 50 US states in 2025? Look at the cans: rainbow stripes, a lemon sun, and a wave script font that sticks two fingers up at the cult of Swiss Modernism.

Or how about The Original Pickle Shot. Beautifully unserious. Or Whiny Baby, just acquired by Gallo and, visually speaking, a world away the usual staid wine branding. What about Uncle Arnie’s (shown above)? They just raised $7.5m.

I think one of the reasons 818 Tequila is doing so well is because it isn’t scared to actually have fun - eg by making a mini version that clips onto people’s bags. Can you imagine other big name whiskey or tequila brands doing the same?

And if you want to talk about actual heritage brands enjoying themselves - look at how many people are talking about Smirnoff’s tabasco vodka. Why? Because it’s novel, it’s maybe a little bit silly and it’s fun.

Playful doesn’t mean un-strategic

It’s easy to be a snob about branding – and there will always be a place for high-level, super sophisticated, deeply refined visual identities and advertising and general creative execution (for example, Veuve’s perfectly executed partnership with Jacquemus, or this beautiful Penfolds packaging).

But getting that right is hard. It requires a lot of effort, a lot of consideration, and if you veer even a millimetre off that path you become boring and preachy.

Being carefree and loose and experimental with your brand requires an equal amount of effort, and a deep understanding of who you are and what you’re about. Some people might look at the aesthetic of some of the brands we’ve mentioned and assume they’re two years away from hiring a big-name agency and making it all feel a bit more ‘sophisticated’. But I hope they don’t.

Alcohol brands desperately need to loosen up. Consumers want fun. They’re drawn to brands that are fun. And often that isn’t about beautiful branding – it’s about having a point of view, and a willingness to be less rigid, less scripted, less precious.

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“It’s definitely striking,” says Jeffery Fowler, CEO of Olujo. He’s talking, obviously, about the incredible sculptural ceramic that holds the brand’s blue agave tequila. Brand strategy can be a lot of things: storytelling, messaging, positioning, visuals... for Olujo, brand strategy is the bottle.

“Whether it’s just standing alone or whether it’s actually standing amidst other bottles behind the bar, it really does stand out,” says Jeffery. “This is obviously, of course, very, very intentional.”

How do you stand out in an extremely competitive, saturated tequila market?

Simple: you do the exact opposite of what every other brand is doing with their packaging. Instead of glass you choose ceramic; instead of the traditional shape, you commission something completely unexpected; and instead of selling people a bottle that they throw away once it’s empty, you create an object that becomes a keepsake.

A “future heirloom,” as Jeffery describes it.

Something sculptural, something otherworldly

The brief for Olujo’s bottle was singular: “something sculptural, something otherworldly.” The brand needed an object that was steeped in high craft, to reflect the artisanal nature of the tequila (and its premium price tag).

And that story of craft goes all the way down. First, the bottle is designed by Ivan Venkov, a sculptor and designer who’s worked with a long list of premium brands.

Then, it’s made by Anfora, a partner in Mexico that has a century-long heritage of producing ceramics. And finally, its grainy, tactile texture is replicated on the surface of every single business card Olujo team members hand out.

“It’s something of beauty, and something that’s deeply connected to the earth,” says Jeffery.

The pursuit of craft

The bottle is Olujo’s calling card. It’s the symbol that signifies: we’re a brand that really cares about how things are made. Some tequila brands lean into lineage or family heritage as their selling point. For Olujo, the focus has always been one thing: craft. Everything about the brand has to come back to that, whether it’s the cultivation and harvesting — focusing on the most mature, high quality agave — through to the way the agave is cooked. And craft isn’t easy.

“It’s pursuing each stage of the value chain and really trying not to cut corners, not to find a cheaper or more efficient way of doing it,” says Jeffery.

Being dedicated to craft, when you’re a bev/alc brand, doesn’t just mean the bottle and the liquid, of course. It’s how you show up in the wider world. Olujo is also forging connections with the world of “beautiful objects” — for example, hosting a dinner at Art Basel Miami, and inviting artists, gallerists and curators that all value craft.

Price can be a strategy

Olujo is working at a much higher price point than most other tequila brands – $500 for a bottle, as opposed to the $30 to $100 range. According to Jeffery, this was a conscious decision to tap into a part of the market that’s a little less busy, and a little less competitive.

“I think maybe in that space it can be easier to defend and lay claim to why you’re there, and what it is about your product that helps it stand out,” he explains.

That high price point is also part of the story. People scanning a menu are going to find their eyes snagging on the dollar sign. They might splash out on that. Or they might ask the bartender or server to tell them a bit more of the story. As Jeffery says: “If that can create the opportunity for them to learn about us and understand who we are and what we do... then hopefully we earn ourselves a new customer through the process.”

Do less, do more

It’s not just the high price tag or the beautiful packaging that sets Olujo apart. The brand has remained purposefully aloof; it’s not available everywhere, and that’s by design. They initially launched in just two states, and are currently only available in the US. They’ve over-emphasized on-premise, because the bottle needs to be seen “in the wild”. “We want to build this brand in an experiential way,” says Jeffery.

It’s also not all over social media. They haven’t put any paid social behind the business, and are relying solely on organic for the time being. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a strategy, however — Olujo posts a note of acknowledgement for every single partner that puts the bottle behind their bar. It’s a very simple expression of gratitude, but it has the magical knock-on effect of getting other restaurants in town interested.

“The easiest thing in the world to do within social media is to try and shortcut it,” says Jeffery. “It’s to spend a bunch of money on advertising to try and target the right audiences and the right people. That can work. But it can also be very inefficient, especially too early on in a brand when you haven’t established your foothold.”

Olujo is a tequila brand that’s beautiful, that’s expensive, that’s exclusive and that revels in all of those things. It’s a reminder that the best brands are unapologetically single-minded about what they’re doing.

NEW RULES FROM OLUJO

Packaging can be a strategy
Don’t underestimate the seductive power of a beautiful bottle – it still works.

Find your angle and laser in on it
If craft is the thing you do best, make everything about that. Be joyfully single-minded.

Be a contrarian
If everyone is going low-, no- and affordable, swing the other way.

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“In Spain, there’s a tradition called la hora del vermut,” says Cueva Nueva founder Phi Peinado. “It’s a midday pause where people gather at their neighborhood bar, share salty snacks, good conversation, and a couple glasses of vermut.”

This tradition isn’t happy hour, he’s quick to emphasize, It’s about celebrating the day while it’s still unfolding. It’s also, according to him, unpretentious, communal and “uniquely Spanish”.

His brand, Cueva Nueva – which he set up together with co-founder David Neimanis – is a way of grabbing that feeling, bottling it, and inviting the world into a tradition that’s about slowing down and enjoying the moment.

Why don’t more people drink vermouth?

It’s fair to say that vermouth isn’t one of the buzzy drinks of the moment. And that’s a terrible shame because having tried Cueva Nueva, it’s exceptional.

According to Phi, it’s a very misunderstood drink. Most people don’t realise it’s a wine, he says, or that it can be enjoyed on its own. It’s also been seen as the least exciting part of many classic cocktails – the one ingredient it’s ok to cheap out on.

It’s actually a different story in Spain, where it is buzzy. Vermut culture was fading away with an older generation, but around 2007 younger drinkers started becoming curious about the category and reclaiming it, prompting a wave of new vermut bars across the country.

“People who travel to Spain usually understand the hype pretty quickly,” he says. “You’re hard-pressed to find a bar or sunny terrace where vermut isn’t being enjoyed. But there hasn’t been much effort to export that culture – not just the product – to foreign markets.”

Phi thinks there’s a huge space here. Consumers want lower-ABV drinks, they want global flavors, and they want more affordable ways to drink. “There’s a lot of room for vermouth to finally make some noise,” he says.

Ok, so how is Cueva Nueva going to do it?

Cueva Nueva isn’t reinventing a category, it’s borrowing from a much-loved and very successful culture. Phi says he’s not expecting Americans to stream into old-school Spanish tabernas at 11am and sup on a round of vermut (shame). But he does expect them to enjoy Cueva Nueva in dive bars, at aperitivo-focused wine bars and in neighborhood watering holes that have already mastered the same kind of vibe.

“Our job is to find how the spirit of la hora del vermut can live within the existing US culture,” he says. “We show people how we like to enjoy it, through happy hour events, parties, and an organic, culture-forward content strategy.”

Phi says European imports into the US market often play on ‘fanciness’. In contrast, Cueva Nueva is showing up where people are drinking, and taking the vermut culture to them.

QUICK FACT: that’s why it’s called Cueva Nueva, which translates to ‘new cave’. “It’s this idea that new caves aren’t created; they’re rediscovered,” says Phi.

What’s working?

Cueva Nueva’s strategy is disarmingly simple: it’s run by two guys living a great life in Spain, and that is the brand.

Phi says him and his co-founder have always been clear that they’re building the brand for themselves, and they trust their own taste. They’ve made a liquid that they love; they’ve put it in a bottle that they think looks great; they host parties they’d actually want to attend; and they create content that they’d stop scrolling for.

“Instead of over-analyzing what other people might want, we focus on doing what feels right to us, and doing it well. That mindset also helps when you’re operating with startup constraints. It keeps decisions simple and honest. And while it might sound a little conceited, the reality is pretty straightforward: if we’re not fully bought into the idea, why would anyone else want to join the party?”

This attitude comes through in their website, which shares thoughts on must-visit tapas spots and musings on why la hora del vermut is so special. It also shows up on their Instagram, where they share candid photos of people enjoying tapas, drinks and bars in Spain. It’s all very likeable.

“Unlike larger brands, our content strategy usually starts with a dumb idea and one of us saying, Okay, let’s do it right now before we talk ourselves out of it,” explains Phi. “The philosophy is pretty simple: if we want to win, we need to have more fun than everyone else.”

That fun part feels extremely important. In the world of big bev brands there’s a lot of lofty statements, and glossy film and overpromising. There’s something appealing about stripping it all back to something simple and real: two guys, enjoying some drinks in the sun, with some friends.

Finally, a word on distribution

Phi says that when they started Cueva Nueva, they partnered with an importer that focused on natural wines from Spain. It made sense, because vermouth technically lives in the wine category, and this partnership would give them access to cool kid wine shops and bars without massive marketing budgets.

But they were struggling to access the classic neighborhood bars they imagined themselves in – where vermouth would sit happily alongside a round of beers. These bars wouldn’t hit minimums with products that weren’t core to their business, says Phi.

So the brand shifted to a different partner that functions more like a traditional wine and spirits importer – and it’s working.

“At the end of the day, bars need to be able to add a case of vermouth onto their gin and whiskey order,” says Phi.

Finally, in New Rules tradition we asked:

What’s the brutal truth you’ve learned about building a bev/alc brand?

“Early on, it’s tempting to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way because you want to reach more drinkers. But if you can’t fully support a market, show up properly for a partner, or invest in an idea the right way, you end up stretching yourself too thin, and doing a mediocre job everywhere.”

And, is there anything you’d do differently or tell other founders to do differently?

“The main advice we’d give other founders is: don’t wait so long. Just get started and get people interacting with the product. Keep it simple. Once you start, there’s no turning back, and that’s a good thing. It won’t be perfect out of the gate, but starting sooner helps you understand what actually isn’t working and fix it along the way.”

THE NEW RULE

It’s tempting to think brand-building is long and complicated, and requires a lot of deep strategy. Sometimes it does. But sometimes you just need a simple philosophy, and the willingness to stick to it.

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The food and bev space, right now, is plagued by trend blindness. Entire brands are being built around protein, fibre, adaptogens, beef tallow… whatever founders can grab onto.

The truth is that humans are fickle, and it’s easy to mistake a flash in the pan moment for a long-term business strategy. Good brands don’t care about trends; they care about carving their own path, and ploughing their own furrow – in a field, two fields over.

That’s where Esther founders Margaret Kerr-Jarrett and Emunah Winer (also the founders of Nihilo, the agency behind this newsletter) are right now, as they build a new kind of rum brand.

Why rum? It’s a huge category. The ultra-premium part of it is one of the only spirits categories that’s growing year-on-year, and around a fourth of cocktails consumed in the US are rum cocktails.

“Many people drink rum,” says Margaret. “But people don’t have any brand association with rum, and they don’t think about it in the same way as other categories like gin or vodka or wine, where they have brands they like and know and relate to.”

No pirates, thanks

Esther launched earlier this year (it’s currently on sale at 20 stores in Ohio - where the founders live - and shipping to most states at drinkesther.com) and it brings a completely different take on rum. It’s 100% Colombian rum - grass to glass - and it’s not sugary, it’s not covered in pirates and palm trees, and it doesn’t use any of the other lazy tropes.

Instead, Margy and Emunah made great, surprising liquid (its a unique blend of pot still and column still rum, and the flavor profile is a nod to reposado tequila), and then placed a bet on one major brand asset: that green cap.

“It’s cool to test real language and positioning in the market,” says Emunah. “And the thing that we set out to do is working: the green cap is capping. Everyone, from a mile away, is like ‘get the one with the green cap’.”

That cap was a very early decision, according to Emunah, who says they quickly realized that they needed a cost-effective, different way to disrupt the packaging. The business wasn’t at the point of investing in a custom glass mold, so they landed on the cap as a strategic solution. It would be the visual point of differentiation, and the thing to make Esther stand out on-shelf.

The big, beautiful cap

Getting the cap right took months of R&D. To start with, it’s huge (really, you have to see it in real life). “That meant we had to go in circles, finding the right bottle with the right threading to work with a screw cap that would still feel proportionally ok,” explains Emunah.

Once the practical wrinkles were ironed out, the pair started exploring more aesthetic considerations. The shape had to feel iconic and ownable – not a cube or an orb, but something identifiably theirs. And the color had to work equally hard.

“The green was something we landed on,” says Emunah. “It’s the colour of sugar cane, but that’s just a coincidence. The truth is it’s nothing like anybody would ever expect. We feel like it can cross generations between Gen Z, feeling like it’s punk rock, and older consumers feeling like it’s interesting and weird, but still appealing to them.”

The cap also plays well in the long-term as the brand scales and potentially changes bottles – it might get bigger or subtly change shape, but Esther will always be, as Emunah says, “the one with the big green cap”.

What is a disruptive brand, really?

We’re talking about the cap a lot because it does exactly what branding is meant to do – it stops people, it makes them ask a question, and it opens up a silent conversation.

“Most people aren’t walking around thinking about rum,” says Emunah. “We have to first make them think about rum, and the only way to do that is to grab their attention and make them be curious. I’d rather somebody engage with this from a point of curiosity than not at all, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“Often we get the question: why the green. The answer is because you’re asking why. That’s what being disruptive means – it’s not for the sake of it, it’s disruptive because the only way people are going to learn that they like rum is by us forcing them to think about it in some way.”

Think about what Patrón has done for tequila, turning it from a throwaway drink you’d do shots of to a spirit you can sip. Then think about the fantastical world Hendrick’s has built around gin, to emphasize that it’s not a dusty old person’s drink.

The right brand can upheave an entire category. That’s Esther’s ultimate goal.

Looking good won’t fix rum… but Esther might

It’s not that there aren’t other rum brands, also hoping to remind people why rum is so great. The problem is that many of them think designing a clean, neat label is enough to do so, says Margaret. Esther has the branding, yes, but it’s also addressing some of rum’s other challenges: flavor and narrative.

When it comes to taste, most rums have additives, they’re sweet, and they’re often found in sticky, sugary cocktails. In contrast, Esther is additive-free, and it’s smoother and more sippable, it has a unique grassy undertone that plays well in cocktails of all kinds, and its more likely to win over drinkers.

The second problem comes down to communication and storytelling. People don’t care about the tired old story of pirates, and unlike other spirits, such as tequila, rum can’t trade on a clear narrative around origins and making either. What Emunah and Margy are aiming to do with Esther is chart a new chapter:

Forget what you think you know about rum, ignore the same old story you’ve heard before, and try this instead.

THE NEW RULE:

There’s always room for a new voice in a category – the trick is finding the angle, narrative or iconic bit of branding that lets you tap into what’s missing, and create your own space to build from.

YOU CAN ACTUALLY TEXT ESTHER: 614-260-6707

www.drinkesther.com (ships rum to most states)

IG: @drinkesther

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Boring boring boring, brand laddering, tribal beers

Sometimes, you get the feeling that bev/alc brands are trying to strip the joy out of everything.

That might be a preachy non-alc business that’s trading on virtue’ or a company hell-bent on adding extra ‘healthy’ ingredients to their liquid. Or it might be Heineken and their Heineken 0.0 ‘ultimate’ – which has no calories, no alcohol, no sugar, and is being introduced to a set number of states after a successful pilot in the US last year.

It’s hard to know who Heineken is appealing to here. GLP-1 users? Health nuts? People that feel the 69 calories in a normal Heineken 0.0 is just too much excitement to handle?

In a semi-related story, Drinks Trade published a story about ‘better for you’ RTDs, for example vodka mixed with electrolytes. So good so virtuous, but when are drinks brands going to embrace being fun and a bit naughty again?

Brands that aren’t venturing into this new, purist area of drinking are experimenting with high and low - and we mean culture and liquid. On the one hand you’ve got Johnny Walker launching a more affordable version, and on the other you’ve got Remy Cointreau setting up a new, more high-end ‘Prestige’ division.

The NY Post says jelly shots are back (lowbrow?), meanwhile non-alc wine brand Wednesday’s Domaine is actually moving into alc, with a range of 6.5% wines (high brow going sorta midbrow?)

Brands seem to be deciding that the space they inhabit is more of a sliding scale than a fixed zone, and that’s freeing them to make some interesting plays.

Finally, we wanted to talk about beer for a second. If we’re being honest beer, right now, does feel a little bit like the awkward +1 at the wedding. Nevertheless, beer brands are really sliding into their own niches, and using that to power their growth.

For Sam Adams that means doubling down on sports and some very local love; for Girl Beer it’s about fruity, light beers that are very much being marketed towards (you guessed it) women; for Garage Beer it’s about being the joker in the room; and for Tuborg it’s about losing themselves in the world of Gen Z in a very ‘How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?’ kind of way.

Keep scrolling for some spiky little dopamine shots of news:

BUY BUY BUY, SELL SELL SELL

-RTD brand BeatBox Beverages now belongs to Anheuser-Busch InBev. It cost them $490m. (this actually happened in Feb, so apologies for being a little late to the party).

Our take: not entirely surprising. It lets ABInBev tap into a massive format trend (RTDs), it borrows a bit of BeatBox’s cool, and it harnesses some of that zany, barely restrained, youthful spirit that people love about BuzzBallz.

-Everyone in the world knows that Tilray bought Brewdog. Andrew Wardlaw, who runs consumer research group MMR has an interesting take, saying the story is less about the deal, and more about what it means around alcohol’s relevance, and the importance of portfolios.

-Notorious canned brand Four Loko is allegedly exploring a sale, with a potential price tag of $400m.

-Don’t believe the ‘no-one’s drinking’ narrative. Brown-Forman (which owns Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, El Jimador and Chambord) is actually doing pretty ok, thanks.

-Sazerac just bought Dirty Shirley.

THE NO-HANGOVER CLUB

-“My experience with non-alcoholic wine – and the feedback from most of my industry colleagues – has been overwhelmingly negative,” says food and travel journo Vicki Denig in a piece questioning the perceived NA wine ‘boom’. She gets into the weeds of why it’s falling short. (TLDR: it’s really hard to make them taste good).

-Despite the above, plenty of brands are still trying to crack non-alc wine, including Butter Wines which has launched ButterZero.

-0% Peroni now comes in lemon and blood orange.

Our take: now that big brands have found their 0% legs, they’re starting to experiment with flavours (Heineken recently launched nectarine juniper and lime versions of its 0.0% beer, and Chouffe also launched a cherry-flavoured 0%). This adds a bit of extra novelty to the category, to keep people engaged.

-Welcome to the world, alcohol-free Lillet.

-Also welcome to the world George Clooney’s new alcohol-free beer brand. BTW, is Americana back?

-Willie Nelson only needed a year to make his THC brand a $80m business. “This story is as good as it gets, and there’s no one more authentic than Willie,” says Forrest Dein, co-founder of holding company JuneShine. “There’s no one who’s more synonymous with cannabis.”

-Liquid Ventures is a new investment house dedicated to low- and no-, and bringing along some impressive industry expertise.

Time for a QUICK PAUSE - we want to work with you, the founders, investors, brand-builders and marketers that all read THE NEW RULES. Here’s how:

SPORTS BOOZE

-We said it was coming, and here it is. Alc-free beer brand Belgian Balance seems to be positioning itself next to the sport world, and Ad Age just published a piece about the growing category of brands that look like sports drinks but actually contain alcohol.

IT’S ALL ABOUT NOVELTY BABY

-The Spirits Business has a story about the world’s coldest martini, with London’s Bob Bob Ricard mixing up some extremely cold cocktails. Is it a gimmick? Yes. Would we still order it? A thousand times yes.

-Speaking of novelty, how about some Nowadays THC at the Indycar Grand Prix?

Our take: makes sense. Pop up where your people already are, harness serendipity, give them a chance to try you, be a bit novel….

-And what about this epic BuzzBallz activation in London, featuring a 10-foot gacha machine? Very fun. Very them.

GOOD LOOKS

-Just love Aperol’s updated packaging, and their willingness to lean into that almost-neon orange. Clever brand.

-Cast your eyes over this incredible packaging for Penfolds. Truly quite beautiful

IT’S ABOUT THE ADJACENTS

-There’s the alcohol brands, and then there’s the rich stream of brands that live in beautiful harmony with them, like the mixers. Stoli just re-released its ginger beer (first launched in 2014 for its Stoli Mule cocktail). It’s got a spicy new recipe that includes ginger, chili and caffeine (majorly hot ingredient of the moment).

-Speaking of adjacent, where does AI live in the world of bev/alc? According to Bon Appétit, it’s definitely not as sommelier.

-And what about snacks? What role do they play alongside the low and no movement?

-Brand accelerator Brand Venture plans to scale lemon and lime concentrate alternative Blessed Zest. We told you the side business is fruitful.

TEQUILA CORNER

-Tequila tequila, everyone loves tequila. The Guardian tries to get to the bottom of its surge in popularity. If you’re good and you read all the way to the bottom, you’re rewarded with some cocktail recipes.

-Guillermo del Toro made a film for Patrón.

COCKTAIL TIME

-Pure argument fuel here: VinePair has thoughts on the 10 most important cocktails of the 21st century. Yes the Negroni and the Espresso Martini are on there.

-Ok, that was your classic cocktails. Now read about Buffalo Wild Wings’ Frankenstein-esque Espresso Proteini. It’s exactly what it sounds like.

FOR YOUR READING LIST

-Some interesting reflections in this piece by Suntory’s François Bazini, on how what works so well for one bev brand doesn’t always translate.

-Amidst the doomer stories about wine, we spotted this one bright spot: a tech founder who’s taking a punt on wine-making with a gloriously devil-may-care attitude. “If Gallo is down and Constellation is down and they’re ripping out 10,000 acres, so what? I don’t care.”

AND FINALLY

-“The number of brands that can be built is far larger than the number that can be sold.” Sober (forgive us) thoughts on why many, many bev brands may be unacquirable.

-How do you annoy a woman that drinks whiskey? You ask her one simple question, according to Substacker and writer Becky Paskin.

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Something is happening. I know something’s happening, because I went to my corner shop (in London) a few weeks back and spotted Suntory’s -196 shochu, vodka and soda RTD on the shelves, right next to BuzzBallz and cans of Heineken and Red Stripe.

It’s the first time I’ve seen it there, but it makes total sense because Suntory is actively expanding in Europe and the USA. It also makes sense because it’s a sign of changing tastes and interests.

We’ve all read about the influence of Korean and Chinese and Japanese culture, and we’ve all seen the growing enthusiasm for flavors from East Asia. You can see some of that in The New Rules coverage from the last 6 months – including soju cocktail brand Wild Mannered, and enzymatic cordial JIN JIN.

So when I spotted that British retail institution Marks and Spencer was stocking its first ever sake, I had to chat with the founder of the chosen brand: Dreamsake’s Matt Brunault.

The quick story of Dreamsake

Matt fell in love with sake in New York (he says the US is actually much farther ahead, in terms of beverage, btw. It got to kombucha, craft beer and natural wine first, and is also on its way to fully embracing makgeolli).

Seeing that sake was a hugely underappreciated spirit in the UK, and the west more broadly, he knew there was a space to do something. Matt found brewery partners in Japan, worked with them to develop a liquid that was “approachable” for a western audience, and identified a price point that would grab new sake drinkers who don’t want to commit too much to their first experience.

Education, pricing, flavor… sake is a balancing act

People might think of sake as a spirit, but it’s drunk more like a wine. And then to confuse things further, it’s at an interesting midpoint of strength. It’s not a beer-level ABV, nor is it spirit- or wine. It’s at the difficult middle.

As Matt says: “It throws you a bit, which is quite interesting.”

For the most part, people also don’t know how sake is made. “What’s challenging, especially for a brand like ours, is that there’s a huge amount of education,” says Matt.

Here’s a quick rundown of the making process, from him:

“You take rice and polish it. The more you polish it, the more you polish away the protein and the higher the ratio of starch to protein. Then you steam the rice and use koji – the same mold used in miso and soy sauce – which turns starch into sugar, and then yeast turns sugar into alcohol.”

The process yields different grades of sake depending on how much the rice is polished. Lots of polishing creates fruity, elegant flavors, less polishing produces more savory, rough, umami flavors – which, says Matt, people in the west aren’t so used to.

These rougher flavors are a lot of people’s first experience of sake, when they order the cheapest option on the menu at their local Japanese restaurant. That can throw them off and make life difficult for a sake brand that wants them to keep buying and trying. It means building in this space is a balancing act, first and foremost.

Dreamsake has to find the sweet spot in so many ways: the right price to convince people to try it; the right brand without playing on visual tropes; the right flavor to keep people drinking it; and the right level of explanation and education.

Japan needs those sake exports

It was a surprise, to me at least, to hear that in Japan, sake is actually in decline.

“It’s seen almost like an old man’s drink,” says Matt. “It’s a national heritage point, like pubs in the UK, but you read in Japan how many sake breweries are closing because the demand isn’t there. It’s really sad because there are all these historical and cultural points, but in Japan everyone’s drinking whiskey and beer and wine. For them, export is now really important.”

The good news is that just this year, The Drinks Business reported that sake exports from Japan are up (the second highest level on record), they’ve doubled since 2020, and the Japanese government has set a very ambitious target for the future.

In this environment, ripe with possibility, Matt hopes a brand like Dreamsake is a “stepping stone”. He admits that the category, in Europe at least, is tiny at the moment – and that’s difficult. However it’s also extremely promising, because there’s so much room for it to grow, and for other new sake brands in the west to uplift one another.

What is it about sake?

I think there’s a few reasons sake is really primed to explode.

1)We’re in the magpie era of consumer behaviour.

There are so many drinks brands on offer. People are extremely ready to be seduced by a cool new soda, or a beer brand with a great label, or a spirit they’ve never heard of.

Keeping them loyal is another story, but persuading them to try something new has maybe never been easier. Novelty is an enormous selling point. On top of that, people in the west have had years of gin, whiskey and wine being drummed into them via huge marketing budgets. But sake? Not so much. It’s new, and that’s very alluring.

2)Our cultural influences are evolving rapidly

Japan and Korea have gained huge cultural currency in recent years. Korean and Japanese beauty brands in particular have carved out a path, and I think smart bev/alc brands can follow that trail, and tap into a lot of pre-existing positive sentiment.

3)There’s something a bit deeper about all of this

I think the growing interest in sake and other East Asian flavors also speaks to changes in how people feel. Whether they’re aware of it or not, consumers are thinking more about ingredients and craft and time. They want less additives, and they want something that feels rooted in a deeper story. Not only is sake preservative and sulfite-free, but it’s born from a long, rich tradition.

“What we really recognize, as a culture, is good craft,” says Matt. “When we look to Japan or Korea or China you see things that are well-crafted. There’s a real obsession with craft … I think our consumption habits are shifting towards better and less. Less quantity, higher quality. And I think in an ever-disconnected digital world, it gives our lives more meaning. Interacting with an Asian product just feels more expansive.”

It’s something that JIN JIN founder Sohn Supradya Aursudkij also told us:

“From soju to kombucha to regional drinks and ferments, they all have deep histories and beautiful craftsmanship behind them and people appreciate that now more than ever. There used to be outdated perceptions about Asian products not meeting certain standards, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are so many premium, carefully made foods and drinks coming from Asia. People today care about authenticity and story, and Asian flavors offer both.”

There’s a major opportunity here. If someone discovers and loves sake, that’s the first step of discovering more sake, and then more expensive sake. The potential is vast. And I think we’re on the verge of seeing a lot more sake brands – and drinks brands rooted in East Asia – come to the market. The challenge, as ever, is how they use branding, comms, and storytelling to find their place and then sell that to drinkers.

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How to work with us

We started The New Rules a year ago to dissect what it takes to build a brand in the modern bev/alc landscape. It’s been a wild ride, and while many of you know us through your inbox, you might not know that this platform is powered by Nihilo, our brand advisory and agency.

The most common question we get is: “Can you help us build our brand?”

The short answer is: We are not currently taking on full-scale, ground-up branding projects.

What we do offer is a few “New Rules” ways to work with us:

• Advisory & Hourly Consulting: High-impact sessions on positioning, GTM strategy, messaging, or design direction. Think of us as your external “Head of Brand” for an hour or a day.

• A La Carte Creative: Specific, tactical executions for when you have the vision but need the polish. This covers pitch decks, copywriting, social templates, and print collateral.

• Training & Speaking: Workshops or keynotes for teams and industry events. We translate our research and "New Rules" insights into actionable sessions on the current state of the bev/alc market.

Interested? Reach out! hi@nihilo.agency

Cheers,

Margaret, Emunah, and the TNR team.

Most founders in bev/alc start with a liquid, then a bottle, then a distribution plan. But Sistine is doing things differently.

Founders Lauren Alexander and Kate McLamb did not start with a recipe; they started with a mood board. Drawing from Lauren’s 20-year background in fashion, they’re building Sistine as a lifestyle ecosystem that prioritizes curation and intuition over traditional corporate scaling.

The result is a brand that feels less like a grocery store staple and more like decor.

The branding-before-liquid strategy

Sistine started with the brand. They spent months with Black Ink Project – a branding agency in London – before a single drop was formulated.

As Lauren says: “We did branding and story before we ever had a drink, before we had formulated, before we knew what color it would be, anything”.

This wasn’t just about nice packaging. It was about defining the “World of Sistine,” a space that encompasses Spotify playlists, dinner parties, and a specific cultural milieu.

By the time they approached formulators, the visual and emotional parameters were so clear that the liquid had to rise to the challenge of the brand. Even the specific pink-orange hue was decided only after they saw a mockup that reflected that color.

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Hosting as the core product

If you look at Sistine’s social presence, you’ll see as much hosting as you see liquid. Lauren jokes that they could have launched the brand and never had a beverage because they do so much entertaining.

The dinner party is not just marketing; it’s the brand’s origins. Lauren previously ran “Wine Society” in LA, curating natural wine dinners that evolved from educational sessions into wild, high-energy parties. That experience taught them how to build a world where people actually want to belong, using music and curation to set a mood that feels refined but never alienating.

The “anti-RTD” positioning

Sistine occupies an elevated “Third Space” between categories. While technically a pre-prepared cocktail, it intentionally avoids the “Ready to Drink” aisle. By using an organic Chardonnay base and natural botanicals, Sistine has earned spots on elite wine lists, a rare achievement for bottled cocktails.

• The bottle: Aspirational in aesthetic while remaining accessible.

• The can: Served with a “sidecar” of ice to create a modern, elevated ritual.

• The placement: Positioned alongside pet-nats and natural wines, not sugary malt beverages.

The retail advantage: from outlier to pioneer

While restaurants offer credibility, the premium retail environment is the brand’s natural home. This is where the “anti-RTD” stance moves from a defensive position to an offensive market-share grab.

1. Overcoming the gatekeeper

In restaurants, Sistine can face a “purist” barrier from sommeliers trained in single-varietal terroir. In retail, that gatekeeper is replaced by a “curator” or shop owner looking for high-quality, hybrid products that solve a consumer need for premium convenience.

2. Visual discovery and context

Retail provides visual real estate that a wine list cannot.

• The “adjacent” strategy: By sitting next to natural wines and premium aperitifs, Sistine uses retail “neighborhoods” to signal its quality without saying a word.

• The hosting occasion: A shopper buying a chilled Gamay for a dinner party is more likely to grab a 4-pack of Sistine than they are to order a canned drink at a white-tablecloth dinner.

3. The education mandate

As a “category of one,” Sistine must bridge an education gap for both the trade and the consumer.

• Sistine leads the conversation in defining this new category (part wine, part botanical cocktail).

• Retail displays allow Sistine to teach the “sidecar” ritual, proving that the liquid deserves the same reverence as a hand-shaken drink.

In restaurants, Sistine is an outlier. In retail, Sistine is a pioneer.

Mastering the neighborhood

To protect the brand’s status, Lauren and Kate have resisted the urge to be everywhere at once.

Instead of a national “spray and pray” launch, they are mastering Los Angeles neighborhood by neighborhood. This hyper-local focus allows them to remain hands-on, often performing the tastings themselves at independent retailers.

“Until you can prove that you can take over and curate I think in a smaller section it’s hard to scale”.

Lauren notes that people are often shocked to see the founders personally conducting the tastings at bottle shops. But for them, it’s a return to basics that provides direct feedback from buyers and creates genuine velocity through real human connection.

Operating on intuition

Perhaps the most radical “new rule” Sistine follows is its reliance on intuition and timing. From launching the website on 8/8 to consulting with an astrologer on business transits, the founders lean into their instincts as a strategic advantage.

Hell yes.

Go Sistine.

Lean into what it is that guides you.

There are no steadfasts in this industry, or this life. Let’s all drop the pretense that there are.

THE NEW RULE

Sistine reminds us that taste, both in liquid and in culture, cannot be fully automated - and that intuition is still the most fundamental thing we can all tap into. Don’t ever ignore it.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency

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Candela Mamajuana brings something new to rum. Instead of repeating familiar cues, it introduces a Dominican botanical spirit with real heritage and a modern aesthetic that feels precise, considered, and culturally alive.

Younger drinkers want brands that feel rooted in place and designed for the present; Candela does both. The identity expresses fuego, pride, and the mystique of the Dominican jungle, and the liquid offers a flavor profile that expands what people assume rum can be.

Rum really needs a rethink

Tequila, mezcal and ready-to-drink brands have been a major focus over the past ten years. But rum has evolved more slowly. “It got left behind, and the top brands are still living in the worlds of pirates, sea monsters or patriarch founders,” says Candela Mamajuana founder Alejandro Russo. “Where is the cool, modern rum brand? What rum brand is going to get new consumers who are just learning how to drink excited about rum?”

Alejandro is in the business of changing that. Instead of all the old symbolic cues and all the old traditions that paint it as a simple mixer that goes with your Coke, Candela Mamajuana positions rum as a premium, botanical spirit. It’s aromatic, it’s earthy, it’s layered, and it’s easy to enjoy neat.

You have to frame tradition

Mamajuana is the name for a concoction of rum and honey that’s infused with bark and herbs. It has quite a reputation in the Dominican Republic — where it was invented around 200 years ago — known as an aphrodisiac as well as a panacea. Alejandro jokes that if he had a nickel for every person who said they didn’t drink rum, and then fell in love with mamajuana, he’d be rich.

Previously, however, mamajuana was seen as a tourist novelty item that people enjoyed on vacation. Candela’s challenge was creating a recipe that would be smooth, flavorful and balanced enough to take it from a souvenir to a top-shelf spirit — using the best possible rums and botanicals while staying true to the traditional Dominican recipe.

That focus on tradition and flavors says something about what modern drinkers actually want from rum. They want authenticity, they want something crafty that isn’t pretentious, and they want taste that isn’t held up by sugar and artificial additives. Candela delivers all of this, alongside a reminder that rum can be refined, layered and culturally specific.

Education is part of the job

Alejandro says the hardest part of building Candela has been ongoing education — letting people know what mamajuana is, where it comes from, why it’s special and how to drink it. And that’s a challenge that comes up every single day.

“You’re not just competing with other rum brands, you’re competing with conceptual unfamiliarity,” he says. “But the upside is enormous: when people discover something truly new, they become evangelists. Category creation is slow at first, then exponential. Now we have so many loyal superfans who spread the word. It’s been worth it to be unique.”

The education job doesn’t belong to Candela alone. There’s a new wave of consumers just waiting to discover rum, and to fall back in love with mojitos, piña coladas, daquiris and cubra libres, says Alejandro.

They’re not going to be won over by tired flavor cues or clichés — they want new, better brands that they can show off and post on socials. “New brands that say something about their aspirational status and person.”

Functional vs. emotional

Winning people over to rum isn’t going to happen via the old visual and flavor cues. And it’s not going to happen by showing off how well-aged your liquid is.

Think about it: why do people still buy iPhones, when other smartphones have better cameras? Why didn’t the iPod compete on having the most storage?

Consumers respond to a lot of different things but, often, brands win out by appealing to what Alejandro calls “an emotional advantage”, rather than a “functional, competitive” one. That’s why Candela decided to stay away from aging statements, to avoid getting into the rat race of “this rum is three years” vs “this one is five years”.

“I want consumers to choose Candela because it’s f*cking badass, not because it was aged longer.”

Differentiation is everything

Alejandro says spirits brand founders can fall into two traps.

First, they think it’ll be an easy, three- year ride. In reality, the supply chains, distribution process and sales cycles are long. Forget those three years, and start thinking in terms of a decade.

“The spirits industry moves at the pace of molasses. Be prepared and be patient,” he says.

Second, founders think a cool product is enough to win someone over. The truth is that spirits brands live and die on differentiation. If you don’t have a good reason to exist, then why would someone have a good reason to buy you?

From day zero know why you’re different, why you’re better, and why someone would swap their favorite choice for you.

NEW RULES FROM CANDELA MAMAJUANA

Elevate a category by adding something new, not by imitating what already exists.
Candela’s take on a legendary Dominican botanical rum is different, and alluring.

Build an identity that reflects the world your consumer lives in now
Don’t rely on old tropes and design cues. It’s lazy. And it rarely builds long-term brand value.

Lead with emotional value, not technical value.
People choose brands because of how they feel, not because of aging statements.

Treat spirits as a decade-long build.
Patience, clarity, and cultural conviction compound over time.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency

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Let’s set the scene: you’re in the Catskills, on a weekend getaway, and all you’re drinking is a homemade cocktail of vodka, fresh garden herbs and cold-pressed coconut water. It’s delicious. It’s refreshing. And suddenly you say: “It’s Mother’s Milk”. A brand is born.

Ok, it’s not quite as easy as that, but as origin stories go, it’s a good one.

A brand built for “better and smarter” partying

Founders Kristie Kish and Jennifer Roman-Matito describe this as the light bulb moment behind Mother’s Milk – an RTD brand that’s built around partying “better and smarter”.

“As we got older, of course, the hangovers became longer and harder and we wanted to be better to our bodies,” says Kristie. “We wanted to get cocktails during the week and still wake up for that early morning yoga class.”

This is the driving philosophy behind Mother’s Milk – and it’s one that’s resonating. Kristie says the response to their RTD coconut water cocktails is often “where have you been all my life?” Or, sometimes, “I need this at all my parties”.

“Mother’s Milk has proven to be cult-worthy,” she says. “It’s super-niche, different and oddly addicting. It solves a problem for today’s consumers who want to feel good AND have a good time.”

We love a niche

Undoubtedly, Mother’s Milk is in an interesting space of its own. It’s not alcohol-free, and it’s not low-alc, but it is bundling a sense of goodness and wellness alongside drinking.

Companies are now being built as a ‘sidecar’ to booze and partying - anti-hangover supplements, pre-drinking drinks that promise to soothe next-day scaries, powders that boost you post-rave. It’s a new sector of liminal brands, and we think they’re onto something.

“If you look at broader cultural and consumer trends, you’ll see a clear shift toward more mindful drinking,” says Kristie, “and that aligns perfectly with what Mother’s Milk is doing. We’re tapping into that moment by putting the good stuff directly into the drink, instead of asking people to fix the problem afterward.

“You see it with things like probiotic sodas - they satisfy a craving while also offering a functional benefit. We’re creating a new category that merges wellness and party culture.”

As we’ve written about before: drinking is being renegotiated.

A brand built by an animator and a hospitality pro

Neither Kristie nor Jen have CPG experience. Kristie is a former freelance animator for Nickelodeon, and Jen worked in the hospitality industry, running events for hotels.

However, Kristie’s background in design and animation was pivotal in shaping the visual identity, packaging and website, and Jen’s hospitality experience and knowledge of the NYC food and bev scene has informed how they show up via IRL activations, and on-premise strategy (or, as Kristie charmingly puts it: “cans in hands, sips to lips”).

That visual branding in particular, says Kristie, has been a major part of Mother’s Milk’s success. Rather than a tool to sell product, it’s intended to convey a feeling or experience – something aspirational and desirable. “It’s that daydream of being on vacation,” as Kristie says. “Or being the wellness girlie who also knows how to party.

“Consumers today want brands that feel authentic, cultural, and real - no fluff, no BS. I think MM feels refreshing because it doesn’t talk at people. It invites them in, and that’s something people genuinely connect with.”

Mother’s Milk knows its people

Beyond the visual identity, what’s working for the brand has been understanding exactly who likes Mother’s Milk and then doubling down on them. Jen says the brand has leaned into a highly targeted, community-driven approach – “a zipcode strategy if you will” – that places the brand in bars and restaurants in specific areas, and then activates nearby liquor stores or supports local events in close proximity.

According to her: “By concentrating our efforts geographically, we’re able to build real awareness, trial, and loyalty instead of spreading ourselves too thin.”

Finally, in The New Rules tradition we asked

What’s the brutal truth you’ve learned about building a bev/alc brand?

“I would have to say three things. One, it’s more political than I ever imagined! Two, foundationally, this is a relationship-driven business. Three, label transparency does not exist in alcohol. We aim to change that.” - Jen

With hindsight what would you do differently or recommend other founders do differently?

“If I’m being brutally honest, if the product is not incredibly unique, and new to the market, just don’t do it. I would also emphasize how often I taste a great product, but the branding and brand identity falls flat.

And vice versa, I’ve tried horrible beverages with horrible ingredients, but the branding and brand identity are spot on connecting with their target demographic.

In 2026, it is equally as important to build a well curated product while simultaneously launching a brand that speaks to it. You cannot have one without the other.” - Jen

NEW RULE

It’s ok to be in a slightly awkward, slightly niche category - if you know who your people are and how to connect with them.

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Young Jerks is the rare agency that makes a signature style feel like a service rather than a constraint. Their work occupies the space between working-class utility and premium refinement - a signature ‘retro-cool’ aesthetic that has essentially become the blueprint for modern packaging. Every brand Young Jerks touches is unmistakably theirs, yet also entirely driven by the client’s needs.

Made up of a team of designers, illustrators and letterers across Brooklyn and Philly, Young Jerks has become a go-to agency for high-end spirits and craft labels (think Pa’lante, Parch, Drowned Lands, and more.) They’re also known as the team behind the identity and packaging for Mr Black – the coffee liqueur brand that transformed the category before being acquired by Diageo in 2022.

We think a huge part of Mr Black’s success is down to formative work carried out by Young Jerks, as well as the brand development they led for ten years. Let’s talk about how they did it.

HOW THE STORY STARTED

Young Jerks originally met Mr Black founder Tom Baker nearly a decade ago. The business had already seen success in its home country of Australia, and as they planned their expansion overseas, they wanted to solidify the brand.

“We had a meeting at 9 o’clock in the morning at a coffee shop, and Tom pulled out a bottle of liqueur and made us drink it,” says Young Jerks co-founder Dan Cassaro.

At the time, there was “nothing but bad vibes” around coffee liqueur, according to him. Drinkers didn’t have positive associations, so Mr Black needed to hit them with a one-two punch: first, grab them with the branding, second, overcome preconceived notions of what coffee liqueur tastes like.

SOMETIMES THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE

Getting over those negative perceptions obviously required exceptional liquid, but it also needed something else: compelling, eye-grabbing, unexpected branding.

When it comes to brand-building, people love to backwards-rationalize and over-intellectualize. But the strategy for Mr Black was simple: make it look cool, get people to try it.

“We were just trusting our gut,” says Young Jerks co-founder Dan Christofferson. “We had a specific idea of the texture of typography, and we wanted to make an impact on those kinds of things … since then I think we’ve developed really specific ideas and philosophies around packaging and branding, but it was helpful in the first few years [of working with Mr Black] to trust our instincts around culture and alcohol.”

The brand also had to be really clear as it pushed into the US. The audience there loved cold brew, says Dan Cassaro, so that messaging had to go front and centre.

At the time, Mr Black was using a stock bottle but Young Jerks added a custom die-cut label – that would ultimately become iconic for the brand – to get that message across. They also sprinkled in some of the “weird, esoteric, arcane, mythological” imagery that the agency is known and loved for, and that Mr Black came to be associated with.

ARCANE VISUALS

When Mr Black later developed a custom bottle, Young Jerks embedded even more of that visual vernacular into the packaging – some of it only revealed once people started drinking.

“They let us hide open and closed eyes, and an oracle on the back,” says Dan Christofferson, who made those illustrations. “We started hiding that language throughout the brand. It became a cool treasure hunt for the brand as it grew, and people could find that stuff and continue the brand story.”

And once Mr Black had this “treasure chest” of imagery? The copy wrote itself. For example, the brand’s ‘sweetheart of the night’ tagline was originally a casual sentence written for a merch collection, but founder Tom loved it, and it started appearing in other places like the website, and in the Instagram account of Mr Black’s brand ambassador.

“There’s this alchemy that happens between whoever’s building these assets, and the person who’s executing them and knowing how to use them, and that is really important,” says Dan Cassaro.

GOOD BRANDING FEELS ‘INEVITABLE’

Young Jerks were agency of record for Mr Black for a whole decade, and in that time they tested various brand and label executions. They explored several directions – making it feel more like a Brooklyn coffee brand, for example, or leaning into the codes of old patent medicine.

Ultimately, however, they followed their instincts and chose whichever path felt “inevitable”. “We’ve gone through three or four fully-invested-our-hearts-into new brand and new labels,” says Dan Christofferson. “But such a huge part of a brand is just repetition, and doing the same thing over and over again until it locks in.”

Inevitability. Repetition. They’re not the sexy words agencies often use when talking about branding, but they’re the things that really work. And there’s something compelling about describing the right branding as ‘inevitable’ – it feels right, it feels instinctive, and somehow that was the place it was always going to get to.

GREAT BRANDS DON’T EXPLAIN THEMSELVES

To build a brand like Mr Black, you have to be a bit provocative. You have to trust your brand agency, you have to let them do their thing, and then you have to run with it – as far as you possibly can.

“The best founders have this objectivity, where they can look at their brand - which is so personal – and be able to see it how someone on the outside might see it,” says Dan Cassaro.

“That gives them extra insight. And when you’re able to do that, you give yourself more permission to build a specific type of confidence into the brand including the copy that you’re writing. You wouldn’t believe how many founders are so scared that they feel the need to explain everything, and then a lot of campaigns and even copywriting falls so flat.

“You have to be brave enough to go in there and be like: this is who we are. We’re confident. Maybe a bit funny. Maybe this doesn’t make that much sense, but it’s provocative. And I think you see that again and again in successful brands that people have an emotional connection with.”

With Mr Black, Young Jerks didn’t just design a label or a brand; they built a toolbox to empower the founder for years to come. They proved that confidence and true creative partnership are the most powerful forces for market disruption.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency
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Brewdog seeks a buyer, fizzy red, nostalgia reigns

The big news this month? Brewdog is up for sale. Ten or so years back, they were the beer business, but in recent times there’s been a palpable sense that the brand just isn’t landing anymore. It’s a reminder that even the highest flyers aren’t a sure thing.

The story is moving fast (the latest is that Danish brewer Royal Unibrew is interested in acquiring them, among various others), and there’s a lot of opinions on where things went wrong.

Brewdog themselves say it’s down to a “challenging economic climate”, which may be true, but it’s hard to forget about the various controversies they’ve faced over the years (alleged treatment of staff, the solid gold can scandal, the ‘beer for girls’, the departure of its founder and other senior figures, the Equity for Punks scheme).

Our take: it’s not over for them yet, but they’re going to need a smart buyer and probably a smart brand team to think about what the business actually stands for and how it communicates that to people – as well as how it moves beyond lingering bad feeling. Craft beer brands are now a dime a dozen, and finding distinctiveness of any kind is HARD.

In other news, is sparkling red about to have a moment? At the start of this month we chatted with Pizza Wine founder Liz McDonnell (NEWBIES feature coming soon), who’s building a brand that puts fizzy red into the spotlight (it goes great with pizza). We’ve spoken before about brands not knowing what ritual they’re for, but Pizza Wine knows exactly and specifically, and we love that.

Not long after this we saw that model Ashley Graham had set up a sparkling red wine brand, and then spotted Black Girl Magic Wines were also launching a sweet red frizzante.

If you’re not sipping on a sparkling red, you’re longing for the past. Shirley Temple is the recipe of the moment. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are bringing back classic flavors. Carling is reviving Black Label. Nostalgia’s powerful, and never more so than when it comes to food and drink.

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Here’s your news scroll:

NEW TO THE WORLD

Sentia – which makes “GABA-enhancing spirits” that stimulate neurotransmitters to make you feel relaxed and sociable – has launched a new alcohol-free cider.

Our take: This ‘not alcohol’ and ‘not THC’ category has huge potential, but the fact that it’s currently being dubbed ‘functional drinks’ is very unsexy. Sentia could be onto something, but their branding and messaging needs a lot of work.

Coinciding with the Winter Olympics, Peroni released limited edition, $100 gold bottles with solid gold caps.

Did you know the founders of this very Substack also have their own rum brand, Esther? Here she is, new to the world and ready to take over the white space that is the rum sector.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

Spindrift announced that they are now totally non-UPF.

Our take: think about the ongoing tequila additive wars. We’re going to see more brands flexing around being all-natural/UPF-free/additive-free, sugar-free, and using that as a tool to lure people in.

Is ‘whiskey tourism’ faltering? Off the back of Diageo closing a visitor centre at a Scottish distillery, the BBC reports on the waning fortunes of distillery tours. If you ask us, brands need to do more to show up where people are (rather than waiting for them to turn up).

There’s nothing like an animated graph for visualizing changes in drinking habits. Here’s Matt Rice, founder of Thirsty Insights, pointing out the slow-slow-slow-then-suddenly-fast expansion of wine RTDs.

INVESTORS’ CORNER

Willie’s Remedy+ continues to soar, landing $15m in Series A funding to keep growing the brand. Yahoo reports that it’s sold over 400k bottles since its launch less than a year ago, and it’s coming soon to retail shelves. People love THC.

Gallo just bought Four Roses from Kirin, not long after acquiring Whiny Baby. They’re diversifying. Watch this space.

INTERESTING FLAVORS

In previous Happy Hours, we noticed brands branching out into interesting flavors (Absolut Tabasco being the latest example). Now Heineken has added Lime and Nectarine Juniper to its zero beer range.

Our take: smart. There’s a huge number of alc-free beers, and it makes sense to differentiate yourself by injecting some novelty into the space.

Hendrick’s also just ventured into new flavors with orange blossom and cacao gin.

Apparently flavor is a major part of Surfside’s strategy, with its founders telling Forbes it aims for “familiar and popular” tastes that might seem fairly middle-of-the-road, but keep people coming back to them.

HIGH LOW NO

We’ve said it before: there’s always a contrarian. While everyone loses their minds for low-ABV and alcohol-free, some spirits brands are embracing high strength instead.

And then there’s the middle: the new Jack Daniels & Coke RTD is in a bigger can, but at a lower strength to make it “more sessionable”.

People love alcohol-free wine, people hate alcohol-free wine. Yahoo shares insight into the difficulties this particular sector faces – not least some of the condescension from the trad alc/bev industry.

Our take: the truth is, much de-alcoholized wine is mostly not very good, and that’s a liquid problem that branding can’t fix. As Benchmark Drinks’ MD says: “we’ve disappointed the consumer for many years”. Getting past that legacy is going to be tough.

CHANGING CULTURE

Sake is set for major global growth, says Beverage Daily. We’re currently working on a feature about sake’s expansion in Europe and the USA. Running a sake brand? Have opinions? Tell us. We want to talk to you.

SPONSORSHIP TIME

Cuervo is now the official tequila of NASCAR. NASCAR says its fans are 381.1% more likely to have consumed the brand in the past month, and 40.5% more likely to drink it. Definitely some numbers there.

A GLASS OF SPARKLING RED?

Model Ashley Graham is behind new sparkling red wine brand: Lucci Lambrusco.

THE FUN BIT

Reuters had a story about wine being aged under the sea by Chilean winemakers. According to one sommelier: “the tannins feel smoother, softer, the body feels more elegant”.

AdWeek has an interesting perspective on how brands won drinkers over to light beer. In short: no-one cared until the marketers got involved.

Why do some bartenders insist on importing ice from Japan? A short, but fascinating, answer here. The TLDR: it’s all about the craft and the experience.

Our take: there’s something compelling about the ‘accessories’ that come with drinking (for example Hoste Cocktail’s atomizers) and the potential for these to live as brands of their very own.

“Drinks founders don’t seem to wait around asking if they’re allowed to exist.” The ‘delusion’ of drinks founders is admirable and very necessary, says this Substack from Beholder.

The You, Me & CPG podcast says drinks brands need to loosen up. Have some fun. Be less serious.

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For years, the beverage industry operated on a playbook that prioritized rapid expansion and high-level storytelling, often at the expense of commercial viability. But as the market matures, the expectations from investors have shifted toward a more tactical realism.

To understand what it takes to actually move the needle today, I sat down with Emile Ward (an investor and operator who successfully navigated an exit with Gin Foundry). His perspective is rooted in the transition from selling others’ brands to investing in the next wave of leaders.

The message is clear: if you want to attract an acquirer, you have to stop chasing the “Casamigos exit” and start obsessing over actual business metrics (what a concept).

The Trap of the Generic Exit

One of the most common mistakes founders make is populating their pitch decks with the same pool of “logical” acquirers (think Diageo or Pernod Ricard) without considering if they actually fit the portfolio. Emile notes that this often signals a lack of market depth.

"They (naive founders) tend to put the same pool of acquirers as their potential exit. It’s always Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Bacardi… and it’s just not realistic. It doesn’t show that you know the market well enough."

Instead of aiming for the giants immediately, look at the layers beneath. We are seeing a rise in medium-sized brands, distributors, and cross-category movers taking center stage. For example, the acquisition of Alani Nu by Celsius, Whiny Baby by Gallo, or Lalo Tequila by Tito’s proves that target audience alignment can be more valuable than category tradition. A realistic exit strategy requires networking with the players who actually need your specific community or distribution plug-and-play.

Why Velocity is the Only Truth

For years, many founders focus on the “vanity metric” of total doors. Or appearances (we sponsored this party! we hired this person for content!). They want to be everywhere at once, hoping that sheer presence equals success. Today’s investors see right through this.

Listen carefully: The core indicator of your brand’s health is not how many accounts you have, it is how quickly those accounts are reordering. High velocity in a few key accounts is infinitely more valuable than a single dusty bottle sitting on a shelf in a thousand stores. If you cannot prove repeat purchase and increasing order rates over time, you do not have a brand (you have a one-time trial).

The New Investor Checklist

When you are looking to scale in this environment, these are the strategic shifts you need to internalize:

• The Omnichannel Necessity: While D2C is vital for community building and testing limited editions, beverage is won in distribution—the on-trade and off-premise. Emile has deep D2C experience, and shares below when it makes sense for a brand to focus on D2C.

• Leveraging Editorial Depth: Emile’s success with Gin Foundry was rooted in its dual nature as both a highly-trafficked editorial platform and a direct-to-consumer marketplace with hundreds of SKUs. This provided the “weight” needed to enter the market with authority.

• Margin Discipline: The days of burning cash for top-line growth are over. Investors want to see a clear plan for reducing COGS and maintaining tight control over gross margins as you scale.

• Hiring Above Yourself: Successful founders identify where they are weak and hire people who outsmart them in those areas. Humility in leadership is often the deciding factor in whether a brand can survive the transition from founder-led to a scaled operation.

Categories to Watch

Beyond the crowded non-alc and functional water spaces, there are pockets of opportunity where cultural intelligence is being applied to “unsexy” categories:

1. Healthy Condiments: Salad dressings and pantry staples that treat food as a lifestyle signal.

2. The “Better-for-You” Indulgence: Probiotic or protein-enriched treats that bridge the gap between wellness and hedonism.

3. The Wine Rebrand: Wine has the history and the lower ABV that a new generation craves, but the branding and formats (cans, boxes) are still catching up to the culture.

Building a System, Not Just a Story

The goal is not to tell the most beautiful story, it is to build a commercial system that works. The story should back that up, not the other way around. Investors are not buying your “vision” (they are buying your proof of adoption).

As Emile reminded us, "It’s easy to sell something once, but it’s really hard to sell something twice."

The brands that earn a permanent spot in a consumer’s routine are the ones that stop being a trend and become a staple.

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Like a lot of good stories, IESSI starts with family. Founder Nicolas Maiarelli grew up in Udine, in northeastern Italy, drinking aperitivo and learning how to make amaro alongside his Nonna. In 2023, that family recipe evolved into IESSI: an alcohol-free aperitif made using bitter orange, ginger, rhubarb, gentian and chilli pepper.

That’s a powerful list of ingredients and indeed, IESSI is a powerful drink: flavorful, bitter, and defiantly not a lesser version of its alcoholic forebears.

Bitter is here to stay

The interest in bitter flavors isn’t a resurgence — they’ve been around for centuries — but bitter is certainly having a moment. That’s very noticeable in the alcohol-free space. Or, at least, in the more successful alcohol-free brands.

“When it comes to alcohol-free gin or alcohol-free whatever, you lack the strength, length and depth in the flavors,” says Romain Llobet, who joined as Partner and Strategic Director at IESSI after 23 years in the food and bev business.

“When it comes to bitter it’s fantastic, because you’re happy, you have flavors, you don’t feel like you should have drunk something else. I think in alcohol-free right now, if there’s no flavor, people are abandoning the idea.”

For IESSI, flavor is a story. There’s an “arc” to the drink, as Nicolas says: a beginning, a middle and an end. That requires complexity, and bitterness delivers that instantly.

“You can finish a drink and feel satiated,” he says. “Whereas if the flavor’s too light, you risk entering the realm of a soft drink.”

People don’t want to be preached to

That complex, bitter flavor is one part of the IESSI brand. The other is how it presents itself in a sector that often pushes its product as an “alternative” to alcohol, or a “better choice”. Frequently, the messaging feels preachy. IESSI is anything but.

“First of all, we’re not a wellness brand,” says Nicolas. “We don’t talk about sobriety. We’re not in the business of telling you what you should and shouldn’t drink. We’re about making sure that, in those moments that you don’t want to drink or drink a lower ABV, that you have an exceptional and out of the ordinary experience ... we never talk about sobriety. We never impose this idea that drinking is bad. For us, IESSI is a brand built around being inclusive in those social moments.”

Let’s talk about the branding

That deep ruby liquid. The bright orange label. Those sloping glass shoulders. It’s clear that IESSI’s branding and packaging has been designed with a lot of love. Nicolas says that, from the get-go, he wanted it to live “in the realm of premium spirits”, taking reference points from beautiful bottles of bitters, mezcals, rums and gins, rather than sodas.

IESSI needed to be both new and timeless — something that feels like an instant classic, but that won’t seem dated in two years’ time. And Nicolas was clear: absolutely no lazy nostalgia or clichéd Italian visual references. “It’s not an easy brief,” he admits.

He brought in Florent Gomez Siso, founder of studio AD-REM, who saw the liquid and instantly knew the Pantone reference he wanted to use for the label. (By the way, that exact colour of the liquid is very important. Nicolas says they experienced some variation in the earlier batches due to normal variations in natural fruit juice, and now use a natural carrot concentrate to get a more uniform, rich red).

“We wanted to create a brand that feels contemporary, but the other thing I wanted was to be bold,” he says. “The fact that the label is wrap-around with big bold text and the colour really stands out — when you see a bottle on a backbar, that’s all you see.

“We want to own who we are. Just because it’s an alcohol-free product, doesn’t mean we have to be meek and slink to the back of a shelf.”

IESSI’s strategy: win over the bars first

When Nicolas first launched the brand, he’d pack his backpack full of bottles and walk it round to bars in Paris. His ambition is for people to discover IESSI in the absolute best restaurants, wine and cocktail bars. “If it’s on the menu and you trust the sommelier, the chef, the bartender, even if you’ve never heard of the brand you know it’s been ‘vetted’, for lack of a better term,” he explains.

Today, that’s how they land most customers. Nicolas says they get a huge number of people trying it in a restaurant and ordering it online, and for them that’s the best feeling, and the perfect story.

“You know there’s the expression: it took me 10 years to be an overnight success,” he says. “I hope that we follow the same trajectory with iessi. We’ll plug away, 10 years, restaurant by restaurant, bartender by bartender, and then we’ll reach critical mass.”

Alc-free’s reckoning is coming

Alcohol-free brands are going to live and die on flavor. You can’t rely on being a mixer or a secondary ingredient — your base-level product has to be exceptional.

And Nicolas has a harsh diagnosis for anyone in the alc-free sector that isn’t hitting that mark:

“Half the products on the market today don’t deserve to be on the market in five or 10 years’ time.”

NEW RULES FROM IESSI

Flavor is everything
Complex, multi-layered tastes are mandatory for any alc-free brand.

Branding is extremely seductive
Don’t underestimate the power of colour, type and form.

Win over the bars, and everyone else follows
Your on-premise relationships are the driving force for brand discovery in the wider world

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There’s some truth to this, of course. But I’ve had this nagging feeling that to demonize alcohol completely, to announce that we as the “evolved generation” are “moving on” from this evolutionary hiccup, seems narrow minded. There must be a bigger story here, I’ve been thinking, alcohol and humanity are too closely entwined to simplify our entire relationship to alcohol to “toxin.”

And then I read the incredible book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization by Edward Slingerland.

I Highly recommend this book to everyone - those who love to drink, those who are 100% sober, and everything in between.

So I was elated when Edward Slingerland, author and Professor of Early Chinese Philosophy, agreed to speak to me for this very newsletter. Edward has a unique vantage point: he truly looks at a glass of wine or a neat pour of spirits through a 13,000-year lens. His work suggests that alcohol isn’t an evolutionary mistake, but a cultural technology that actually made the human project possible.

We sat down to talk about the prefrontal cortex, the Southern way of drinking, and why a THC gummy is a terrible social tool (please forgive me, THC people).

The paradox of spontaneity

Edward’s journey into the history of booze started with ancient Chinese philosophy, specifically the concept of spontaneity. Spontaneity is a paradox. You cannot consciously try to relax, because the part of the brain you use to try, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), is the exact part that needs to shut down for you to be present.

The PFC is the center of our adult selves. It’s responsible for delayed gratification, staying on task, and spreadsheets. But it’s also the center of our inhibitions. To get around this, humans developed a chemical short circuit. Edward explains that “the wine goes in and turns down our prefrontal cortex for us. So it avoids this paradox of activating the part of the brain you’re trying to shut down.”

Alcohol downregulates the PFC, returning us to a child-like state of lateral thinking where we can connect ideas that don’t seem related and, more importantly, trust the people sitting across from us.

Ever become friends with someone when drinking that you normally don’t talk to? I sure have. That’s the magic. It takes down the barriers.

The sandbox of the mind

One of Edward’s most compelling points is about the adult brain being the enemy of innovation. Children are naturally creative because their PFC isn’t fully developed yet; they can see a cardboard box and truly believe it’s a spaceship. If I tell my 5-year-old that her breakfast is “kitty food” she’ll be much more likely to eat it (while meowing). As adults, our PFC “knows” it’s just a box or a bowl of oatmeal.

By temporarily handicapping the PFC, alcohol allows us to return to a state of cognitive flexibility. For a founder or a creator, a drink isn’t an escape from work; it’s a tool to bypass the internal critic that kills new ideas.

This allows the brain to play in a sandbox that the adult PFC usually keeps locked. Because humans are an “intensely tool-dependent, technology-dependent species,” we are “completely dependent on creativity for our success.”

The dishonesty premium and social trust

The current wellness movement often frames drinking as unevolved. Edward argues that by focusing solely on the physical cost, we are ignoring the catastrophic cost of the alternative: loneliness and a lack of social trust.

Lying is a very PFC heavy function. It takes a lot of cognitive energy to maintain a deception. When we drink together, we are essentially cognitively disarming. Edward describes the act of sharing a drink as a high stakes social signal: “If we sit down and have a couple beers, I’ve taken my PFC out and put it on the table and said, ‘I’m cognitively disarmed. I’m going to have trouble lying to you.’”

It’s the modern version of shaking hands to show you aren’t holding a weapon; you’re showing the other person that you are currently incapable of complex manipulation. This disarming is what allowed humans to move from small tribes to massive, innovative civilizations. It creates a state where trust can move faster than it ever could in a purely sober, guarded environment.

Respecting the potency of the liquid

For most of history, humans were limited by natural fermentation, which usually caps out around 2 or 3 percent ABV. Edward points out that the arrival of distillation changed the landscape. It created a super concentrated, high potency version of ethanol that requires a higher degree of care.

The shift today isn’t about running away from spirits. It is about bringing back the ritual that these stronger liquids demand. Because spirits are so much more potent than the weak beer of our ancestors, they can’t be treated casually. Edward warns that “it’s in such a concentrated form that I think you should really think about it as a different type of drug and treat it that way.”

The danger is really the loss of the social mandate and pacing. We’ve moved from the public square to the private home. When we take a concentrated substance and use it in isolation, we lose the brakes provided by the group.

The Southern vs. Northern model

Edward draws a sharp distinction between how different cultures handle the beast of alcohol.

The Northern Model: Alcohol is a separate event. You go to a bar specifically to get drunk. It’s often about escape or blowing off steam.

The Southern Model: Alcohol is a background character. It is integrated into the table, consumed in moderation, and almost always paired with food and mixed generational groups.

In Italy, historically, they drank the most per capita, but they had some of the lowest alcoholism rates in the world. In the Southern model, visible drunkenness is a source of social shame. Edward argues that “adopting something like the Southern drinking culture is probably protective” against the risks of alcohol use disorder. It’s a more sophisticated way of engaging with the liquid, treating the drink as a catalyst for conversation rather than the destination itself.

Why the green wave will never replace the bar

With the rise of legal cannabis, many predict the end of the spirits industry. Edward is skeptical. From a cultural evolutionary standpoint, cannabis lost the battle to ethanol thousands of years ago for a reason: it’s a bad social drug.

Cannabis lasts too long, it’s difficult to dose, and it often makes people paranoid or inside their own heads rather than socially bonded. “Cannabis will never replace alcohol for this reason,” Edward says.

Alcohol won because it is predictable, its effects are short lived, and it consistently makes people want to talk to each other.

Reclaiming the connection

As we look toward 2026, the brands that win won’t be the ones selling wasted nights or pure optimization. They will be the ones that help us reclaim the Southern model of connection. That help people connect with the real tangible benefits of alcohol.

Alcohol, when treated with the care its potency deserves, serves as a catalyst for our social lives. It’s a tool that helps us put down our phones, turn off our internal spreadsheets, and actually see the people in front of us.

The takeaway for founders: Don’t sell the liquid; sell the container. And alcohol isn’t going anywhere. It’s too much a part of who we are.

THE NEW RULE:

The goal isn’t to defend drinking at all costs; it’s to defend the social life it makes possible. If your brand doesn’t help build the table, you’re just selling a commodity. If it does, you may be selling a lifeline.

The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency

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