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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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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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.

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

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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.

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We are truly in non-alc’s growth era. It’s hard to believe, but ten years ago it was just barely a category. Ordering something ‘non-alc’ meant forcing down a substandard zero beer or maybe a juice, and enduring a side of social condescension.

It’s not just that there weren’t that many non-alcoholic brands, it’s that people’s attitudes were entirely different. Ten years ago, Dry January wasn’t even a thing. Now every single person you’re friends with knows about it, and half of them have probably done it.

“In 2020, the average American consumer didn’t know about alcohol alternatives beyond O’Doul’s,” says Victoria Watter, founder of media brand Dry Atlas and Spirited Away – a booze-free bottle shop in NYC, recently acquired by ex-Campari Group Global Marketing Director Nicholas Pelis.

“Consumers may not have had an opinion before. Now, they’re forming them.”

Dry Atlas is evidence of this huge surge in enthusiasm, with Victoria saying they’re tracking 1,500+ alcohol alternatives and adding at least 50 more (!) to their database weekly. And when we spoke to The Zero Proof founder Sean Goldsmith, he told us distributors right now are getting more enquiries from non-alc brands than traditional alc companies. This is a crowded category.

It’s a huge shift. But it’s a shift we should be wary of. Sure, the non-alc space might have huge potential for growth, but that doesn’t make it easy. And sure, more people than ever are curious about it (Victoria says 50% of Spirited Away’s footfall comes from interested newbies), but brands shoudn’t assume that will make it straightforward.

And importantly, brands should be very wary of the current ‘no-one is drinking’ narrative.

After a lot of credulous press coverage insisting that young people aren’t drinking, that Americans aren’t drinking, that drinking as we know it is over…. we’ve come to the other side. Bev/alc founders, as well as journalists and commentators, are popping their heads over the parapet to say that, actually, young people are drinking. And that maybe one Gallup poll from one year shouldn’t be taken as a truth for eternity.

As someone who spends her days immersed in that non-alc space, we asked Victoria: how true is the not-drinking narrative?

“People aren’t necessarily becoming abstainers,” she says. “They’re becoming more intentional about what they consume.

“The growth is in ‘sometimes drinkers’ who want better options for the occasions they don’t consume alcohol. Per Nielsen, 92% of alcohol alternatives buyers also buy products containing alcohol, so it’s more about moderation than anything else.”

That chimes with conversations we’re having at The New Rules. For example, Botivo founder Imme Ermgassen told us that their product isn’t anti-alcohol, it’s a partner to alcohol:

“It is not against alcohol, it is with alcohol, it is alongside it. It sits very much in its own space.”

People are mixing non-alc options into cocktails. Theyre having non-alc drinks in between alcoholic drinks. There’s so much room here, but… you can’t get complacent, and you can’t make assumptions.

As someone who spends her days talking to alcohol-free brands, profiling them, and following people’s in-person reactions to non-alc options, we asked Victoria:

What will it take for non-alc brands to NOT f*** this up?

According to her, these are the mistakes it’s making:

1)The quality of the liquid

It’s so obvious, but according to Victoria many non-alc brands are still missing the mark. If this reminds you of all those meat-free brands that looked great but tasted awful, then yes it does.

2)Brand positioning

Companies are being way too broad in their targeting of consumes and drinking occasion. “Too many brands lead with vague lifestyle language instead of speaking to a specific consumer and making the drinking occasion crystal clear,” she says.

3)Lazy language

Language is really important. Early on, says Victoria, a lot of non-alc brands leant on old codes – using ‘gin’ and ‘whisky’ out of necessity, to help consumers orient themselves in a novel category. However that tactic is looking like it might be dead in the water (the EU recently ruled that non-alcoholic liquids cannot be called gin. You’ve got to assume that whiskey, tequila, wine and all the rest could be next).

Victoria says that today’s most successful non-alc brands are selling themselves with novel formulas, and product names that live outside of alcohol.

4)Distribution, distribution, distirbution

While demand is moving beyond Dry January, founders are worried about distribution. Victoria says retail buyers still misunderstand the category and brands are burning cash trying to scale too fast.

“Getting on the shelves is only half the battle,” she says. “Then you have to worry about sell-through.”

With that in mind, the best brands aren’t trying to seduce the entire US market at once, says Victoria. They start small and focused in a limited area, via independent retailers.

In summary:

If you’re a non-alc brand and you think being part of a buzzy sector is enough, you’re in trouble.

Ask yourself: is my liquid exceptional? Is it enough? do I know who my consumer is? What occasion do I fit into? Where’s my place? Being able to answer all of those things clearly, and confidently, is what’s going to be the difference btween building a non-alc brand that people love and come back to, and a buzzy novelty that people buy once and never think about again.

“When a product earns a permanent spot in someone’s routine, it stops being a trend and becomes a staple,” says Victoria. “The long-term winners are building for that.”

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First, let’s deal with the controversial part: wine branding is boring – and it’s overcomplicated

If Gratsi has any lesson to teach, it’s that wine companies need to work a lot harder, and do a lot less. Long-established brands are losing consumers because they’re speaking a language people don’t understand, and don’t particularly care about. Flavors and characteristics are appealing, yes, but most people aren’t interested in this as a selling point.

“They don’t care about spices, or subtle aromas,” says Gratsi Marketing Director Achilleas Petris, “they just want to drink something that’s easy and that they like, and if it’s good enough for them they keep buying it.”

Wine brands are also overwhelming people with options. People want an experience, and they don’t want to have to think too much about it. Gratsi’s philosophy is one of a simple life well-lived. The brand offers people easy options: white, red, rosé. If you’re keen, you can buy a bundle, or add on some pasta, or a glass. But whatever it is, it has to be straightforward.

As Achilleas says: “If you want to make something that appeals to most people, you should speak a simpler language. You shouldn’t overcomplicate it and paralyze people with too many options. Just give them something great.”

What does Gratsi do differently?

Well, they sell you on the convenience first and then they bring you into a brand world that’s a genuine delight to inhabit.

There’s no snooty messaging and no old-fashioned tasting notes. That’s been replaced with evocative storytelling and content, generously shared and beautifully told. It’s premium, version 2.0. Now, let’s talk about how that came into existence…

A wine brand born from the Mediterranean lifestyle

Gratsi’s origin story will be relatable to anyone that’s been on vacation in Europe. Let’s set the scene: you’re in Greece (or maybe Italy), you’re at a local tavern, they bring you the five-Euro house wine and it’s some of the best you’ve ever tasted. This was the feeling Gratsi founder Stephen Vlahos wanted to capture: simple, easy, enjoyable. And he didn’t just want to do that by selling wine — he wanted to create an all-encompassing experience.

“There’s this whole mentality of enjoying wine without thinking too much,” says Achilleas. “Wine is one part of it. He wanted to amplify the lifestyle of the Mediterranean. He wanted to bring this idea of people enjoying great quality wine, without spending too much money — and without all the additives and sugars — home to the States.”

Enter the box

When it comes to wine, anything that arrives in a box has historically been seen as inferior. Boxed wine isn’t for true connoisseurs — it’s for students, or drinkers that don’t “get” wine, or people that don’t want to spend too much.

On the other hand, a box is an incredibly practical way of storing and transporting it. One three-liter bag can hold four bottles’ worth of wine. That wine can be better quality because the brand isn’t having to pay for glass or extra weight while shipping. And that wine can be marketed more effectively because there’s more budget left over for it.

Gratsi has definitely had to find its place on the axis of quality versus convenience. Achilleas says that, in the early days of the business, they encountered plenty of latent snobbery around boxed wine. It wasn’t an easy object to sell as “premium”.

The answer? To get “logical”. He says that the brand started tuning their ad messaging to focus on convenience – luring people in with a practical message, and then keeping them there with everything else the brand does so well.

“At tastings we were telling people about the unique selling points — the freshness, how much wine is inside the box. They’d try a glass and say, ‘that’s really good, it’s half the price of what I usually pay’. The whole idea of premium comes after that, once we can keep them and educate them on what makes us different.”

Being premium means giving more than you get

Gratsi began life as an ecommerce brand — although it’s now stocked in 1,600 shops across four states — and it’s maintained that way of thinking. They prioritize creating best-of-the-best content, and they liberally share that with their customers.

There’s Gratsi’s Slow Dinner Club blog, which is an online treasure trove of recipes, travel writing and Mediterranean culture. There’s also their newsletters, which feature playlists, book recommendations and short films — such as Gratsi’s recent ‘One Week in Tuscany’ mini-doc, which played out over 23 minutes and introduced Nonna Laura and her Tuscan farm.

The bar for this content has been set high, according to Achilleas, who says the strategy is to only ever send out the kind of thing they would love to receive themselves. That means lots of storytelling, with sales and offer messaging kept to a minimum.

“We give more to the customer than we ask in return,” he explains.

It’s the whole experience

Achilleas says that Gratsi’s “premiumness” is 30% what’s in the box, and 70% everything else the brand does. We’ve already spoken about their content, but they also prioritize great customer service, ensuring people can speak to another human, and not AI, if they need to resolve an issue. And subscribers to Gratsi’s wine boxes can expect “surprising and delightful gifts” to turn up in their mailbox, as an extra part of the experience.

Those gifts have to meet as high a bar as Gratsi’s content. According to Achilleas: “Everything we produce — the wine, the design, the product, the gifts, the merch, the customer service — we want to do in a way that we love first as a team. If we don’t love it as a team, we don’t give it to the customer.

“The product has to be great, but the product is not enough to make a premium brand. You have to surround it with everything else around it to keep it there.”

NEW RULES FROM GRATSI

You don’t need to kill people with choice
Simple decisions are easy decisions.

But killing them with kindness is a strategy
Courting your customer is absolutely the way to go.

Premium brands give, and they give generously
Content, merch, extras, it all adds up.

If you don’t love it, your customer won’t
Set a high bar for yourself and the people you serve.

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A quick welcome to all of our new subscribers – we love seeing so many newbies. Let’s get acquainted: we’re a Substack dedicated to brand building in the bev/alc space, and we share:

>Founder and expert interviews (like this one, with The Zero Proof founder Sean Goldsmith)
> Newbies spotlights of brand new brands (like this profile of ‘forbidden spirit’ SAG)
> Features that dive deep into the trends shaping beverage today (like, say, the age of potency or the era of GLP-1s)
> Our very own hot takes 🔥 (like this piece exploring what non-alc can learn from meat-free’s demise)

The Madre Mezcal story

Madre Mezcal has grown through the creative community that recognizes itself in the work: designers, musicians, hospitality people, artists. The result is a mezcal that carries a clear point of view, and feels rooted in the cultural lives of the people who built and love it.

Community-first looks like this

“We captured the imagination of the graphic design community on day one,” says Madre Mezcal co-founder Chris Stephenson, who partnered with the brand agency Land to create Madre’s iconic identity. Looking at the tequila brand’s label and visual expression, that’s not surprising.

What may be surprising is the way that same creative community has catalyzed the business’s growth. Madre Mezcal didn’t need an influencer strategy – they were speaking to a built-in network from the get-go.

Ready-made connections

That community has been a huge driving force for the business. Madre knows that when they open in a new market, they’re tapping into a global creative network that’s “psychographically connected”, and primed to love the brand.

As Chris Stephenson says: “We were not spirits people at all. The way we approached the brand came from the creative worlds we lived in.” The result is a mezcal that carries a clear point of view, and that feels rooted in the cultural lives of the people who built it.”

The Madre world

The identity of Madre feels cohesive because it grew from a real cultural ecosystem. Chris describes the founding team as “this little culture agency on day one.” Their combined backgrounds created a shared vocabulary that naturally translated into the brand’s tone, visuals, and community.

The illustrations and label system are central to that expression. They carry a handmade, folkloric quality that feels both contemporary and connected to Oaxaca. They’re the visual language that anchors Madre and signals its point of view wherever the bottle appears.

Scaling the brand

Madre is now moving into national chains and larger commercial spaces, including Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Pavilions, and international markets. Costco is testing the brand in California and New Mexico. “My goal is to make it the number one brand without losing the identity,” he says.

Of those partners, Costco surprised him. “Costco has the highest disposable income consumer in America,” he says, adding that Madre performs well there because the product, price, and identity align with how that customer shops. Walmart represents a different challenge. It requires education and patience because, as Chris puts it, “You have to ask whether the Walmart consumer is yet a mezcal consumer.”

There’s still a mezcal story to be told

Tequila (actually a type of Mezcal) is massive and getting louder. Mezcal is growing, but it’s still early for most consumers. That gap creates space for a brand like Madre to define how people first meet the category.

Chris puts it simply: “There is a mezcal story to be told that still hasn’t been told.” Madre’s advantage is its clarity. It’s rooted in natural production, cultural authenticity, and a creative identity that already resonates.

As Chris says, “Everything we do is about being natural. In a world that is becoming increasingly artificial, a return to natural and authentic is real.”

Madre doesn’t need to change. It needs to keep presenting mezcal in a way people can understand and connect with.

NEW RULES FROM MADRE MEZCAL

Identity needs a real origin
It can’t be reverse engineered, or post-rationalized.

Community builds strong early momentum
Building a network of likeminded people can power you onwards.

Scaling works when your brand stays intact
You can go into Costco. And Trader Joe’s. But you need to know who you are.

Authenticity is more valuable as the market gets noisier
It’s an overused word. That doesn’t make it any less powerful.

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Welcome to Dry January 2026! Is it even “Dry January?” Honestly, for me, I have no idea. For you? Doesn’t matter! The below hits no matter how you drink these days or this month.

The social friction of moderation

In a world where the social fabric is fraying, the act of not drinking alcohol often means isolating yourself. If 90% of non-alcoholic buyers still drink alcohol, the category is not about abstinence, it’s about managing the social friction of moderation.

For NA to become a lasting, scalable category, it must graduate from being an afterthought to a core component of the total beverage ecosystem.

We’re talking on-premise, too.

We spoke with Sean Goldsmith, founder of The Zero Proof D2C non-alc marketplace and multi-brand distribution arm about how brand, distribution, and on-premise strategy must align to seize the non-alc moment.

Controversial statement incoming—>

According to Sean, the long-term success of the non alcoholic space depends on the normalization of distribution and the sophistication of the on-premise occasion. Brands must shift their focus from convincing consumers to convincing the gatekeepers, distributors and retailers, that NA is a permanent, high value vertical.

Wellness is the driver, distribution is the way

Sean Goldsmith co-founded The Zero Proof after quitting his finance job and taking a break from drinking. He quickly saw the potential in the category, but his experience confirms that moderation, not abstinence, is the market’s engine.

Sean confirms the statistic that over 90% of non alcoholic buyers still drink alcohol. The core drive is wellness. “They’re drinking way less,” with consumption down 20%-30% in some segments.

For years, the category’s growth was suppressed because “distributors weren’t exactly sure what to do with the product [and] retail buyers weren’t exactly sure where it goes in the store.” Sean views this normalization, where “the gatekeepers... understand that this is here to stay,” as the imminent factor that will cause the category to finally break out in the near future.

“I think really in January of 2026 (NOW!) we’re going to see just an onslaught where the category is opening up.”

While breaking into bars and restaurants is “hard... a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of money,” Sean argues that on-premise is where brands are truly built (an interesting statement from the owner of a DTC marketplace!).

He notes that consumers “want to splurge” on a thoughtful NA beverage in a social setting and it serves as a crucial introduction point. The Zero Proof focuses heavily on this, with B2B sales ranging from high end salons to national restaurant chains, and currently supplies 50 plus Michelin accounts!

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The fluid bar menu

I’ve been mulling over this idea ever since chatting with Sean. It’s incredibly captivating.

Imagine this:

In the near future, you walk into a bar and look at the menu. There’s a range of thoughtful drinks that start at 0% ABV and increase from there. There’s nothing “lesser” about drinking a non-alc cocktail - in fact, no one is paying attention, because it’s really about the drink itself: serious mixology, high quality ingredients, and delicious experiences.

Sean anticipates that the future bar menu won’t just split into “alc” and “NA,” but will evolve into a spectrum: non alc -> mid ABV -> full strength products that allow a drinker to move fluidly between options without sacrificing the social experience.

He believes the next stage requires hospitality to catch up to demand.

As the market gets “a lot of noise,” the bar for entry is rising. Sean warns founders must “think deeply about your brand and what you want to say and how your product is going to be different and/or stand out from the pack,” as The Zero Proof and larger buyers are now overwhelmed with samples and pitches.

THE NEW RULE

The NA brand is built on-premise, but the category is won in distribution.

The companies that will win, including The Zero Proof as a platform, are those actively engaging distributors and retailers, making the non alcoholic choice functionally and socially seamless in the environments where culture and brand perception are built.

Thanks for reading!

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It’s also – as the name hints – a newsletter about rules: the new rules shaping the industry, the old ones that still hold true, and the rules that are ready to be smashed into smithereens.

For our final newsletter of the year, we sifted through all the conversations we had in 2025 with people building brands, to put together a master list of rules.

They won’t all be right for your business. In fact, some of them will be downright wrong – but that’s the beauty of bringing together so many perspectives. Borrow what you want, and break the rest.

And a quick note that next year we’ll be sharing our 2026 industry report, featuring thoughts from some of the most exciting bev/alc brands out there. Subscribe to get it first.

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1)People care about ingredients, and roots and where you come from. If you can tell a great, true story about that – double down on it.

(like Spearhead Spirits)

2)Drinking comes with mental math now. People are thinking about calories, provenance, hormones, health, hangover cost, identity signalling…..your drink is now a moral signal, not just a flavor.

(as strategist Jasmine Bina explains)

3)Do things without apologizing. If your audience speaks two languages, your brand can too.

(like Casalú)

4)It’s simple: a brand is a story. Got a great narrative? You’ve already won half the battle.

(Like Mario’s Hard Espresso)

5)GLP-1s are going to have an impact. Brands will need to flex their muscles on flavor, size, messaging, brand world and consumer relationships. Not necessarily all at once.

(More on that here)

6)Bottled cocktails are big and getting bigger. If you want to be competitive you need to keep the ritual special and the liquid undeniable.

(like Hoste Cocktails)

7)Know what occasion your brand fits into, and then find yourself a place in that.

(like Wild Mannered)

8)Don’t skimp on your logo. It can be a visual anchor for your brand, and the thing that lets the rest of your business stay scrappy.

(like Cheeky Cocktails)

9)Don’t preach to people. Don’t position yourself as the less fun option. Build an experience so good people want it for the pleasure alone.

(like Botivo)

10)Hype always fades away. Know exactly who you are and what you offer, for when it does.

(More on that here)

11)Tradition is always ready for innovation. But you need to know what you’re doing differently, and make sure everyone else knows that as well.

(like Vigie)

12)Don’t expect people to make an appointment to see your brand. Show up where people are. Be part of their lives.

(More on that here)

13)You can have the best brand design and the best product in the world, but you need to know exactly how to get it into people’s hands.

(Like BRĒZ)

14)Develop product lines that can speak to total newbies to your category – as well as the die-hard fans.

(like Holmes Cay Premium Rum)

15)Be visible. Share your mistakes. People want to buy from people they know and like.

(as consultant Molly Bossardt explains)

16)Don’t be a traditional spirits company. Be a content company that just happens to sell spirits.

(like James Gin)

17)People see products on their phone. They buy it. They try it at home. Nail your content strategy, and the rest follows

(as Emma Wykes says)

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We had a look back through the interviews we shared on The New Rules this year, the news stories we bookmarked, and the bev/alc brands we saved to buy later, and we’ve put together a quick guide.

Craving bitter flavors? There’s a section for you. Mad about tequila? There’s something for you too. Not drinking? We’ve got suggestions.

It’s not an exhaustive list, but we hope it comes in handy. Happy festive season and happy drinking, however it is you like to drink.

And by the way, come back in the new year when we’ll be publishing our major new 2026 report, which will delve into some of the most-admired brands in the bev/alc space (including some featured here). Subscribe below to be the first to receive.

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Ghia: Shark Tank said no, but a lot of drinkers have since said yes.

Faccia Brutto: Delicious, Italian-style spirits, and the branding’s pretty great too.

Iessi: Great branding, great tasting, totally alcohol-free.

Mother Root: Founder Bethan told us the taste is potentially ‘divisive’, but said that’s ok.

Non: The flavors really are the thing here.

The Pathfinder: Come for the culty branding, stay for the taste.

The Original Southside: It’s an American cocktail with 100 years of history. And it’s now available in a can.

Casalú: A rum-based RTD that speaks straight from its own culture, no apologies.

The Original Pickle Shot: Sometimes you want a pickleback, and you don’t want to have to go to a bar to get one.

Spearhead Spirits: They’ve got gin, they’ve got whiskey, they’ve got vodka, all infused with wonderful African flavors.

Mario’s Hard Espresso: Based on a time-honored family recipe, so you know it’s going to be good.

Vigie: “Citrusy, bright and it doesn’t have a bitter edge,” says founder Samaria.

Wild Mannered: No artifical colors, flavors or sweeteners, just very drinkable soju.

Esther: Rum is back, and it’s better than ever. Now available for pre-orders.

SAG: For a spirit you’re less familiar with. Made using Cali raisins and distilled in Yonkers.

La Gritona: The bottle is everything.

Madre Mezcal: Artisanal mezcal made in Oaxaca, and could the label be any more charming?

Olujo: Drink it now, save the bottle for later.

Living Roots: A brand whose legacy goes back six generations.

Gratsi: Boxed wine has never been so appealing.

Ami Ami: One you won’t mind leaving out on the countertop.

BRĒZ: A tonic for every frame of mind. “Choose your state, without the trade-offs,” says their founder

Recess: Festive season is stressful. Recess is all about calm.

Fabric: Get your THC, CBG and CBD in one, hoppy can.

GinZoil: A bottle that’s crying out to be held (the gin inside is “a little tart, a little bitter and totally delicious”).

Hoste Cocktails: For when you want an extra-big serving of ready-to-serve cocktail (complete with citrus atomizer).

Sylva: A supremely minimal exterior that belies a complex making process.

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The New Rules of Bev/Alc is a newsletter, an annual report (STAY TUNED FOR OUR 2026 REPORT COMING THIS JANUARY), and an approach. Curious to learn more and/or partner? Reach out: hi@nihilo.agency.

PSA: Drinking is being renegotiated.

Non-alc brands are proliferating. GLP-1 prices are being lowered by President Trump (???). THC seltzers are at Target. Functional drinks promise calm, focus, sleep, or clean energy. And at the same time, people still gather at bars, dinners, long tables, and tiny apartments where someone somehow owns four different amaros.

Something real is shifting. I’m not talking trends, or even cycles. I’m talking about a rewiring in culture.

To understand it, I sat down with strategist Jasmine Bina, founder of Concept Bureau. I absolutely love her work on “invisible culture,” the feelings and behaviors moving under the surface before they are spoken aloud.

All quotes below are from Jasmine.

We chatted about the cultural forces around brand, drinking, and what’s coming next.

1. Drinking now comes with mental math

“What you put into your body now requires an insane amount of mental math.”

That math did not exist a generation ago. Wine was once safer than water. Rum rations were given to the British Navy.

Alcohol was a social lubricant, a way to relax or escape or simply enjoy a flavor - and it did not require explanation. It just was.

Now, before someone orders a drink, an invisible spreadsheet opens in their mind.

• Calories

• Sugar

• Provenance

• Additives

• GLP-1s

• Gut health

• Sleep tracking

• Skin

• Hormones

• Hangover cost

• Identity signaling

“We are so hyper aware of our bodies now. The surface area of what you monitor about yourself has exploded.”

Food and beverage have become moral territory. Words like clean, natural, good, and toxic are no longer neutral; they describe the person buying the drink, or at least the person they want to be.

New Rule 1: Your drink is a moral signal, not just a flavor.

Legacy brands that still sell pure escapism are speaking to a world that no longer exists.

2. Functional drinks are lonely, tables are not

Jasmine draws a sharp line between functional beverages and alcohol:

“A lot of these functional drinks are very solitary. They are about replenishing whatever or fitting into whatever ideology you have about your body.”

Functional drinks serve the self. They reinforce a wellness loop, a belief system, an identity.

Alcohol has always lived elsewhere. It has been about connection or, at the extreme, escape. But assuming it will naturally reclaim that role is wishful thinking.

Every Friday night at my Shabbat dinner table, my husband blesses the wine or grape juice and we all say amen and take a sip. This moment is not about optimization. It is about connection, grounding, and return. If I were alone, I may still make the blessing, but it would be kind of depressing if I’m honest. That’s what wine represents to me: connection. It would be hard to say the same thing about a protein soda.

New Rule 2: Decide if you are building for the self or for the table, then commit.
If your product belongs at a table, build around shared experience. Connection is its own form of growth.

3. The return to the body

Jasmine zooms out to the deeper currents behind this moralization:

“When the FDA opened comments for the word natural, people kept bringing up God. What God would have intended. Food became moralized long before people noticed.”

That moral language never disappeared. It simply shifted into clean versus toxic and good versus bad. Today, every drink is now a moral expression.

“The body is kind of the last moral landscape remaining.”

When everything else feels unstable (the world today, but especially the world today with the 24-hour instant news cycle), people try to control what goes into their body. That becomes the place where they can literally ingest the virtue they seek to uphold.

But right now - end of 2025 - there’s a new cultural shift happening, and we can see it everywhere: People want to feel something real. And they want it to be intense.

I read 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck when I was 19, and back then Ayahuasca was an OUT THERE idea. It felt otherworldly. I was completely fascinated and utterly terrified. It’s wild to see how much that has shifted—psychedelics are just one of many formerly taboo or fringe things that we see absolutely everywhere, alongside cold plunges, breathwork, dark romantasy, giant soundbaths, etc.

People want potency. They want experience. They want to feel alive. The optimization fatigue is getting real.

New Rule 3: Give people something they can feel.

4. Permission and the end of the mainstream

Jasmine, who coined “the age of potency” to describe where culture is right now, ties potency to permission - what a space lets you feel, do, or become.

If potency is the goal, permission is the lever. People seek out spaces that let them behave in ways everyday life does not. These are spaces where you can loosen up and show a part of yourself that usually stays quiet.

This search for permission is part of a larger cultural shift. There is no single mainstream anymore. The idea of a “mass market brand” is becoming obsolete. People live in micro worlds, scenes, and niche communities that shape how they view the world. Then the algorithm targets them with more content re-enforcing their niche views.

“Everything is a bubble now.”

When there is no center to belong to, people look for spaces where the expectations shift and they can show up more fully. People are asking, “What does this space make possible?” more than “Does it look cool?”

New Rule 4: Build spaces that give people room to be more of themselves.

5. The table still matters

Throughout the conversation, I kept returning to something simple. People still want to sit together. They want to talk, share, and connect in ways that do not require an audience or a feed.

Jasmine agrees, and adds something important:

“You just have to rethink what connection looks like. That is the difference.”

The need is not disappearing, but what it looks like is shifting. A couple of months ago I drove down a street in my hometown on a Saturday night. That street - Broadripple Ave. - used to be covered in clubs and bars that were packed on the weekends. It was really quiet, and it was wild to see.

We are entering this “Age of Potency,” as Jasmine calls it, where people want experiences that feel alive and grounded. Wasted nights we don’t remember may simply not be as appealing as they once were. In fact, we want to remember. That’s the whole point. We want to be here, in our bodies, and with the people around us.

Alcohol doesn’t have to be about escape. It can be about something else entirely—connection, flavor, savoring the moment, laughter, memory, exploration.

New Rule 5: Alcohol has to earn its place in the body and at the table. It’s no longer a given.

(The brands that take that nuance seriously will shape the next decade.)

For founders: build a brand that leads, not reacts

Here is the distilled takeaway for anyone building in beverage today. As Jasmine puts it:

“Find the desires people have but have no place to express yet.”

Brands that succeed do not chase trends. They create containers for emotions, behaviors, and identities that do not yet have a home.

The question becomes:

What does your brand let people express that they cannot express anywhere else?

For more from Jasmine Bina, including her work on invisible culture and the future of brands, head to Concept Bureau or her Substack.

Mother Root is on a roll. In the last six months they’ve received a pre-money valuation of $10.74m, won funding via Dragons’ Den (that’s Shark Tank in the US), seen a huge spike in sales (a 2,000% uplift!) as a result of that TV appearance, been stocked in hundreds of stores in the UK and launched in the US.

How have they done all this? We asked founder Bethan Higson, and she told us:

1)Creating an alternative that isn’t ‘less’:

“I’d worked for ten years in the drinks industry. I loved great drinks. I loved great wines. I loved great spirits and cocktails and strong drinks that had bite and complexity. And non-alc replicas felt like such a disappointment, a letdown, a compromise.”

2)Going product (not brand) first:

“It was a liquid-led occasion problem I was looking to solve. This was the thing that I would crave and want and enjoy and look forward to, so it was really bottom-up creation as opposed to ‘look, this is a category now, let’s build brand and shoehorn the product underneath it’.”

3)Really understanding their customer:

“We know our brand is led by predominantly females, 40+. They love a good drink but they’re busier than ever, and want to be able to still lean into life and do things that make them feel good.”

4)Using their channels to build that relationship:

“I couldn’t be a founder pushing something that had no connection with the customer. They are very much at the heart of what we do, and we’ve grown in terms of our brand and understanding that relationship with them.”

5)And only moving into retail when the time was right

“At the end of December we’ll be seven years old, but it’s only in the last 18 months that people have been more widely aware of what we’re doing.”

Welcome to the new rules of alc-free

There’s one huge piece of information Bethan reminded us of (and it’s easy to forget amid all the alcohol-free brand hype):

We’re still in the very early stages of the non-alc sector.

It’s a category that’s 1)still growing in people’s awareness and 2)doesn’t, yet, have what you’d call any ‘classic’ brands. Ask yourself, who’s the Hendrick’s or the Guinness or the Dom Perignon of the alc-free world? Exactly.

That’s a huge space, and Mother Root could be on track to claim that status. So who better to ask about what the new rules are for non-alc? Here’s five to bear in mind:

The language is shifting – and we don’t just mean the label

This month, the EU announced a new ruling that says non-alcoholic beverages can no longer be labelled ‘gin’. And that feels like a harbinger for the future of alcohol-free messaging, as well as a positive change.

Why set a drinker up for disappointment when you taste nothing like the well-known thing you claim to replace? Mother Root has put a lot of effort into making their brand language alluring without falling into the comparison trap, and it works.

How you speak about your brand goes well beyond the product too. Alcohol-free drinks often verbally position themselves around being sober, but Mother Root actually see peaks during the biggest hosting and celebration months. “I think a lot of the language of non-alcohol is shifting from dry spells to embracing a lifestyle that feels like you,” says Bethan.

Non-alc needs to be louder and bolder with flavour

One of the key reasons Mother Root has succeeded is because of its distinctive taste (it’s a traditional oxymel recipe, which is based largely on vinegar and honey that ferments to create flavor).

It’s not a de-alcoholised or weak version of something else, and it’s not relying on the same ingredients that you’d expect elsewhere in alcohol. It’s very much its own thing, and the brand has been built around that. In fact, Bethan describes that taste as potentially even “divisive” – and that’s a good thing. It’s memorable. It’s interesting. It’s not a zero beer.

“When you’re not drinking, it’s not that you’re missing alcohol necessarily. It’s more that you want something exciting, bold, crafted.”

Be distinctive, but don’t get too weird

Mother Root has doubled down on strong flavors, and consumers are undoubtedly seeking out more interesting liquids and blends. They want options that are punchy and have a hook, but that doesn’t mean people are open to things that are unfamiliar or weird.

“I’ve done lots of flavors and experimenting, and it needs to be rooted in the familiar,” says Bethan. “It can be different and distinctive, but weird stuff is never going to fly, especially when you’re consuming it. So there’s rooting it in the innovative but not being completely wacky.”

People love simple things. You don’t need to be so complicated.

People care about what’s in the things they consume (as we can see from the ongoing tequila additive wars). Mother Root is five, simple, recognisable ingredients, and that’s a huge selling point. The business is also built around a single product, with the occasional limited edition flavours. As Bethan says:

“We’re very simple: in terms of the ingredients we use, and in terms of how we like to be. We’re straightforward. Our customers don’t want to do anything that’s overly complex or fussy, they just want to get to the moment of having a nice drink. I think you can overthink and over-engineer things.”

Understand which ritual you’re tapping into, and commit

As Bethan says, people’s habits are entrenched. It’s hard enough to break into one long-established ritual or category, let alone multiple of those. For example, sodas with nootropics or magnesium or CBD are – arguably – straddling multiple things. Is it a supplement? Is it medicine? Is it an enjoyable drink? Are you drinking for a moment of calm, or celebration? What part of the day does this belong in?

“I’ve been speaking to some young founders who are bringing out products which are cross-category – speaking to soft drinks and non-alcoholic, and I think that’s complicated,”says Bethan. “The general public don’t want to change their habits. So which ritual are you swapping out or leaning into? It’s really rare to be a brand that fits into multiple occasions. Choose one and really go after it.”

The cultural center of gravity is shifting in real time. We’re no longer talking about Shakira singing in English -- this is something else. This is a shift from Latino creativity borrowing from the mainstream to it being the mainstream.

But in beverage and alcohol, most brands are still talking to this audience instead of from it.

Casalú changes that.

Founded by Gabriel González and Ricardo Sucre, Casalú is a Spanish-first, rum-based (rum is back…) RTD brand that speaks straight from within its own culture, no translations. Something I found really interesting about Casalú is that it’s not a “heritage brand.” It isn’t reviving an old recipe. They made something new that’s still Latino (aka things don’t have to be some kind of cultural heritage to be authentic and cool).

PSA! Being authentic resonates

Casalú didn’t start as a flavor/product exercise. It started with a why:

“We really believe the next Red Bull is going to be Latino. This is our chance to take a stab at that.” - Gabriel González

For founders Gabriel González and Ricardo, the thesis is simple: being authentically Latino isn’t a niche. It’s a global language. Their goal isn’t “Latinos for Latinos,” it’s that being authentically Latino resonates with the rest of the world.

Language as strategy

One of the first things I noticed about Casalú’s socials is many of their posts are straight-up Spanish with no translation. This struck me as incredibly badass.

I did not feel alienated by all this Spanish, I felt like I was peeking into this cool world I wanted to know more about. So many big brands treat Spanish as translation or garnish, but Casalú goes all in.

Hear why and how they do it:

New Rule: If your audience speaks two languages, your brand can too, without apologizing.

Culture > category

Casalú applies a simple filter to every move: does it resonate across music, fashion, film, and food? This mirrors how global Latin culture actually travels today, from Benito’s stadiums to abuela’s table.

“We can be in the rooms and also be able to go back home with our grandmothers and be who we really are. It’s both, the duality of who we really are.” - GG

They call the target “Vogue Latinos”: people who are equally at home at a Paris runway and a Sunday street barbecue. Its the high and low. The designer and thrift. The tension between high culture and real life in the neighborhood with family and friends.

New Rule: Build for dual belonging. Your consumer moves between worlds; let your brand move with them.

Product: A vibe you can drink

Casalú isn’t a classic cocktail in a can. It’s a lighter, chill rum-based drink (5.9% ABV) born from a really simple hack:

“During the pandemic he [co-founder Ricardo] discovered High Noon, White Claw, and was like, ‘Oh, for someone who does not like beer necessarily but loves beer moments, there is something else I can drink that is not a straight-up cocktail.’ … That personal pain point became an insight.” GG

“He [co-founder Ricardo] went to Target, bought a SodaStream and started pumping at his house, water, dark aged rum, because it’s what we drink typically in Venezuela, and put lemon juice. And it was that sort of when you graduate from rum and coke moment.” GG

Go-to-market: start where culture is dense

Casalú launched in Miami, the hardest possible market (oversaturated, ruthless, etc.). A Latin-dense city with sharp taste and endless noise, it was definitely the perfect stress test.

What I love most is how they found product market fit: The founders skipped traditional marketing, showed up at parties with kegs, and let real people shape the product. To stand out to buyers, they sent burned CDs instead of sell sheets, complete with a custom intro track and 23 reggaeton songs that told Casalú’s story through sound.

That mix landed on the desk of a Total Wine executive who loved it enough to put them on shelves.

What matters for brand builders:

• Use scrappy prototypes (SodaStream, parties, kegs) to collect real-world taste data.

• Let events pressure-test flavor roadmap.

What legacy brands get wrong about the Latino market

But what about cultural appropriation? Wouldn’t it be inappropriate for brands to speak directly to (or from) the Latino world if they are not authentically Latino themselves? This is a really interesting question. My typical answer: I’m not sure, it depends, it’s delicate, etc.

Gabriel had a more straightforward answer, which I loved:

“The biggest opportunity in alcohol — and in consumer — is being overlooked. One in every four Gen Z Americans identifies as Latino. That’s insane.”

Casalú is building cultural infrastructure. That’s something valuable we can all tap into. In a market still catching up to its audience, this brand’s fluency in language, creativity, and community is the product.

As ONE IN FOUR Gen Z Americans claims Latino identity, Casalú’s rum RTD may be defining what mainstream means next.

The New Rules of Bev/Alc is a newsletter, an annual report, and an approach. Nihilo is a branding agency. Curious to learn more and/or partner? Reach out: hi@nihilo.agency.

❤️,

Nihilo

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Let’s imagine the (not too distant) future. It’s 2030, and the GLP-1 market is now worth $150 billion. 35% of Americans are using them, and they’re not only eating less they’re drinking less as well. For a not insignificant proportion of the population alcohol is less alluring, it’s less buzzy, and it’s less important – which means marketing and selling it is harder than ever.

This isn’t an iron-clad prediction. It’s a fictional outcome informed by data from this PWC research, as well as widespread reports that GLP-1 drugs dull people’s enthusiasm for booze.

There’s already GLP-1-friendly and GLP-1-specific food brands being built. Nestlé is creating products and investing in supplements that support people taking GLP-1 drugs. Danone has launched a drink (Oikos) specifically for GLP-1 users.

There’s even GLP-1-friendly beauty and aesthetics brands that address ‘Ozempic face’, and the effects of the medication on the skin. And I have a feeling there’s going to be a wave of businesses that cater to the dismount, supporting people when they stop taking these drugs.

So, if you’re a bev/alc brand how do you respond to this? Many possible paths lie ahead:

1)Double-down on building your consumer relationship

If the very urge to drink is being damped down, then your relationship with the consumer is more critical than ever. Do people really, really love your brand?

Does it speak to them, beyond being the source of their Friday night glass of wine, or beer, or cocktail ingredient? Are you more to them than an appealing label on a draft tap, or a supermarket shelf? If not, you’re in trouble. Which takes us on to…

2)Create a brand world – and that really means a brand world, not just fancy graphics

Ok, so your logo is the bedrock of your brand and that’s great. Maybe you’ve got a really beautiful label with some eye-catching illustrations. What else are you?

To build the kind of consumer relationship we’re talking about, you need to wrap people up in the world and narrative of your business. Think about MOTH and their MOTH license activation, or the piano that Botivo brings to events, or Stella Artois and the pubs they opened with Palace, or the way Sylva talks about products, emphasising the care and time that goes into them.

Think about how Hendricks has doubled down on lavish, ‘curious’ experiences. Or how Peddlers released a fortune teller box with secret recipes and a coin-slot opening mechanism.

Be spiky and weird and off-kilter, and make yourself impossible to replace by another, look-a-like, behave-a-like brand. Have a reason and a story, and talk about what goes into your product and why you want people to care about it. Be present in their lives – show up where they’re expecting you and also where they’re not.

3)Be uncopiable (or as close as you can get)

If you’re doing all of the above right, then no-one else is going to be quite like you. Your GLP-1-taking consumer will be less easily tempted by competitors, because they can only get what they want from you.

As one example, I think a significant part of Buzzballz’ success in the UK (seriously, the roads in London where I live are lined with empty Buzzballz) is their round packaging. It feels novel, it feels silly, and it’s not exactly the same as all the other RTDs in the corner shop. Or how about packaging your gin in what is, effectively, an oil drum, like Outer Gin?

People are going to need a a novel experience that will to catch their eye and win them over, even if their urge to drink is significantly reduced.

4)Make truly exceptional product

This feels obvious, but if people are drinking less, then they’re going to be a lot more choosy about what they do drink.

Brands that cut corners with second-rate ingredients and processes are instantly less alluring than a business that’s putting time and money into making something wonderful. Just look at what’s going on with the additive-free wars in tequila land, where indie brands are fighting to promote their legitimate, additive-free status.

Of course it’s not enough to make great product. You have to tell people – remind them that your lemons come from your uncle’s Sicilian orchard, or that your beer is made, right here, in Brooklyn, or that your recipe has been handed down across generations of your family. Great brand can’t fix terrible product (as we’ve pointed out in an earlier feature around the failing fortunes of ‘plant-based’), but it can alert people to the things that make your product genuinely great.

5)Embrace smaller sizes

Smaller serves seem like a good bet for the GLP-1 era. It’s something that 818 Tequila is already playing with, and there’s been multiple news stories about bars selling ‘mini’ cocktails (lower price, lower alcohol, lower calories).

If people really are drinking less, because of GLP-1s, then cater to that. Make it easy for them: give them a smaller, more manageable size. And if you roll that up with all of the above, you’ll be giving them a novel experience with great product, compellingly branded in a way that builds an ongoing relationship with that person.

6)Explore lower ABV options

This is already happening to a certain extent – with brands like Quarter Proof attracting significant investment – but offering less alcoholic options feels like an immediate win.

The beauty is that it doesn’t exclude your existing audience, because you’re speaking to people that might be open to drinking less generally, as well as people drinking less because of weight loss medication.

And never – absolutely never – position these as ‘lesser’ versions of the ‘real thing’, as we’ve written about before.

7) Go drinks plus

There’s already a wave of bev brands adding extra ingredients into the mix. People are getting more familiar with add-ons in the form of protein, or mushroom powder, or CBD. Many alc-free brands are experimenting with putting ‘other’ ingredients into their liquids, for example Mingle Mocktails and its ‘adaptogenic’ RTDs. The CEO of the José Andres restaurant group recently said his team is experimenting with mushroom-based drinks in places where psychedelics are legal.

If people taking GLP-1s are pickier and more conscious of ingredients, there’s an opportunity here to cater to both those things.

Or, maybe there’s a chance to go fully scorched Earth contrarian and start making higher proof spirits. We recently spoke with someone who told us: “everyone’s doing no- and low-. I’m going high.”

8)Experiment with flavors

Some studies suggest GLP-1 drugs can make flavors seem less flavorsome. And this actually seems related to a broader societal trend of people searching for ‘moreness’.

Strategist Jasmine Bina has already written about the hunt for ‘potency’, which reminded me of earlier this summer – when thouasnds of people went to The Huntington in San Marino to huff up the dire aroma of its corpse flower.

The Hustle newsletter has also reported on US restaurant chains’ mania for adding spicy food to their menus, as a way of re-engaging with people.

People love an experience, and bev/alc brands need to give them one. Think about the rise of Aperol Spritz and its trademark bitterness, or the growing popularity of herby amaros. Surprising flavor combos and strengths could be the novel experience that keeps GLP-1 users engaged.

9)Be less available

Sneaker brands have spent years leveraging one-offs and limited editions – and there’s a reason for that: they’re hugely, hugely seductive. If there’s a fixed amount of something available, it’s human nature to want it more.

Now, admittedly, reports suggest that GLP-1 doesn’t just quell people’s urge to eat and drink booze, it also dulls their desire to impulse shop. But if people are drinking less, and reserving those moments of drinking for something special, this opens up a chance to emphasise limited runs, or one-offs, or seasonal flavors, or unique combinations that are available once and (maybe) never again.

If you can’t rely on the seductive power of the booze itself, there are other levers to pull. Dial up the occasion. Don't just sell people whiskey, sell them something rare.

10)Reformulate your messaging

Two Spoons explicitly markets its high protein ice cream as ‘GLP-1 friendly’. That’s it: it’s two words, and you’ve immediately caught the eye of a whole segment of people. Most consumers don't want to have to think too hard to understand something – they want to be told, quickly and in no uncertain terms.

So if you’re making something with GLP-1 users in mind, signpost it as such. Let people know that your bev/alc brand has something that can specifically support them, or add to their nutrition intake, or is designed to tickle their fancy.

In conclusion

Booze isn’t going anywhere. And to be clear, we’re in the early stages of GLP-1 drugs and their adoption – meaning all of the above is pure speculation.

That said, catering to people on weight loss meds isn’t so different to catering to everyone else: make great product, be interesting, be unexpected, and build a brand world that people want to come back to time and time again.

The New Rules of Bev/Alc is a newsletter, an annual report, and an approach. Curious to learn more and/or partner? Reach out: hi@nihilo.agency.

❤️,

Nihilo

Jordan Tepper and his team at Hoste (pronounced “Host,” but I kept saying “Ha-ste” in our interview. Sorry about that) are doing both. Their “bottled cocktails” aren’t RTDs (they’re quick to remind you they’re ready to serve, not ready to drink), and they are actually tapping into hosting culture. As in, hosting parties.

We really do need more parties, so I’m into it.

Hosting can be stressful, enter HOSTE

If you’ve ever thrown a party, you know the pain points. You either:

• Bartend all night

• Let guests fend for themselves

• Hire a bartender

• Or serve canned drinks no one’s excited about.

…ew! Not into those options.

As Jordan says: “We branded as Hoste because we wanted to enable people to entertain and host with the most. One of the challenging things about hosting when it comes to cocktails is you have a lot of imperfect solutions.”

Hoste’s answer is a 750ml bottle of bar-quality cocktail: ten pours, perfectly balanced, shelf-stable, and complete with an atomizer garnish that delivers the hit of citrus oil you’d normally get from an orange peel.

I’m going to harp on the atomizer for a minute.

When Jordan told me about it, I thought it sounded silly. Then I tried their flagship Gold Fashioned (they sent me one — yes, anyone can send me drinks, I will try them).

It was decadent and the atomizer was actually awesome. I’ve honestly never experienced anything like it. Apparently, people want the atomizer by itself. That’s a whole other business. Well….

The brand world

The name is the occasion: Hoste. (ONCE AGAIN, PRONOUNCED HOST). The point is to make you a better host.

Packaging matters, and we find this packaging particularly beautiful. They do collaborations with local artists. The box has lovely raised textures.

But the story isn’t about them. The story is about you, the host.

Trojan horse gifting

No one goes shopping for “best bottled cocktail.” But they do buy gifts. Hoste leans into that with beautiful artist-collab packaging, tactile textures, hidden iconography, all the things people will go pretttyyy to when you give it to them as a present.

This is really gifting-first design. The point is to make you a better host.

And gifting drives trial. Two customer archetypes emerge:

• The power gifter (always buying Hoste for others, building a feedback loop of discovery), and

• The for-me-every-drop loyalist (who orders again and again once they’ve tasted it. This would be my husband. Don’t tell him I said that.)

This is clever: instead of trying to fight for search behavior that doesn’t exist (“best RTS cocktail”), Hoste piggybacks on a universal one: gifting.

The back door strategy

Hoste isn’t playing the same game as RTDs. They’re not trying to win the “better canned cocktail” contest. They’re building a different category lens entirely.

“How many high-end wineries and whiskey brands are there? Now, how many high-end cocktail companies are there? Right now, there’s one.”

Jordan sees bottled cocktails evolving like wine or whiskey, where multiple high-end producers will emerge. But for now, it’s basically Hoste alone at the top.

Their goal is clear: to be the bottled cocktail company of record.

Instead of competing at the shelf, they’re competing in the occasion. The name is the occasion: Hoste. (ONCE AGAIN, PRONOUNCED HOST). It’s what you bring when you want to be a better host. Or when you want to offer someone else the opportunity to be a great host. It's so fun.

Legacy players fight on design, price, and taste. Hoste shifts the axis: occasion + ritual. That’s a more defensible space. If they hold it, they don’t just win share; they grow the category.

They’re using quality as arbitrage

In case you weren’t familiar with the 3-tier system: buyers buy from distributers, and there are millions of markups. Hoste buys direct from producers. That arbitrage lets them use super duper high quality liquid inputs, like a 9-year Kentucky bourbon finished in sherry casks, an ensemble mezcal build with long-maturing agave varieties, Apologue’s in-house bitters. This stuff, Jordan explains, could never be profitable in a bar setting.

“If a bar used our inputs, it would be a $50 cocktail,” he says. At home, it lands at $8 a pour. That’s the anchor: not shelf pricing, but occasion pricing.

This is where Hoste actually blows the mind. $80 does sure sound like a lot for a bottle of anything, but when you think about getting a very high-end Mezcal Negroni or Perfect Manhattan for $8, it makes sense. This way, you get to serve your guests (or in my case, myself) something excellent without paying THAT much.

Depth before width

A lot of young brands try to go national fast. I feel like this is the biggest “mistake” I hear from founders. They grew too fast before they had the marketing or sales resources to support that growth. Hoste is not doing that. They’re building real velocity in Chicago: Binny’s, Whole Foods, independent shops. They’re shipping DTC to 46 states (and the economics actually work at $80–$150 per bottle), but the focus is Chicagoland until the data says expand.

How are sales? You can be sure I asked!

Interestingly, a huge chunk of demand is coming from suburban and rural markets – places without cocktail bars on every corner. Which makes sense. If you live in the city and have Death & Co or The Violet Hour down the block (and a lot of expendable income), maybe you don’t need Hoste. If you live 40 minutes outside of town, maybe you do.

What you can steal

• Name the job. Consumers don’t search “RTS cocktail.” They search for ways to host better.

• Spend where the drinker can taste it. Cut intermediaries, reinvest into liquid.

• Make it extra fancy. The atomizer turns a pour into a performance.

• Let gifting be a thing. Trojan horse your way into households.

• Go deep, not wide. This overused statement is actually very important. Prove velocity before chasing distribution points.

• Simplify your story. Consumers want “tastes amazing, easy to serve.” The geekery is bonus – do not stress people out with so many details. They do not care.

Hot take to end: this category is going to crowd up fast.

Everyone from RTD startups to legacy spirits will chase “bottled cocktails.” Most will fail. The only way to stay ahead is to keep the ritual special and the liquid undeniable. Hoste’s advantage is they’ve started with both. Being of the first is also a big deal.

We’re rooting for you, Hoste. Please send us more cocktails. <3 <3

The New Rules of Bev/Alc is a newsletter, an annual report, and an approach. Nihilo is a branding agency. Curious to learn more and/or partner? Reach out: hi@nihilo.agency.

❤️,

Nihilo

Its cool and cheeky.

Cheeky is a line of bar-quality cocktail mixers made with fresh juice and simple syrups, designed to give both bartenders and home drinkers a reliable, shelf-stable shortcut without preservatives.

When I sat down with founder April Wachtel, I admittedly expected to hear a classic founder story: “I saw X lacking, so I decided to make it!”

April’s story is far more nuanced, and real, than that (to be fair, most stories are, but maybe people just package them in the **fairy tale** way because they feel like they should? PSA: you don’t need to do that.)

This conversation was very frank and I loved it.

“The press loves beginnings and endings”

“I didn’t have an aha moment,” April told me. “The name ‘Cheeky’ just came one day after hundreds of wrong names.”

I laughed because I’d just brought up Paula Scher: the Pentagram designer who drew the Citi logo in minutes. When people questioned the price ($1.5m, allegedly), she said: “It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds.”

“The press loves beginnings and endings. But the reality is the messy middle. That’s what actually builds a brand.”

The brand focal point

Most founders at this stage will say they are investing heavily in packaging, PR or distribution. April’s answer was both blunt and simple. She invested heavily in one thing:

“The logo.”

“We spent so much money on that,” she says. “And that’s the only thing that we’ve ever spent money on, like a real amount of money. I knew if we got that one thing right, everything would be different.”

The logo became the anchor. We often talk about this with our clients at - there needs to be something that anchors your brand. If Cheeky were to change the bottles, or the labels, or pretty much anything else, but they kept the logo, it wouldn’t feel like a big deal. It would still feel like Cheeky. And that’s the point.

Essentially: one big bet and a moment of decisiveness created a backbone strong enough for the rest of the brand to stay scrappy….

Speaking to two audiences at once without alienating either one - impressive

Cheeky feels, well, cheeky. It’s a fun brand with a playful logo and fun colors. It doesn’t conjure up the intimidating nature of cocktail culture at all. I like that, and apparently I’m not alone.

“That was intentional,” April said. “Our labels explain simple syrup, but we also use bartender ratios like 1:1 or 2:1. The consumer feels like they can figure it out. And bartenders know right away this came from someone who’s worked service.”

Being able to speak to two VERY different audiences (consumers and bartenders) without alienating either one is very hard. Not only is Cheeky doing that, but they’re meeting people where they are: helping beginners, but making them feel like they can do it, too.

(I’m sorry the video quality lapsed here, but its still very interesting:)

It appears easy, but its not. Nice job, Cheeky.

Channels have different tones

In today’s ~~multimedia~~ world, there are many ways to talk to our audiences. Increasingly, those ways are online. So we talked platforms. I asked April how she thinks about splitting messaging between the trade (bartenders and the like) and civilians (the rest of us).

“I think if we want to create an aesthetic perception of our brand where it's super elevated, we can create that holistically on Instagram… TikTok is where we actually show real personality – BTS stuff and goofy whatever… and the trade just wants the most bare bones real talk.”

I love that division. One channel doesn’t have to do do everything, and developing a proper, individual strategy for these different platforms is rarer than you’d think (go on Insta or TikTok and analyse some popular brands in the space… are they being intentional? Possibly not.)

The citrus dilemma

Cheeky seems like a really good product. But what you wouldn’t get from the fun packaging is how darn hard it’s been to stay committed to a certain level of quality – like, for example, not including preservatives.

“The one that I do feel very conflicted about is the citrus because there's oxidation… heat and light change citrus. And so that's one where we could improve the consistency over time if we did a cold fill and added preservatives. But then again, I think the trade who uses it now might not be able to use it if we did that.”

April leans straight into the conflict. She is aware it’s challenging and does not claim to know all the answers. She is sitting back, observing, and will move when the right path is clear.

What drives her is not just the market opportunity but, as she puts it, being “the type of person who can build a massively successful brand and have all of the learnings that accompany that.”

The secret to succeeding in today’s market? Is it AI? Is it??

This is really interesting. I asked April what she thinks it will take for brands to make it in today’s climate – and she brought up how she’s used AI to learn about and improve ad performance.

“I never ran a Meta ad. Well, that’s not true. I tried to run Meta ads very unsuccessfully before and I just went in two weeks from 0% click-through rate to, on the high end, 20 almost 24% click-through rate on some of my cold prospecting ads.”

Her takeaway: “It’s never been easier to start a brand, really hard to grow a brand, and really hard to grow a brand to any like significant size.”

I told her I felt the same: we don’t know what the next three years of brand building look like, but the founders who learn fastest will be the ones to survive.

It would suck to fail but she’s willing to take the risk

April is building something that feels premium without being precious; respected by bartenders but approachable for everyone else. And she’s doing it with full awareness of how hard the game is. “It would suck to fail. It would really, really suck to fail,” she told me, “but I want the satisfaction of building something that can stand on its own feet.”

Most founders try to polish away that risk. April names it outright. She’s willing to admit the fear and go for it anyway. In a market where starting is easy and growing is brutal, that hunger for the fight is a baseline, not a nice-to-have.

The New Rules of Bev/Alc is a newsletter, an annual report, and an approach. Nihilo is a branding agency. Curious to learn more and/or partner? Reach out: hi@nihilo.agency.

❤️,

Nihilo

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