Happy hour: your next beer is a puff of air
Zero calories, zero sugar, zero alcohol, zero flavour? Are drinks brands forgetting why people drink in the first place?
Welcome back. Pour yourself a drink, crack open a cold one, stir up a cocktail…. Because we’re getting into the news, views and stories we paid attention to this month. We do this every month, so if you’re not already, subscribe and join us for the next one.
Boring boring boring, brand laddering, tribal beers
Sometimes, you get the feeling that bev/alc brands are trying to strip the joy out of everything.
That might be a preachy non-alc business that’s trading on virtue’ or a company hell-bent on adding extra ‘healthy’ ingredients to their liquid. Or it might be Heineken and their Heineken 0.0 ‘ultimate’ – which has no calories, no alcohol, no sugar, and is being introduced to a set number of states after a successful pilot in the US last year.
It’s hard to know who Heineken is appealing to here. GLP-1 users? Health nuts? People that feel the 69 calories in a normal Heineken 0.0 is just too much excitement to handle?
In a semi-related story, Drinks Trade published a story about ‘better for you’ RTDs, for example vodka mixed with electrolytes. So good so virtuous, but when are drinks brands going to embrace being fun and a bit naughty again?
Brands that aren’t venturing into this new, purist area of drinking are experimenting with high and low - and we mean culture and liquid. On the one hand you’ve got Johnny Walker launching a more affordable version, and on the other you’ve got Remy Cointreau setting up a new, more high-end ‘Prestige’ division.
The NY Post says jelly shots are back (lowbrow?), meanwhile non-alc wine brand Wednesday’s Domaine is actually moving into alc, with a range of 6.5% wines (high brow going sorta midbrow?)
Brands seem to be deciding that the space they inhabit is more of a sliding scale than a fixed zone, and that’s freeing them to make some interesting plays.
Finally, we wanted to talk about beer for a second. If we’re being honest beer, right now, does feel a little bit like the awkward +1 at the wedding. Nevertheless, beer brands are really sliding into their own niches, and using that to power their growth.
For Sam Adams that means doubling down on sports and some very local love; for Girl Beer it’s about fruity, light beers that are very much being marketed towards (you guessed it) women; for Garage Beer it’s about being the joker in the room; and for Tuborg it’s about losing themselves in the world of Gen Z in a very ‘How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?’ kind of way.
Keep scrolling for some spiky little dopamine shots of news:
BUY BUY BUY, SELL SELL SELL
-RTD brand BeatBox Beverages now belongs to Anheuser-Busch InBev. It cost them $490m. (this actually happened in Feb, so apologies for being a little late to the party).
Our take: not entirely surprising. It lets ABInBev tap into a massive format trend (RTDs), it borrows a bit of BeatBox’s cool, and it harnesses some of that zany, barely restrained, youthful spirit that people love about BuzzBallz.
-Everyone in the world knows that Tilray bought Brewdog. Andrew Wardlaw, who runs consumer research group MMR has an interesting take, saying the story is less about the deal, and more about what it means around alcohol’s relevance, and the importance of portfolios.
-Notorious canned brand Four Loko is allegedly exploring a sale, with a potential price tag of $400m.
-Don’t believe the ‘no-one’s drinking’ narrative. Brown-Forman (which owns Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, El Jimador and Chambord) is actually doing pretty ok, thanks.
-Sazerac just bought Dirty Shirley.
THE NO-HANGOVER CLUB
-“My experience with non-alcoholic wine – and the feedback from most of my industry colleagues – has been overwhelmingly negative,” says food and travel journo Vicki Denig in a piece questioning the perceived NA wine ‘boom’. She gets into the weeds of why it’s falling short. (TLDR: it’s really hard to make them taste good).
-Despite the above, plenty of brands are still trying to crack non-alc wine, including Butter Wines which has launched ButterZero.
-0% Peroni now comes in lemon and blood orange.
Our take: now that big brands have found their 0% legs, they’re starting to experiment with flavours (Heineken recently launched nectarine juniper and lime versions of its 0.0% beer, and Chouffe also launched a cherry-flavoured 0%). This adds a bit of extra novelty to the category, to keep people engaged.
-Welcome to the world, alcohol-free Lillet.
-Also welcome to the world George Clooney’s new alcohol-free beer brand. BTW, is Americana back?
-Willie Nelson only needed a year to make his THC brand a $80m business. “This story is as good as it gets, and there’s no one more authentic than Willie,” says Forrest Dein, co-founder of holding company JuneShine. “There’s no one who’s more synonymous with cannabis.”
-Liquid Ventures is a new investment house dedicated to low- and no-, and bringing along some impressive industry expertise.
Time for a QUICK PAUSE - we want to work with you, the founders, investors, brand-builders and marketers that all read THE NEW RULES. Here’s how:
SPORTS BOOZE
-We said it was coming, and here it is. Alc-free beer brand Belgian Balance seems to be positioning itself next to the sport world, and Ad Age just published a piece about the growing category of brands that look like sports drinks but actually contain alcohol.
IT’S ALL ABOUT NOVELTY BABY
-The Spirits Business has a story about the world’s coldest martini, with London’s Bob Bob Ricard mixing up some extremely cold cocktails. Is it a gimmick? Yes. Would we still order it? A thousand times yes.
-Speaking of novelty, how about some Nowadays THC at the Indycar Grand Prix?
Our take: makes sense. Pop up where your people already are, harness serendipity, give them a chance to try you, be a bit novel….
-And what about this epic BuzzBallz activation in London, featuring a 10-foot gacha machine? Very fun. Very them.
GOOD LOOKS
-Just love Aperol’s updated packaging, and their willingness to lean into that almost-neon orange. Clever brand.
-Cast your eyes over this incredible packaging for Penfolds. Truly quite beautiful
IT’S ABOUT THE ADJACENTS
-There’s the alcohol brands, and then there’s the rich stream of brands that live in beautiful harmony with them, like the mixers. Stoli just re-released its ginger beer (first launched in 2014 for its Stoli Mule cocktail). It’s got a spicy new recipe that includes ginger, chili and caffeine (majorly hot ingredient of the moment).
-Speaking of adjacent, where does AI live in the world of bev/alc? According to Bon Appétit, it’s definitely not as sommelier.
-And what about snacks? What role do they play alongside the low and no movement?
-Brand accelerator Brand Venture plans to scale lemon and lime concentrate alternative Blessed Zest. We told you the side business is fruitful.
TEQUILA CORNER
-Tequila tequila, everyone loves tequila. The Guardian tries to get to the bottom of its surge in popularity. If you’re good and you read all the way to the bottom, you’re rewarded with some cocktail recipes.
-Guillermo del Toro made a film for Patrón.
COCKTAIL TIME
-Pure argument fuel here: VinePair has thoughts on the 10 most important cocktails of the 21st century. Yes the Negroni and the Espresso Martini are on there.
-Ok, that was your classic cocktails. Now read about Buffalo Wild Wings’ Frankenstein-esque Espresso Proteini. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
FOR YOUR READING LIST
-Some interesting reflections in this piece by Suntory’s François Bazini, on how what works so well for one bev brand doesn’t always translate.
-Amidst the doomer stories about wine, we spotted this one bright spot: a tech founder who’s taking a punt on wine-making with a gloriously devil-may-care attitude. “If Gallo is down and Constellation is down and they’re ripping out 10,000 acres, so what? I don’t care.”
AND FINALLY
-“The number of brands that can be built is far larger than the number that can be sold.” Sober (forgive us) thoughts on why many, many bev brands may be unacquirable.
-How do you annoy a woman that drinks whiskey? You ask her one simple question, according to Substacker and writer Becky Paskin.
The New Rules is a labor of love by nihilo.agency
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