Welcome to Happy Hour, our quick-scroll guide to the news, views and moves of the bev/alc sector.
The whole point of building a brand, and not just a white-labelled product, is to make people feel something.
Branding, design, messaging and packaging are meant to tickle; they’re meant to seduce, compel, make someone reach over, pick you up, and do the same again and again. Branding is meant to tell the world, ‘hey there, we’re different’.
Which is why it’s so fascinating seeing the unending sausage link of copycat bev brands, desperate to ride on the coattails of someone else’s success.
There’s the BuzzBall-alikes, the probiotic sodas that hope they can hold onto Poppi’s fading star, and a wave of legacy bev/alc brands that seem to have run out of ideas, and are just straight up copying what the challengers are doing… often a year or two too late.
What happened to innovation? What happened to building an interesting brand that doesn’t look like anything else? Hendrick’s did it. They weren’t scared to be a bit weird. So why are so many other brands?
Cultural currency isn’t borrowed from someone else; trends rise and fall. You have to think beyond them if you want to survive for any amount of time, or accept that you’ll be rebranding every few years to keep up with whatever visual ID/flavor/format/messaging is the soup du jour.
For the love of all that’s holy, use some imagination. Spend money on your label. Commission a hand-painter, a collage artist, a cartoonist, a letterer. Tell a weird story. Come up with a name that sounds nothing like anyone else’s. Understand what everyone else is doing, take what you need from that, and find your own interpretation.
Don’t, for example, be like Echo Falls, releasing a new 9%, fruit fusion, blue raspberry RTD wine because portability, canned formats, lower ABVs and fruity flavours are popular right now. Sure, people are loving and buying the novelty right now, but for how long? What does that viral social media spike actually turn into? And what is it doing for your brand?
Now, onto our scroll of the news, moves and opinions we paid attention to this month (subscribe for our next one).
BRANDS DOING BRAND THINGS
-Cocktail brand Straightaway is using its Portland airport bar to test out drinks.
Our take: This feels…somehow quite genius? People at airports are usually happy, filled with the sense of possibility, and open to newness.
-Brewdog really wants to claw its way back into our hearts, under the management of Tilray Brands. Some of their messaging around this has been really quite clever.
-Absolut Tabasco installed a big volcano next to Sydney Harbour.
Our take: It warms the heart to see brands actually having fun.
-Absolut has also hired Charli XCX for a two-year collaboration that will involve doing “something a little chaotic”.
-Courvoisier has a new global campaign, built around parties at home.
-THC bev brand Herb Light begs America: send some Herb Light to your congressperson, and put an end to the looming federal prohibition.
BRANDS LAUNCHING THINGS
-Whitebox Cocktails is launching in the US.
Our take: watch this brand. The formats are good. So are the names.
-Cointreau is launching a new series of events, menus and collaborations devoted to cocktail culture. It begins in Paris, and is set to travel to other cities next year.
Our take: bev/alc is so embedded in culture and experience, it’s weird that brands don’t do much much more of this sort of thing. Even better, this isn’t driven by fly-by-night influencers, it’s spearheaded by people with craft skills: a chef, mixologist, pâtissier and writer.
BRANDS NEED TO MAKE MORE EFFORT
Seriously, the bev/alc space is, to put it mildly, crowded. Which is why it’s so bewildering to see brands launch with such little apparent effort given over to the actual brand or creative part.
-Case study a)The world is drowning in RTDs. Why would you add to that growing pile of aluminium with packaging like this? Seriously, a lot of brand agencies would have a lot of fun with this.
-Case study b)Language is an incredible thing. So why are brands so afraid to use it in an evocative, creative way? Taglines are meant to be tantalising and compelling, not the ill-begotten offshoot of a bygone Apple slogan.
-Case study c)Diageo has admitted that a very tiny number of its new spirits launches are actually doing ok. Instead of a more-products-forever philosophy, there needs to be more thought into what’s being launched and why - is it short-term trend chasing, or something that can actually become meaningful and successful over time?
NEW FORMATS
-The great smallifying of drinks continues. Suntory is apparently launching a mini Jim Beam in 2027, following in the footsteps of… well, everyone else.
Our take: Giving people more options makes sense. There’s something quite appealing about small bottles, cans and serves. Somewhere, a brand could do something quite funny by going truly tiny. Maybe thimble-sized.
-Continuing the ‘small drinks’ theme, it’s worth reading this take from Good Measure Guild’s Clare Warner, who says tiny martinis are taking over London, and bars are using these smaller sizes to persuade people to stay longer, and try more. Smart.
-While some are going small, others, like Carbliss, are going strong.
Our take: There’s a real pattern emerging of bev/alc brands not selling themselves on abstinence, but instead dialling up the ABV.
-Goodrays has launched a Good Mood lager, with magnesium and lemon balm.
Our take: one could argue that every beer is a good mood beer, but, Goodrays are framing this cleverly. People might not care all that much about getting extras in their beer, but a ‘good mood beer’? Why not.
WINE IS FLAILING FOR RELEVANCE
-As mentioned already, I don’t know what Echo Falls is doing with this Frankenstein of all Frankensteins.
-Food app Gopuff is, unexpectedly, moving into the wine space with Jeffery Park, co-launched with Common.
-Terrible news from California, as the state’s oldest family-owned winery declares bankruptcy.
DRINK IT UP
-It’s fascinating seeing certain drinks rise and fall in popularity, and it’s not always easy to work out the machinery driving it. Things that seem to be on the up:
-Chartreuse. The Guardian insists that it’s having a moment.
(in an interesting follow-up, Yahoo reports that, while it might be popular, Chartreuse isn’t always easy to find. Apparently the Carthusian monks that make it capped production in 2021, so they’d have more time to pray.)
-Martini. Lots of stories in the last couple of months about its popularity, maybe because the geopolitical state of the world is driving everyone to strong drink? The Spirits Business reports it’s boosting vodka.
Champagne? Bollinger’s MD says he’s optimistic about its future, despite the depressing state of the market. Apparently the grapes have been great, and while the wine market might be on rocky ground, champagne is up.
NEWS FROM NON-ALC
-Hoplark raised a lot of money ($25m). Last month it filed for bankruptcy. The numbers are stark: $9.3m revenue in 2024, followed by $630k in 2025.
THE NUMBERS
-Quite a fascinating set of data from YouGov, detailing which bev/alc brands different generations currently like. For Gen Z, it’s all about Smirnoff and Guinness, for Millennials it’s Jack Daniel’s and Heineken and for Gen X it’s Baileys and Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
-Constellation spent $75 to acquire SpikedAde
Our take: The alcoholic but sporty segment has life in it yet, but for how long?
-Garage Beer has even more funding.
-Someone paid $2.8m for a bottle of whiskey.
FINAL THOUGHTS
-Salon has an excellent feature around the popularity of listening bars, and there are some clear moments here for drinks brands to tap into, carefully.
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