The battle over "additive-free" tequila labeling has exposed a deep rift between tradition and transparency in Mexico's most iconic spirit. When Tequila Matchmaker's data revealed widespread additive use despite contrary claims, it didn't just challenge the CRT's regulatory authority – it forced a reckoning with consumer trust in an industry built on artisanal heritage.For many independent brands, an "additive-free" certification from The Additive Free Alliance became a cornerstone of marketi...
The Park Street Insider Podcast is ending the year with an exploration of the EU & UK alcohol markets. Europe leads the world in alcohol consumption, with eight of the top ten biggest alcohol-consuming countries being European. Despite its distribution makeup taking a different form than in the U.S. market, EU and UK distributors remain at the center of the spirits industry landscape. This episode offers a window into the current dynamics driving the EU and UK spirits markets throug...
Low & No is one of beverage-alcohol's spotlight categories in 2024. Many projections indicate that the segment will continue to expand its influence in terms of shelf presence, case volumes, and overall consumer awareness. But while the category's forecast is bright, low & no represents only a marginal share of total beverage alcohol. In this episode, Emmett Strack sits down with industry veterans and low-and-no leaders to unpack the category's rise and trajectory in 2024 and be...
Establishing a sound financial model in a business's early days is crucial for spirits brands to set a foundation for sustainable growth. A well-crafted financial plan helps brands minimize surprises and accurately forecast the capital-intensive aspects of the spirits business. In this episode, you'll hear two presentations on financial modeling. First, former Pernod Ricard executive Guillaume Thomas will share his best practices for financial success during the brand-building process. Then, ...
Brands are often founded with the purpose of aligning with a given trend and exploiting a perceived white space in the market. In the mid-2000s, introducing a premium bourbon may have seen high growth, likewise for rolling out a specialty high-end tequila in the early to mid-2010s. But when founders really get it right, and their offering is able to align with multiple trends at once, it's possible to see uniquely explosive growth. Such was the case for Surfside, which saw over a million case...
The landscape of on-premise spirits consumption has undergone significant shifts in the past few years, challenging the long-held view that primary drivers of growth for spirits brands take place on-premise. The aftermath of the pandemic has seen consumers engage differently with bars and restaurants, learn to be at-home bartenders, display increased health consciousness, and grapple with inflationary pressures that affect their spending habits. These macro-level changes have affected brands’...
At one point or another, every person in the spirits industry is almost certain to have their career altered, influenced, or shaped by personal relationships. On a business-to-business level, many brands the Park Street Insider Podcast has hosted over the years echo similar sentiments around the crucial role partnerships have played in their trajectory. No brand is constructed in a vacuum, and the long-term success of each is often tied to the quality of partnerships they form with the compan...
In the late '90s, Joe Magliocco made a small investment to become the sole owner of the Michter's whiskey trademark, a historic brand originally founded by a Swiss Mennonite farmer in the 1700s that had since fallen into obscurity. The trademark only cost Magliocco $245 to snap up at a time when consumers and distributors wanted nothing to do with the category. Thanks to a sound strategy, great team building, and a meticulous method of production, the revitalized brand was named The Wor...
From the start of the 2020s, beverage alcohol's merger and acquisition sector has proved to be a dynamic lens through which the wider spirits market can be evaluated. The last four years have seen the M&A market go through phases of high growth, diversification, and contraction. At this year's American Craft Spirits Association Convention in Denver, Emmett Strack was joined by a group of experts within the M&A landscape to discuss the ebbs and flows of investment activity in rec...
The spirits market is constantly driven by new trends that rise, fall, and reinvent themselves. While brand success is relative to the goals of each founder, the extent to which a business can commercially blossom in the spirits category is often determined along the lines of good timing and a laser focus on aligning with the trends of the moment.Of the many positive elements John Rexer, the founder of Ilegal Mezcal, had going for him when he formulated his brand in the mid-2000s, good timing...
Beverage alcohol distributors sit at the epicenter of a cluttered product landscape where, according to Mark Harmon of the Independent Distributor Network, “God isn’t making any more shelf space.” Distributors only have so much time and attention they can give to each spirits brand. What’s left is for brands to do everything in their power to make a compelling case that their products deserve to take up a meaningful share of a distributor's attention. Emily Pennington sat down with key f...
The rate of change seen in beverage alcohol over the last couple of years has been nothing short of impressive. We’re fast approaching the midway point of 2024 and have started to see some trends that emerged over the last two years begin to cement themselves. In this speech given at Bar Convent Berlin, Spiros Malandrakis, International Head of Research—Alcoholic Drinks at Euromonitor, discusses the top trends shaping the alcohol industry in 2024. Malandrakis touches on issues like premiumiza...
Few spirits brands cater to the entrepreneurial spirit like the Bardstown Bourbon Company. In a category that generally requires a massive investment on the part of a founder to launch a brand, Bardstown's unique model has found a way to lower the barrier of entry into the whiskey for aspiring entrepreneurs. And while almost every spirits brand will claim to incorporate tradition and innovation, you'd be hard-pressed to find a company that balances these two principles like Bardstown Bo...
E-commerce in beverage alcohol has historically lagged behind traditional CPG sectors, but thanks to the pandemic and the gradual loosening DTC shipping laws, we're seeing this channel assume a meaningful share of alcohol sales for the first time. In this episode, the Park Street Insider Podcast welcomes ReserveBar CEO, Derek Correia. He and Emily Pennington evaluate how bev-alc e-commerce has progressed to where it is today, how ReserveBar was able to scale its business to sit at...
Brand building in the spirits industry is always context dependent. What might drive sales in one market may have little relevance in another. The result is a necessity for brand's to understand the performance drivers, consumption habits and key trends in their target markets and channels. On this special crossover episode, Chris Maffeo, host of the Maffeo Drinks Podcast, joins the Park Street Insider Podcast's Emmett Strack for a wide ranging chat on the key consumer trend...
Control states can feel like a weighty subject. They're one of the main reasons that the U.S. should be taken as fifty individual markets as opposed to a unified entity. But with the right context and know-how, making sales in these states won't seem like such a large hurdle. On this episode of the Park Street Insider Podcast, Ashley Glickman, Executive Vice President of National Sales at Westward Whiskey, offers a supplier perspective on making sales in control states. She’ll bre...
Going from founding a brand to selling it to a strategic acquirer in less than three years is an achievement worthy of celebrating. But for Mike Montgomery, founder of Blue Run Spirits, this milestone was only the start of the hard work. Now backed by Molson Coors, Montgomery is more motivated than ever to make waves in the trending bourbon category. On this episode of the Park Street Insider Podcast, Andres Correa is joined by Blue Run Spirits founder Mike Montgomery to unpack how his brand ...
As larger portions of Gen-Z reach legal drinking age, their impact on the alcohol industry is becoming more pronounced and the segment's preferences have come into full view. What's become increasingly clear is that how this demographic interacts with alcohol is dramatically different from each generation that's come before it. Strikingly, Gen-Z is more inclined to imbibe on-premise than any other age bracket in the current market. So as this demographic brings its shifting consumption ...
In the early days of laying the groundwork for her brand, Buzzballz, Merrilee Kick received a call from a distributor who informed her that, despite having a contract in place, they would be canceling their order, asserting that ready-to-drink products were a "fad." In 2024 it's almost impossible to imagine that her now iconic brand was ever in such a position, but Kick's beverage-alcohol journey was non-linear and faced adversities known to many early-stage entrepreneurs. Kick jo...
The impact of ready-to-drink beverages on the beverage alcohol landscape has been profound, and by all accounts, their influence is only set to increase. Over time, the category has gone from being on the fringes of drinking culture to guiding the core strategies of some of the world's largest beverage companies. So, what does this trend say about consumers in 2023 and beyond? And how will the industry react to its sustained success? The Park Street Insider Podcast welcomes Spiros Malan...