Business of Drinks

How do you turn a Napa tasting-room visit into years of wine purchases? B Cellars has built its business around that question. The winery produces roughly 12K cases annually, sells entirely direct to consumer, and projects 12% growth in 2026, following double-digit growth every year since 2019. In this episode of Business of Drinks, Curtis Strohl, general manager of B Cellars, explains how the win...

Before Kava Haven had a finished product, its founders tested whether anyone would pay $80 for a bottle. They built a website, created a product rendering, and ran ads. The interest that followed helped turn a $4K initial investment into a fully bootstrapped business that has sold more than 250K bottles and reached approximately 1,300 retail doors since launching in April 2024. In this episode of...

How do you build a wine brand that belongs on both Target shelves and Soho House wine lists? Grounded Wine Co. has grown to more than 80K 9L cases, with company volume up about 28% year over year. Its core Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc launched during COVID with a six-month Target exclusive. Today, its business is split almost exactly 50-50 between on- and off-premise -- and its Sauvignon Blanc is...

What would it take to get more women drinking beer? For Hurray’s Girl Beer founder and CEO Ray Biebuyck, that question became the starting point for a brand that has grown its distributor count 12x in the past six months and expects 10x year-over-year growth in 2026. Driving that expansion: New Kroger doors coming onboard, alongside expansion with Walmart, Albertsons, H-E-B, Hy-Vee, and Wegmans. L...

In 2025, Sunday Hospitality Group served 1.2 million alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages across eight venues, including the Lobby Bar at Hotel Chelsea, Sunday in Brooklyn, Rule of Thirds, and Dynamo Room. Add coffee, tea, and soft drinks, and that number rises to 1.5 million. Brian Evans, the group’s director of bars, joins Business of Drinks to unpack the decisions behind those numbers -- from...

Lost Lantern just hit $1 million in revenue over the trailing 12 months, and its velocity is increasing. After growing sales 10% in 2025, the whiskey brand forecasts doubling them in 2026. Its approach to expansion starts with evidence that consumers already want its bottles. In this episode, Nora Ganley-Roper, co-founder, general manager, and head of blending at Lost Lantern, joins Scott Rosenbau...

Badger Bevs sold more than 100K 9L cases in 2025, growing more than 230% YOY. Yet more than 95% of its sales still come from restaurants, bars, and hotels. Founder and CEO David Vogel made a deliberate choice to build the premium mixer brand in the on-premise first. Drawing on his experience at Blue Buffalo and The Chef’s Warehouse, he saw an opening for a mixer designed for high-end hospitality -...

Getting into more doors is not the same as building a scalable drinks business. As brands move beyond founder-led sales, the burden of proof changes. Early on, strong velocity and repeat purchase may be enough to attract investment.  But by $3M-$7M in revenue, investors want to see rising same-store sales, faster reorders, and evidence that the team understands exactly what is driving growth. And...

You’re paying for tastings, winning placements, and sending teams into the field. But can you tell which of those investments are actually driving sales? For too many drinks companies, the answer is no. The relevant data is buried in spreadsheets, email chains, and program recaps that arrive months after the money is spent. In this sponsored episode of Business of Drinks, Erica Duecy sits down wit...

Bizzy Coffee has grown revenue 175% over the past three years, crossing $50 million in annual revenue, producing more than 1 million bottles a month, and reaching 12,000+ stores nationwide. But the playbook behind that growth is surprisingly unglamorous. In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Alex French, Co-Founder and CEO of Bizzy Coffee, about how the company built scale by obsessi...

The best investors aren’t just just identifying great brands. They’re identifying shifts in consumer behavior before everyone else sees them. That’s the approach Jeff Cantalupo, Founder and Managing Partner of Listen Ventures, has taken throughout his career — from a decade in brand strategy at Leo Burnett to investing in companies including Angel’s Envy, Go Brewing, Delta Beverage, and Magic Cact...

Gratsi’s boxed-wine business began as a pandemic pivot. It became the foundation for one of the category’s most notable growth stories. After selling more than 375K 9L case equivalents last year, the company expects to grow 30%+ this year to exceed 500K cases — driven by subscriptions, repeat purchases, and a carefully sequenced expansion into wholesale. Founder and CEO Stephen Vlahos originally l...

What makes a beverage brand truly investable — and should founders be raising venture capital at all? In this episode of Business of Drinks, we sit down with Nate Cooper, founder and managing partner of Barrel Ventures, to unpack what investors are actually looking for in emerging food and beverage companies — and why building a great business and building a venture-backable business are not neces...

How do you build a 100,000-case tequila brand without a big marketing budget — or, until recently, even a U.S. sales team? Arette Tequila did it largely from the bar out. The family-owned brand shipped more than 100,000 nine-liter cases in 2025, growing about 20% last year, with another 20% growth projected this year. More than 80% of its U.S. sales are still in bars and restaurants — the result o...

How do you know if your drinks brand is actually growing? It sounds like a simple question. But in beverage alcohol, the answer can get complicated fast. Shipments may be up because inventory moved into distribution. Revenue can rise because of a price increase even as volume declines. And a brand can add dozens of new accounts without generating enough velocity or reorders to make those placement...

Yes Way Rosé is growing while wine is shrinking. The brand closed 2025 at roughly 167,000 cases and, in the first half of 2026, grew depletions 16% over the prior year — notable performance in a market where both rosé and wine overall have been declining. So how is Yes Way Rosé taking share? In this episode, we talk with co-founder Erica Small about the playbook behind the brand’s growth — and why...

How do you scale a THC beverage brand to 100K cases while preparing for the possibility that the category could be disrupted by federal regulation? Jason Dayton and his co-founders launched Trail Magic just 19 days after Minnesota opened the door to hemp-derived THC beverages. The brand quickly grew from one wholesaler to more than 60, reached roughly 5,000 retail doors, and closed last year at ab...

Beverage alcohol is not simply in a downturn. It is undergoing a structural reset, according to Jon and Matt Moramarco of bw166. In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Jon, Managing Partner of bw166, and Matt, Chief Data Scientist, about what the total market data says is really happening across wine, beer, and spirits, and what founders and operators need to do differently as a resul...

How do you become a top RTD spritz brand without raising outside capital? That’s the story behind Saint Spritz, the wine-based canned spritz brand inspired by Italian aperitivo culture. In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Ben Patton, CEO and co-founder of Saint Spritz, about how the brand reached 55,000 nine-liter cases in 2025, grew triple digits, expanded into 43 states, and beca...

What does it take to challenge the giants of domestic light beer? In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Ari Opsahl, CEO of Tivoli Brewing and Outlaw Light, about building a new light beer brand in one of the most entrenched categories in beverage alcohol. Outlaw Light is taking aim at the biggest names in beer — Bud Light, Coors Light, Busch Light, Natty Light — with a strategy that...

For many drinks brands, distribution can feel like the big unlock. Get the right distributor. Win the right placements. Add more doors. But inside the distributor tier, the math is more complicated. In this episode of Business of Drinks, Mark Chaplin, President, Commercial Sales at Southern Glazer’s Wines & Spirits, takes us inside how one of the most important companies in U.S. beverage alcoh...

Cocktails are one of the biggest opportunities in the on-premise — but also one of the hardest drinks to scale. In this sponsored episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Chase Brooks, founder of SpeedKeg, a draft cocktail system built to help high-volume bars, restaurants, venues, clubs and stadiums serve more cocktails, faster. SpeedKeg’s model is simple: the kegs come filled with the non-alc...

In this episode, we talk with Ben Salisbury, Founder and President of Salisbury Creative Group, about why beverage sales needs a reset. Ben has been selling wine and spirits since 1984, with leadership roles at Fetzer, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Constellation Brands, and Glazer’s. Today, he advises beverage companies on how to sell more effectively in a market that looks nothing like it did 10 or...

How does a winery help change the way the world sees an entire country? In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Christian Wylie, Managing Director of Bodega Garzón, one of the most ambitious winery projects in the world — and a case study in building belief in an unfamiliar category. Garzón is not just selling wine. It is helping create the modern market for premium Uruguayan wine. Tha...

What makes a drinks brand truly desirable — and how do you know when it’s ready to scale? In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Carlos Zepeda, SVP of Strategy & Marketing - Wine & Spirits at Moët Hennessy USA. Carlos helps shape growth strategy across a portfolio that includes Belvedere, Glenmorangie, Ardbeg, Whispering Angel, Hennessy, Veuve Clicquot, Dom Pérignon, Krug, and...