Drinks With Caroline
Caroline Levy, a veteran Wall Street analyst, delves deep into the world of beverages with some of her hero's.
Caroline’s quick wit, empathetic approach, and vibrant personality allow leaders to be vulnerable and speak truths not typically heard outside of closed-door conversations.
Drinks With Caroline
Stimulation, Intoxication, Relaxation…What do you drink for? Brandy Rand - Thirstwell
The beverage landscape isn't just evolving—it's completely transforming. Today's consumers aren't thinking "I'll have a beer" but rather "How do I want to FEEL right now?" Fascinating insights from beverage expert Brandy Rand on the future of drinking. #BeverageTrends
No matter what source you use, that younger generations are drinking less alcohol than previous generations, and a lot of that does have to do with the fact that cannabis is more socially acceptable.
Speaker 2:Hello friends, old and new, and welcome to Drinks with Caroline. I'm so happy you've joined me for what I believe will be another stimulating conversation with an industry expert, founder or otherwise fabulous person in the consumer industry. I want to welcome the amazing Brandy Brand to Drinks with Caroline. It's a little earlier than one might normally start drinks, but hey, drinks range from everything from caffeinated to alcohol to who knows what, and there is no better expert on the industry to tell us about this than Brandy Rand and Brandy. I'm going to introduce you and ask you to then tell us a little bit about your background and your experience across alcohol in particular, but across the industry in general.
Speaker 1:Sure. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Always fun to chat with you. So I have been in the beverage alcohol industry for over 20 years and I started off on the supplier side. So I worked with a company called Allied de Mec that got bought by Pernod Ricard and then I was at Bacardi for about six years and I've done quite a few roles on the supplier side, but I'm known most recently for my role at IWSR drinks market analysis. There I was the chief strategy officer, spent over seven years working with data and insights and advising some of the you know, top 20 global beverage companies in the world around their strategy what people are drinking, what category is going to be hot next. So that's been a bit of a focus. I love data, I love insights, I love kind of predicting the future. So beverage industry is a fun place to be right now.
Speaker 2:It's always a fun place to be. What I'm learning from being on various boards is that data is ever more important. It's so critical to being a strong marketer, so never mind understanding what the trends are and have been, but understanding how effective your marketing is, so more and more. I have just incredible respect for anyone who knows how to look at the data and analyze it effectively, because you can get lots of different conclusions from the same data, and getting it right is really important. I've always found your work to be so, so helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thank you. Well it's. It's always there's a lot of data, probably almost too much data right out there, but the key point, as you say, is I always would say that there's data and then there's analysis and then there's insight. Right, so data is a bunch of numbers. Usually, spending the time to analyze the data what does it say, what does it mean and then actually saying for an insight well, how does this affect your business, how does this affect your brands? It becomes a really important key factor, and so I think those of us that get in data overload, the most important thing is say what is the data telling us and how do we look at multiple data sources and kind of put it all together to tell a story.
Speaker 2:And you're amazing at that. So let's talk about the fact that the industry has been in turmoil. I think would be a fair analysis because biggest beer brands under a lot of pressure, biggest spirits brands under a lot of pressure I think volume has actually been negative across much of alcohol for a long time. Wine is struggling. Can you give us your perspective, especially if you go back a decade, look at where we are today, post COVID, and maybe help us as an audience understand what could be on the horizon in the next several years?
Speaker 1:Listen, everything goes through sort of generational shifts. And if you look back even farther than 10 years, back in the days of kind of the Mad Men and the liquid lunches and stuff, bourbon was the number one, you know, selling spirit right, or whiskey was, and then the 70s came along and then vodka became more popular and then we had some sort of shifts. I mean, everything is a bit generational in terms of shifts and preferences. And you see this even globally, right In markets like Italy and France, where your parents drank a lot of wine and the younger generation is more interested in beer and cocktails. So I think, if we look at it from that, same with Birkenstocks and mom jeans and all this type of stuff, right. So if we look at the I think at the alcohol industry in that perspective, there are some little slight shifts that happen and they're based on generational preferences. Overall, specifically with the spirits industry, if you look back over the last 20 years, we've been in this golden era of cocktails right.
Speaker 1:So everybody has been rediscovering gin and cognac and whiskey and drinking old fashions and Negronis. And we've had this generation for the past 20 years where getting a really great classic cocktail or going to a good bar and having a good bar program is very normal. But it wasn't. If you remember, caroline, probably 15, 20 years ago you couldn't go to a dive bar and ask for a Negroni, and I think now you probably can. So there are some big shifts around. I think, just generational changes like that.
Speaker 2:Well, cocktails are fun. In fact, I was just thinking it's pretty it's so early because I'm starting to get excited about the idea of having one.
Speaker 1:You could have a non-alcoholic cocktail.
Speaker 2:You could yes we're going to get into that in some detail. So these generational shifts are really interesting. Can you weigh in a little bit on how much you think the legalization, or almost legalization, of marijuana and CBD and so on might have been a factor in the slowdown in alcohol?
Speaker 1:consumption.
Speaker 1:You know that's always a big debate, depending on who you ask, whether you think that cannabis has an effect or doesn't have an effect. And I think there's been plenty of studies where you look at states like Colorado or Washington State, where you've had legalization of cannabis, recreational legalization, and then you look beverage alcohol consumption and you don't really see that big of a change and a lot of it is just because people were buying cannabis when it wasn't legal before and that doesn't really change the factor, right, we just try to track it better. I do think that younger generations and this is sort of well documented across many, many studies, no matter what source you use that younger generations are drinking less alcohol than previous generations and a lot of that does have to do with the fact that cannabis is more socially acceptable. Right, it's become more normalized. It's much, it's much more normal for for people you know now you see people doing gummies and having cannabis and all that it's much more kind of normal.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have the same social stigma where, if you were to ask maybe a boomer or my generation, which is a Gen X generation, you know we didn't grow up with that being legal and so it's one of those things where you kind of how you grow up, the factors around you socially shape how your future habits are of consumption. I think this is a really important factor when you look at Gen Z, which we talk a lot about important factor. When you look at Gen Z, which we talk a lot about, they have grown up under a different set of social, political, health. A lot of things have happened in their young life that will shape their future decisions around health, around wellness and how they choose to live their lives.
Speaker 2:It's so true, I mean. One of my favorite observations was being at my niece's wedding. She's 30. And a couple of hours into the wedding, when the venue was going to move somewhere else, they made an announcement saying could you please order some alcoholic drinks, Because we haven't made our minimum.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I mean, I can't even imagine like my wedding we ran out In our generation.
Speaker 2:that was the norm. You went way over the limit of your minimum, of your minimum.
Speaker 1:This is a big thing that I personally believe in Some people who say, well, when those Gen Zers get a house and they have kids and they get a mortgage and they're working and all that, they'll start drinking wine just like the rest of us.
Speaker 1:Right, that there is something to be said for. You know, as you age maybe you get more income, you start to buy nicer wine, nicer spirits, and I think that ultimately you know again generationally, how this generation has grown up fully in social media, been on phones since they were very young. They have grown up again with the socialization of cannabis and they're also their parents were the big cocktail folks, right, so they're kind of like all right, what's new and what's interesting for me? And I think when we look at the innovation happening in the general beverage space, across not only you know CBD beverages, across ready to drink beverages, across nootropics and adaptogens and just really cool clean energy drinks and like there's just so much happening in beverage that there is also more choice for this generation to drink different things that fulfill different needs for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's very exciting. The packaging is exciting and the, you know, often you'll have a celebrity behind it. So there's amazing innovation for sure in beverages and it's crossing segments. So I loved your description of various need states that the consumer has, including caffeination, and you know I think you have three of them that you highlight. So could you talk a little bit about that, because I do think that everything starts with the consumer. So you know, you can have a great brand, but if the consumer is not ready for it or doesn't understand it, or just the timing's wrong, it can be a big uphill battle. But talk about the consumer need state.
Speaker 1:I did something at BevNet actually called drinking our feelings, and I can't take credit for coming up with that, the idea. I've sort of expounded on it. But I um years ago there was a Gen Zer on on TikTok who was talking about beverages and she said beverages for her were such a an aesthetic. And there's this whole idea of drinking multiple beverages at once and she's like I like to caffeinate, hydrate and alleviate. So the idea of caffeinate, hydrate and alleviate is so simple and just for me hit such a bullseye on, I think, how consumers, particularly this generation, is looking at drinking and consuming beverages. And then there was this whole thing that spawned on TikTok, where everybody started posting pictures of their diet Coke or their Celsius for their caffeination, and then there was their bottle of electrolyte water or collagen water for hydration or coconut water, and then they had their alleviate, and their alleviate could have been an alcoholic beverage like sparkling wine or beer or a cocktail or a CBD beverage. And so for me, when I think about that, it's like consumers are looking at mood states. They're looking at how they feel and choosing how they drink based on how they want to feel. Do I want to calm down? Do I want to energize? Like, what kind of mood state am I in? And this has become even more true.
Speaker 1:Like when, when I look at the amount of innovative beverages, there's so many of them that don't categorize themselves as a tea or a coffee or a water or an energy drink or a beer. There's a lot of these brands coming out that the names are like calm and happy and you know, you don't even know what's in the can, because a lot of these are canned beverages where it's just a really cool packaging, like you said, some really great fun flavor and then some emotive state. That's what people are sort of choosing. And so I always look at that and say, wow, us in the industry, particularly on the data side, we love to categorize stuff. Right. It's how we collect data, how we look at trends. We love to put things in categories and I think there are so many beverages that are coming out now that defy categorization or are more cross categorization, and I think that consumers are actually category agnostic.
Speaker 1:I don't think that a lot of people necessarily think I want a particular category. I think they think that a lot of people necessarily think I want a particular category. I think they look at a bunch of these things and they're picking flavor or they're picking function Again. Caffeinate hydrate alleviate Like what am I? What do I? How do I want to feel? I think that's driving beverage.
Speaker 2:If the person who posted that on social media hears this, please let me know who you are and I'll give you credit.
Speaker 1:Her name's Sophia Peloton. Yeah, she's the one who sort of started that and I think you know I love looking at things that are happening outside of our industry to give perspective to what's happening in the industry, because so often when you're in the beverage space you're just very focused on kind of what's going on and trying to understand the trends within each category or between companies and between brands, but ultimately, to your point, it's what is happening in the world. Generally speaking, that is affecting how consumers are choosing brands and how they are choosing beverages, and a lot of it has to do with larger, I think, societal factors.
Speaker 2:I absolutely agree with you. And just to your point of mood states, I had the privilege of working with Happy Dad Salsa and the idea is, you know, just because you've become a parent doesn't mean you can't really enjoy an alcoholic beverage. Maybe you want a little less sugar, a little healthier, and Happy Dad Salsa has been one of the fastest growing ready to drink beverages, even though the salsa category is weak. So I think it really speaks to finding that mood state or that moment with the consumer.
Speaker 1:I mean that's a lifestyle too. I mean I think there's a lot of great brands like Athletic right, which you know fantastic non-alcoholic beer that you know, you know very well, it's a lifestyle brand, right, and I've heard Bill say he didn't go out to say, hey, we're pushing like non-alcoholic beer. As much as this is a lifestyle of people who care about their health and who are fitness enthusiasts. And I think there's a lot of brands that, if you look at the brand they are whether it is celebrity or an influencer or just a particular lifestyle, whether you know it's your dad and you know you're a happy dad it's about a lifestyle and connecting with people in ways that is a motive that they can really identify with, because that's how they're prioritizing, how they want to live Well. One of the cool things was.
Speaker 2:I gave some of my happy dad's salsa to my dog trainer and his face went into shock and he goes how did you know? I'm like know what? And he said we're pregnant, we're going to have a baby. I said I didn't know, but it was such delight for him to have this brand, it was so cute. I think that these big societal trends are so important to consumer space in general, and one of them is that the consumer is finally aware that the old food pyramid doesn't work. There's GLP-1 coming onto the market which can affect how much people eat and drink and what they eat and drink, and then there's also that we're going a little backwards in terms of socializing, a little bit of nesting and hibernating. So what roles do you see beverages playing in helping people get out to enjoy life or meeting them where they are? You've talked a lot about the need states, but also the blurring of lines. It would just be interesting to hear your perspective on how you see that playing out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's an interesting point around the fact that we socialize less. I think it's something that a lot of folks, particularly in the alcohol industry, are recognizing, because it's always been let's go have a drink after work, let's go meet for drinks, let's, you know, have a beer, right. And that whole idea of alcohol being central to socialization, I think has shifted quite a bit. Certainly, with COVID, people became more at home and started doing more things at home and I think also the rise of technology right, people are FaceTiming and doing Teams, chats and doing video games and doing all of this stuff where there's this idea that we are connecting, but we are not connecting in person, we are connecting through a device, and so it's a very interesting, I think, dichotomy and a lot of like psychologists and sociologists are looking at this younger generation and the fact that they're very lonely and that they don't know how to socialize and they don't know how to meet people face-to-face. So that is a bit of, I think, a crisis, certainly in terms of how we get to interact more, and I think beverages always have this role. It's a dual role.
Speaker 1:First of all, people love being able to choose what they want, and I think that there's this idea of beverages as social signaling. So it started with cocktails. Like what you're holding in your hand when you're at a bar you order, what brand you call, says a lot about who you are, just like with clothing and brands of shoes and all these things. So I think beverages have certainly evolved in the last 15 or 20 years to be what brand that you hold in your hand or that you buy or that you post on social media says a lot about who you are. So beverages have elevated to, I think, becoming like a handbag or a pair of Nikes, right, and that's a big change in the industry.
Speaker 2:You know what's interesting? You go to New York and spend $25 on a cocktail and you think that's insane. That's going to be gone in 30 minutes, but compared to buying a Hermes handbag, it's a steal. So you've got your badge, albeit temporary, but it is affordable. Yes.
Speaker 1:It's something you can have if you're like, yeah, I can't afford, you know, that trip to Europe, but I might as well have my Aperol Spritz and feel like I'm there.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:I do think that that's a big piece of that, which is what I drink and how I'm drinking and how I'm showing people what I'm drinking on social media is a reflection of of who I am and how I'm feeling. That piece of it and then the second piece, so there's an individuality around it that I think is really great. The second piece then becomes around well then, how do I do that with other other people? And I do. I think that that that's a big challenge right now. Is is is making sure you're bringing people back to bars and restaurants, that people are socializing more, but also the inclusivity.
Speaker 1:So the movement in the adult non-alcoholic space has been very much around inclusivity, meaning there are people that like to go out, but it's always been let's go out for a drink or let's go to a bar, and if you're at a really fancy cocktail bar or a sports bar watching a game and all your friends are drinking, you can feel really left out. And so I think what's going to be really great for helping socialization in person is the fact that the adult non-alcoholic category is giving people options to go out in those settings but have something to drink that looks like and tastes like an alcoholic or an adult beverage, so that they don't feel like they're ordering a water or having to explain themselves as to why they're not drinking. So that's why, as you know, I've been spending a lot of time on the adult non-alcohol space, because I believe it's sort of the future of inclusivity and the future of how we're going to drink.
Speaker 2:I love that. So tell me more about where you think the consumer is going to spend their dollars in the adult, non-alcoholic the ANA world.
Speaker 1:I'm pushing the ANA thing out here. The reason why is because if we say non-alcoholic of course I mean people who sell coffee and tea and soda and stuff are like, well, we're non-alcoholic, right, but in the alcohol world we like to call anything that's not doesn't have an alcohol kind of non-alcoholic. But it obviously has a dual meaning. So adult non-alcoholic means these are products that again are targeting the kind of adults in an alcohol occasion. So they are things that taste and look like beer, wine, spirits or cocktails, but you also have alcohol kind of adjacent and these are products that, like a Gia, for example, that doesn't call itself a beer or a wine or a spirit but it is a ready to drink, it has a fun kind of alcohol flavors, like a spritz flavor, but has adaptogens and things like that.
Speaker 1:And I think this space, I mean it's growing. It's one of the only categories right now across beverage alcohol and I would say even in traditional beverages, you get these double digit growth. You know, 20, 30, 40% in adult non-alcoholic over the past year on a small volume base. But what this shows you is that there's a lot of enthusiasm and momentum around the category.
Speaker 2:Yes, for sure, and I have tried many. I'm, you know, a fan of Kin and a number of others. I do have to say overall I find that some taste way too much like an ordinary soft drink, but they cost more. So I think the challenge that I see for brands is how to make it taste as if it has that texture or specialness of having alcohol in it and maybe be sure that the bartender is creating that magic with it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of technology. Dealcoholization is a very complicated thing, so dealcoholizing. So there's different ways you can create products that are non-alcoholic. There is taking an alcoholic product and dealcoholizing it and there's a lot of other technology around that. So for wine and beer and for spirits, right, you have to go through a process, it's expensive, it's complicated and, yeah, it can be challenging, I think, particularly for some of these categories, to get the same. You know, when you're aging a wine for 15 years or aging a bourbon for five, six years, you know it's hard to replicate that type of thing. But I do know the technology is getting better around the viscosity, the burn, that thing that you get from alcohol. That gives you the weight.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's just repeat that viscosity and burn, because I didn't know what I was missing, but that must've been it. I don't know if there are other things.
Speaker 1:For spirits. Yeah, I think for spirits beer is the biggest adult non-alcoholic category, non-alcoholic beer, because it's been around the longest, um, it's the one that tastes the closest to real beer, if you know, and and that has been, it's again de-alcoholization is hard but it tastes the closest. Wine has been, um, getting better. There are more and more brands coming out, but again, a lot of wines I think particularly the sparkling wines and the white wines are much closer because they tend to be aged less. It's when you get to those, the weightiness of the red wines, the things you get from aging and sitting in oak, that can be hard to sort of replicate. And I think for spirits it's the burn piece, right, so you're talking about 40%. You know alcohol, that's a lot and that burn is something that I think a lot of the spirit, non-alcoholic, spirit brands are kind of working towards. And you know, you're right, how does the bartender mix that type of thing right To make it so it's not just like a bunch of juice RTDs that you mentioned, which stands?
Speaker 2:for ready to drink.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you don't have to go through de-alcoholization for those.
Speaker 1:Most of those ready to drink brands are sort of creating a flavor profile.
Speaker 1:Most of them are carbonated, so it doesn't surprise me that you would think, hey, these are very close to maybe like a soft drink or something else that I have had before, because the flavor profiles and the way that it's produced could be the same.
Speaker 1:However, I think a lot of the adult non-alcoholic RTDs, they tend to have more of those cocktail flavors. They tend to be a little bit stronger, more bitter. Also, a lot of them have the functional types of benefits. So I do see that a lot of them when I personally will pour them into like a glass with ice, I put a garnish, like I treat it like a cocktail right, because they are ready to drink non-alcoholic cocktails. So yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of really great brands out there that are kind of scratching the itch, if you will, for people who are like I kind of want that thing that tastes like cocktail and feels special and feels premium, so that I'm out and drinking that with somebody else and I think we're getting there. I mean, I think there's a lot of really great brands and there's so much great innovation going on in this space.
Speaker 2:Do you want to call out any of the brands that you think our listeners and viewers should try?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get this question a lot. I mean, you and I had, I think, when we were having dinner in LA not too long ago. We had Naan, which was a really great wine proxy. So there's a lot of wine proxies that are great out there. One called Proxies actually Naan is great.
Speaker 1:I find that those brands do some really interesting things with flavors, but they're not calling themselves a Cabernet Sauvignon or they're not calling themselves Pinot Grigio. They are in a wine bottle and they kind of have the flavor profiles and they feel like wine and I think that's those brands are really, really interesting. On the RTD side, I love Dessoir, I love Kin, I love Parch, I love Santa Cresta's Fonina Grani. I think they do a great job. There's so many good brands out there Any spirits brands you want to call out. You know, on the spirit side, I have had probably a little bit of a harder time because, like you said, it depends so much on what you mix it with ultimately Because, remember, most spirits are meant to be a base and then you modify and you add stuff to it.
Speaker 1:So I've always had sort of had different brands that taste a little bit different depending on how I mix it. So that's been, I feel, like a little bit more challenging. But I know again there is some better technology coming out around some of those. But yeah, I think that that's really dependent on who's making the drink to really make those stand out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I recently had Bill Shufelt, the founder of Athletic Brewing, on, and what I think Athletic has done is really raised the bar on the quality and flavor and richness, and it's just a delight to drink any of those flavors.
Speaker 2:I am on the board so I'm potentially biased, but I truly do enjoy their drinks so much, and so I feel that, with the wine and spirits category, the more innovation we see and as you talk about the technology and Athletic has spent a fortune marketing its product, heineken Zero. Zero has spent money, and I think there will be more money going into non-alcohol beer I think that the real opportunity rests both in product evolution, but also in giving the consumer a reason to try them, having them available on premise so that you can have a try where you're not buying a pack, you're just buying one, and reminding us that it's important to go out and be social, and the local pub or restaurant is a great place to have interactions, which I think we're sadly missing as a society more than ever, especially with gaming and online gambling rising. So I'm hoping that we start to see much more marketing going into this category as well. This adult non-alcohol category.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. I mean the marketing is. Why, again, beer is a bigger category is because there's bigger players and more people are investing behind the beer category. A lot of the adult non-alcoholic brands that they're all still pretty small comparative to bigger brands and it costs money to do marketing and a lot of them, because they are non-alcoholic, do the direct to consumer route and they spend a lot of their money on, you know, instagram and social media, where they're trying to capture consumers, because it's a more cost effective way to do it. It costs a lot of money to run ads you know traditional prints and TV ads but I do think consumer awareness of the category is getting higher.
Speaker 1:One stat that I always find really interesting and if you're any kind of a brand marketer, you know how hard it is to get new consumers into a brand or a category right. It's usually very, very difficult and the adult non-alcoholic category is able to recruit kind of new drinkers, people who have never been in the category before every year, which means that the addressable market, meaning the number of people that still are discovering the category, is still really small, which means that there's a big opportunity there. And what I find is really interesting is that a lot of the people that are coming into the category are coming from soft drinks and water and energy drinks as well as alcohol. So I think in the alcohol industry we always look at like what's the share of non-alcoholic beer going to be of the beer category? But really we should be asking what is the share of non-alcoholic beer going to be in the beverage category?
Speaker 2:I love that, the blurring of the lines. I mean the consumer's not thinking, oh, I'm going to drink an alcoholic beverage or you know, and it's going to be beer. They're thinking about what do I feel like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think and there's a lot of really interesting stats where particularly the younger generation that usually if they're saying they're not drinking, so like I'm not drinking tonight I have to study or I'm working out in the morning or I doesn't feel like drinking and they usually would drink energy drink or water or soft drink they're trading up right to a adult non-alcoholic beverage because it's sophisticated, more flavor is more interesting for them.
Speaker 1:Then you see a lot of people who are traditional drinkers, a little bit of the older generation that has been the big drinkers of a driving the alcohol category the last 20 years. That is deciding maybe I don't want to have a drink. Then they're actually going from the alcohol category into adult non-alcohol, so it's pulling from kind of both. And so I view the adult non-alcohol category categories in kind of the middle of traditional beverages, traditional non-alcoholic beverages and alcoholic beverages, and so the addressable market becomes much bigger and the opportunity again for people entering the space, whether they drank alcohol before or not, is much, much bigger, which is why I think the category is really going to grow exponentially over the next five, 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. When you talk about new technologies, are there any specifics, that any areas in particular that you think we're going to see?
Speaker 1:improvement in. Like anyone, I've read a lot about this stuff and I'm anxiously looking to try a lot of these new brands I've heard. I mean there's very interesting things happening, you know, in Europe. You know Europe is kind of more of the home of adult non-alcoholic it's. If you go to Europe you see zero proof or non-alcoholic options on all the cocktail menus and distributions there. I mean, in markets like Germany, for example, non-alcoholic beer is already like almost you know five, six, seven, 8% share of beer right. The categories are just much more normalized there and the U? S is still a little bit farther behind.
Speaker 1:So I do find that the products that I am tasting that are from Europe tend to be really good and I think they've just had more time and practice at developing the category, particularly on the wine side. So I think that that is happening and I know there's a few interesting. You know people who have a lot of experience in the technology. So of course, ben Branson, who founded Seedlip. He has a new company that is doing a lot of really cool things with around technology and trying to do different. I don't know all the details but do a lot of different aspects around that.
Speaker 2:The founder of Seedlip, working on technologies and innovation to just get us to the next level within this category.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has a couple of great brands one called Silva he's working on and they're spending a lot of time. They have almost like a lab that they're working on that is focused on just really coming up with really great tasting. I think the evolution of what the category should and could be, and there's a few others I can't the names are escaping me that I know are working on, you know, different deacetylization techniques, working on different ways to, particularly on the wine side I've read a lot about winemakers that are really experimenting with this, because there's a whole bunch of different ways you can deacetylize wine and sort of figuring out the best way to do it to keep that full-bodied flavor again, that viscosity, that thing that people expect right. So I think there's kind of two schools around the adult non-alcoholic category. If I were to subcategorize them, it is things that sort of mimic or taste like the alcoholic products that we know right, which is, how do you get something that tastes like a non-alcoholic tequila or a whiskey or wine or a beer? And then there's these products that aren't trying to tell consumers we taste exactly like your favorite lager or your favorite Cabernet. We are going to be proxies and we are going to be focused on that adult occasion. We're going to have cool flavors that maybe mimic a lot of the flavors that you see in alcohol, but we're not going to have that expectation right Going into it that we should taste. You should taste like something else.
Speaker 1:And I think that that that kind of adjacent or alternative adult non-alcoholic category is very interesting because, again, you're not setting up consumers for disappointment that something's going to taste exactly like it's going to be, because a lot of consumers don't realize how hard it is to de-alcoholize and and why the aging and barrels and all these things make certain spirits taste the way they're supposed to. Right, and trying to replicate that's really hard. So a lot of the I think proxy products that are out there and the adjacent products are where there's going to be a lot of growth, because they check all the boxes. They have the functional benefits but they don't necessarily set people up for any disappointment around. You shouldn't taste like this, right.
Speaker 2:What do you think? The big players in the industry, like Diageo or Gallo I know we're not going to talk specifically about what someone is doing, but what do you expect to see from them as a whole? The big players in the adult non-elk line of business?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean Diageo obviously has invested very heavily in the space. They own Seedlip very heavily in the space. They own Seedlip. They have Venture Arm. They have a couple of brands they just bought. Ritual Constellation is invested in adult non-alcoholic brands. All the beer companies have brand line extensions around adult non-alcoholic.
Speaker 1:I would say you know a lot of them are making non-alcoholic versions of brands like Tengere or Captain Morgan. You know Bacardi's involved in it. So I think all of them are doing different things depending on how much they're investing. So they're either making non-alcoholic versions of brands that people already know to keep people in the category within the brand, and then there's a lot that are investing in kind of new to world brands or innovation brands that are coming from really great founders, that are investing in kind of new to world brands or innovation brands that are coming from really great founders that are out there. I don't think you know right now with what's going on in the in the industry. Of course you know obviously a lot of the major alcohol producers are very focused on their core portfolios that drive most of the revenue and making sure that that is stabilized and focused. But I do believe a lot of them are paying attention to the potential of the through again, brand line extensions or investments in new brands.
Speaker 2:You make a really good point, because if you're a giant alcoholic beverage company or beer company, you do have to get your big brands in order and continue to nurture them and spend most of your time on them. And I think that if you look at historically be it in soft drinks or alcohol why innovation tends not to come out of the biggest companies, it's because their attention is elsewhere and must be to maintain shareholder value. But that's the exciting part for innovators and you know. I would just say that I hope that funding comes into this area because you do need to be well-funded and given time.
Speaker 1:I think you're right and, having worked for big suppliers, brands in the past, it's very hard for a lot of them to succeed at innovation because there's too much pressure to do things faster. Right, and I think the great thing about being a founder and having brands is you can fail quickly and learn from it and you can also make decisions without involving a million people. And most of the bigger companies, I think, love to sort of buy, not build necessarily, and that's just, you know, a reality of being a larger multinational like that. So I think that that's going to be really more of the future of the adult non-alcoholic category. I think it's going to come from new brands.
Speaker 1:If you look at athletic and if, as a parallel, if you look at the hard seltzer category, white Claw, you know, came from Mark Anthony private company, but not a big brewer, right, I mean essentially you could say the hard seltzer category was started by an independent company that kind of came up and decided to disrupt and create a whole new space. So I do think that the brands of the future are going to be these new brands that are not coming from the big companies. They're going to be coming from founders around the world that are again experimenting, finding white space, finding gaps, saying what do I want to drink? That I don't see? That's there and that's how most of these great brands are built. Is people saying, as a consumer, I don't see what I want, so I'll make it myself Exactly.
Speaker 2:A need state Back to those need states.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Consumers make the world go round right.
Speaker 2:Oh, we do. We absolutely do. Brandy Rand, you've been amazing. I'd like to just ask you how people can reach you if they want to and if there are any last thoughts you want to leave with the viewers and listeners of Drinks with Carolyn.
Speaker 1:Well, sure you can reach me at brandy, at thirstwellcom, my consultancy business. My business is called Thirst Well, because I am very focused in obviously all things drinks and also kind of this, you know, evolving a better for you and adult non-alcoholic space, so that's where you can find me. Or I'm on LinkedIn, of course. I always love to hear from people on LinkedIn, love working with brands and companies, particularly around the adult non-alcoholic space and trends and consumer stuff.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean I think I guess to go back to where you started with gosh, the alcohol industry right now it's been in a tough place. I love the fact that there are these challenges, because challenges create disruption and disruption creates opportunity. And I think this is a really good time, even though it's certainly the way things we, the way we've done things before, isn't necessarily the way we're going to do things in the future. And I think it's a really important time for brands and businesses to kind of embrace the change and embrace the things that are kind of happening. And I think the landscape is going to look very different in the next, you know, 10 years, which is exciting, well, as always, we love to hear from listeners and viewers, so please do comment and send us ideas and let's make this interactive.
Speaker 2:Brandy, thank you so so much. You always do the most amazing job and we will speak again soon.
Speaker 1:I hope, yes, in person, hopefully over a real drink where we can actually reach out.
Speaker 2:Again, I can only do that every so often. Definitely. Thank you. Okay, Take care. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed this session, please do comment, rate and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, and please share this with your friends and colleagues.