With his latest beverage alcohol play, sports business analyst and CPG investor Darren Rovell is feeling the heat – and he’s excited for it.
Kickstand Cocktails launched earlier this year with a line of spicy ready-to-drink canned cocktails with 5.5% ABV per 12 oz. can. Available in Roasted Jalapeno Cucumber, Charred Pineapple Poblano and Torched Peach Chipotle, the drinks are made with vodka, fruit juice and natural flavors and aim to provide consumers with an earnest spicy kick in a “crushable” format. The drinks range in spice level, with mild, medium and hot options.
Founded by Rovell — an ESPN and CNBC correspondent, former investor in BodyArmor and the brand’s CEO — Kickstand soft launched in July in Tennessee around the college-heavy Nashville area, and has since added locations in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with New York, New Jersey and Arkansas set to roll out over the next 60 days.
The brand is also now launching a fourth flavor, Smashed Raspberry Serrano, and a variety 8-pack “Space Rack” featuring two of each flavor.
According to Rovell, the idea for Kickstand was born during a dinner at New York restaurant Beauty & Essex last December when he tried a cucumber jalapeno flavored cocktail and “became obsessed with how to get spice in a can.” Quickly thereafter, Rovell partnered with Disco Lemonade founder Ben Reilley to launch a brand that could fill what they saw as a white space in the canned cocktail category: a company built around spice.
Although spicy foods and drinks are on the rise across CPG categories both on- and off-premise, only one of the top 50 canned cocktails last year (Cutwater Spirits’ Spicy Margarita) played to the trend, Rovell said.
“All these metrics would show that spicy – both on the food side and the beverage side – is increasing and people want more spice. Women are putting jalapenos in their margaritas nonstop and even on TikTok people are now putting jalapenos in their rose. So why shouldn’t we be a canned cocktail whose chief differentiator is spice?”
Reilley is now serving as Kickstand’s COO and helped open a co-packing relationship with Pennsylvania-based Four Birds Distilling Company to manufacture the product.
With the addition of a fourth flavor and new variety pack, Rovell said he’s hoping to provide options for a wide range of consumers, noting that the decision to do a spicy raspberry drink provides a unique curveball to typical spice flavor pairings. The multipacks, he said, have also been in high demand in the RTD alcohol category and the company was receiving requests from distributors to introduce a variety option.
As of January 1, Kickstand will have 10 full time employees, Rovell said, including incoming sales, marketing and key accounts leaders with beverage and alcohol industry experience. Former PepsiCo senior director of brand communications Elisa Baker has also joined as chief communications officer.
Kickstand also marks Rovell’s first time serving as a CEO, but Rovell said he feels confident in his beverage industry experience. Although he’s best known as a sports reporter and business analyst, Rovell has long been entrenched in beverage as both a journalist and a participant, penning a book on the history of Gatorade in 2005 and later joining BodyArmor as an early investor, where he is credited with introducing Kobe Bryant to the company.
Rovell is also a partner in food and beverage investment firm Tastemaker Capital Partners – not connected with Kickstand – which has invested in CPG brands like non-alc beer company Athletic Brewing and snack makers Biena and Love Corn, as well as retailers and on-premise businesses such as Foxtrot and PopUp Bagels.
While he said his most hands-on brand management experience has come from building his personal platform as a sports media figure, his time around the beverage industry has given him first hand insight into how brands succeed in crowded categories.
“I think 5% of whether you make it or not, especially in this cluttered market, is your product, and I think the rest is being a good manager and understanding what the game is,” he said. “I understand that there’s canned cocktails coming out every single day, and whether they’re good or not doesn’t matter. The sheer number is enough to be a competitive force to what we have.”
Rovell said he intends to use his own personal platform to help raise brand awareness for Kickstand – he has over 1.9 million followers on Twitter and more than 53,000 on Instagram – although he aims to be strategic in how he promotes the brand; “I don’t want to make it all about the brand, but certainly it wouldn’t be smart to keep it church and state.”
Rovell has bootstrapped most of the business to date, and in October Kickstand closed a $2 million Series A funding round, backed by primarily by athletes, including NFL stars JJ Watt and TJ Watt, former NFL player Eddie George and sports analyst AJ Hawk, as well as their spouses, however Rovell said he remains the largest investor and shareholder in the company. While he may look to institutional funding in the future, Rovell said he’s hoping to keep the cap table small as he proves the concept.
“I just wanted to be able to be backed by friends and family and not necessarily have the initial pressures, and I think it’s been an amazing ride,” he said.