When the Finnish Long Drink entered the U.S. market in 2018, it’s likely few Americans had heard of Finland’s national drink, a grapefruit and gin highball. But in not too long of a time, the company has made its version of the Finnish staple the eighth highest-selling ready-to-drink in the U.S., according to 3 Tier Beverages and NielsenIQ.
Celebrities including professional golfers and DJs have jumped in as co-owners, and last month Top Gun actor Miles Teller announced an increase in his investment and ownership stake, continuing the brand’s momentum into 2023. But how did the Finnish Long Drink become a mainstream RTD in the U.S., some 70 years after the cocktail was invented?
Launched by Finnish friends Sakari Manninen, Mikael Taipale and Ere Partanen, alongside American entrepreneur Evan Burns, the brand offers four interpretations of the beverage it describes as a citrus soda with real liquor. Those expressions include traditional, zero (sugar-free and carbless), cranberry, and strong (which ups the ABV from 5.5% to 8.5%).
Last year the company expanded to 43 states and doubled its sales, selling over 1 million cases. Off-premise sales were up +140% to $24.6 million in the latest 52 weeks, according to 3 Tier Beverages and NielsenIQ. The brand pulls in over 50% more sales than some better known brands, including RTDs from big names like Bacardi and Jack Daniel’s – but with 4% and 8% less distribution, respectively, according to the same data.
Since it launched, the founders have signed on celebrity owners including Teller, DJ Kygo and golfer Rickie Fowler, and closed multiple fundraising rounds, the largest reaching $25 million in July 2021. Other backers include Founders Brewing Company co-founder Mike Stevens and a number of athletes and entertainment industry figures.
A look at the competition illustrates how companies selling an unheard-of beverage with the same historic legacy have varied their pitches in the U.S. – and may indicate why the Finnish Long Drink might have a long run indeed.
Perhaps The Finnish Long Drink’s biggest potential rival, Boston Beer’s Bevy Long Drink, was discontinued in less than a year, after not gaining the traction the company hoped for (leadership did hint at a possible return). While the brand modeled itself after the Finnish cocktail, it was malt based. That could have given it an upper hand on tax rates and distribution channels, but with spirit-based RTDs outpacing the rest of the segment, the flop may have been due to the lack of an authentic long drink’s key ingredient, gin. While malt-based RTDs still dominate volume, premiumization trends have fueled the demand for spirit-based RTDs, which grew by 53% in 2021, approximately double the growth of the wine-and malt-based categories, according to the IWSR.
“There’s been some bigger companies who have put a lot of resources behind their product, but their long drinks have not been authentic long drinks,” said Mikael Taipale, co-founder of The Finnish Long Drink. “It hasn’t been made with the right recipe, which is a spirit-based one, so I think then it comes down to the lack of authenticity and also just a different taste.”
Its other gin-based competitor, Hartwall Original Long Drink, can rival The Finnish Long Drink on authenticity as the original canned formula with 70 years on the Finnish market. But the two have positioned the beverage’s heritage slightly differently, with Hartwall leaning more on its ingredients and ties to Finnish culture.
And it’s pretty authentic, itself: Well before the current wave of canned cocktails, Hartwall Original Long Drink was an innovative drink dating back to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. The Finnish beverage company canned the recipe at the government’s call to help local bartenders meet the surge of tourists with an easy-to-serve beverage. Government contracts were passed on to other beverage companies for three-year stints, up until the country joined the European Union 1995 and multiple brands were allowed to sell long drinks at the same time, creating a category.
Hartwall soft launched in five U.S. states in September 2020 and now has distribution in New York, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Georgia. It has also made strides in 15 foreign markets. Besides the company’s history, the brand’s messaging centers around other attributes: the world’s first gin cocktail in a can featuring artisanal gin from Finland with natural grapefruit. It also built its marketing concept on Finnish lifestyle and originality, bringing in Finnish race car driver Kimi Räikkönen as a partner and sponsoring the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team.
While some of those attributes may have helped it become the No. 1 alcoholic beverage in Finland’s primary liquor store, gin isn’t one of the top-selling spirits in the U.S. and the share of gin-based RTDs ranks below vodka, tequila, rum and whiskey, according to IWSR data. Consumers might want a spirit-based cocktail, but gin may not be the selling point.
On the contrary, the Finnish Long Drink got a head start as the first of the category in the U.S., launching just before the pandemic boom of RTDs. The founders learned to build their messaging around a beverage with an interesting story, that’s refreshing and has “a premium liquor kick.”
“We’ve obviously learned a lot since since we first interacted with the U.S. consumer but it really comes down to same thing that makes long drink such a such a big and popular category in Finland too: It’s not a gin cocktail, even though technically if you look at the ingredients that is what it is, but nobody thinks of it as a gin cocktail in Finland,” Taipale said. “It’s a category of its own.”
The company veers away from using gin in its marketing, with no mentions of the spirit on the company website. The beverage isn’t necessarily converting gin fans, more so a demographic that also drinks beer or hard seltzer and wants to trade-up or go lighter in ABV, Taipale said.
The packaging also hints to the long drink’s Olympic history with “legend of 1952” written across the front, “allowing consumers to associate it not only with its professional athlete sponsors, but also with the idea of healthiness,” said Stephanie Roatis, a consultant at 3 Tier Beverages. Its other athlete backers include pro golfers Justin Thomas and Kramer Hickcock, tennis players Elliot Tebele and Reilly Opelka, and NFL players Dalvin Cook and Braxton Berrios.
A year after the company entered the market with its traditional SKU, it launched Zero, which at 99 calories is their second most popular drink and growing at a faster rate than the traditional, up +163% in the last 52 weeks. That product debuted in summer 2019 and benefitted from the emerging trend of consumers seeking better-for-you, unique, and sessionable product offerings, according to Roatis.
While Taipale insists the company never launched with a celebrity strategy in mind, ads with Teller have helped make headlines. Teller joined the company as a co-owner in summer 2019, with Fowler and Kygo joining in 2020.
“Really it started from them enjoying the beverage, so they’ve either heard about it from us initially or coincidentally, but then really after that from each other,” he said.
Additionally, the Palm Tree Crew, a diversified holding company that operates and invests in companies at the intersection of consumer, entertainment and technology, of which Kygo is a co-founder, worked closely with Long Drink’s marketing and business development teams early on.
For one investor, the Finnish Long Drink’s strategy to build on limited SKUs was a plus.
“The one thing I told them as they were expanding was if you can’t do it with four, we’re not going to do it with eight in terms of flavors,” said Andrew Merinoff of Venture Firm Dispact Ventures. “And they really caught on and built an amazing team and they had immediate traction.”
Now with distribution nearly across the country, the company is gearing up to go after national grocery store chains and more on-premise channels. The fact that the drink isn’t a replacement for a specific cocktail such as the margarita or old fashioned, could make it more appealing, according to Taipale.
“Every single bar and restaurant has at least one option of a canned or bottled long drink, if not multiple different long drinks,” said Taipale. “It’s very popular in bars and restaurants in Finland, so that also tells us that’s where this drink belongs and we want to focus on that channel.”