Beyond Beer

“Flavor” is one of the trendiest words in beverage-alcohol right now, with producers across beer, wine and spirits boasting “flavor-forward” innovations.

8th Wonder Brewery, Distillery and Cannabis has been acquired by Bayou City Hemp Company, a Houston, Texas-headquartered cannabis company.

Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs is suing business partner Diageo today alleging that the brands he co-owns with the spirits group, Cîroc Vodka and DeLeon Tequila, were given worse treatment because he’s Black.

Flavor is both the present and the future blueprint for growth in the alcoholic beverage market, Dan Wandel, senior director of insights for Mark Anthony Brands, shared earlier this month during Beer Marketer’s Insights spring business conference in Chicago.

Legislation to expand sales of spirit-based ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails in California is moving forward today, after the state Senate unanimously passed a bill allowing those products to be sold in grocery and convenience stores.

Boston Beer Company’s promised refresh of Truly Hard Seltzer started hitting shelves this spring, with new packaging, real fruit juice and new campaigns designed to communicate a “clearer message” to consumers.

Tonight when hordes of fans are pushing their way towards refreshment stands at Massachusetts’s Gillette Stadium during the opening night of Taylor Swift’s much-heralded tour, they’ll have the option to order a glittery purple cocktail inspired by the pop star’s hit, “Lavender Haze.”

There were several factors that made ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktail Fishers Island Lemonade an attractive acquisition target for E. & J. Gallo: premium positioning, high reorder rates, excellent taste and founder Bronya Shillo’s pioneering vision for canned cocktails. The New York-based brand agreed to be acquired by Spirit of Gallo, E. & J. Gallo’s spirits division, earlier this month.

Ready-to-drink (RTD) beverage alcohol consumption has grown 104% in the past two years, according to NIQ, but how are consumers making shopping decisions, and where are they enjoying the growing variety of flavored malt beverages, canned cocktails and seltzers?

More than 300 winners were honored during the Brewers Association’s (BA) 2023 World Beer Cup (WBC) during Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville this week. Guinness Baltimore Blonde – the signature offering of brewing operations at Diageo’s Relay, Maryland-based production facility – has become such a local icon that one Baltimore County official wants to invest $500,000 in a local brewer to keep the beer flowing, according to the Baltimore Banner.

Luxco, Inc., a subsidiary of Indiana-based whiskey giant MGP Ingredients, has acquired Penelope Bourbon for $105 million upfront, the company announced Monday. The deal also includes a maximum potential payout of $110.8 million by the end of 2025 if “certain performance targets” are achieved.

To find out the top trends in beverage alcohol, we chatted with Scott Scanlon, executive vice president of beverage alcohol at Circana, about some of the bigger trends for producers that emerged from this year’s report including who is drinking RTDs, how the stalled on-premise rebound impacts trial and why premiumization has staying power.

CEO of Sazerac Mark Brown plans to leave his role next month, according to reporting by Louisville Business First. The move is part of “a long-signaled and eight-year succession plan,” that will see Brown move to the role of executive chairman.

Oregon regulators have agreed to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Washington breweries last year, allowing out-of-state brewers to ship beer direct-to-consumers (DTC) in the Beaver State.