Shanken's Impact Newsletter June 1-15, 2022

WHEN TEREMANA TEQUILA FIRST HIT THE market in March 2020, founder Dwayne Johnson and his team could hardly have imagined the extraordinary success the brand has achieved in less than three years. Now the third-ranked super-premium Te-quila in the U.S. and the 10th largest by overall volume, Teremana continues to thrive despite its pandemic-period launch. “Consumers caught on to Teremana quickly and we sold 400,000 9-liter cases in our first 12 months, which we were all blown away with,” says Nicole Austin, se-nior brand manager. “We were out of stock a lot due to the unprecedented demand. We were able to increase our production, but we will only grow as quickly as we can en-sure we are making Teremana in the same high-quality, crafted way.” Austin says Teremana is on…

THE OVERRIDING TRENDS FOR THE U.S. MALT BEVERAGE BUSINESS IN 2021 ARE EXEM-plified in this year’s roster of Impact “Hot Brands” for the beer, cider, and flavored malt beverage categories. Flavored malt beverages, including hard seltzers, outnumber other cat-egories on the list, but it’s imported beer that dominates when it comes to volume. And with just one exception, domestic beer Hot Brands were the products of craft brewers. Hot Brand honors are awarded to established brands with double-digit growth in 2019, 2020, and 2021; established brands with at least 15% growth last year; brands among the top 10 in their respective categories with at least 5% growth in 2021 and at least 15% growth since 2018; and significant new products. While the U.S. beer industry struggled to grow volume in…

AMID RAPIDLY CHANGING TRENDS IN THE U.S. DRINKS market, Tequila has shown remarkable consistency in its long-term growth, with the category reaching new heights in both volume and value terms each year. Tequila has become perhaps the most potent growth engine in the entire spirits industry, with spirits connois-seurs propelling gains for upscale sipping expressions and younger generations increasingly taking to RTD entries like Tequila soda. All the while, new celebrity Tequila brands continue to hit the market almost weekly. According to Impact Databank, the U.S. Tequila market—which accounts for 85% of category exports—cruised past 24 million cases in 2021, roughly doubling in size from 10 years earlier and overtaking rum in the process. Perhaps most impressively, the higher-priced 100%-Blue Agave segment now accounts for about two-thirds of the over-all…

NEW YORK’S EMPIRE MERCHANTS has introduced Empire360, a new plat-form developed in conjunction with City Hive Inc. The platform, available 24 hours a day, will allow both on- and off-premise customers to manage their orders and increase business efficien-cies. Empire’s hope is that the e-com-merce platform will allow customers to more easily place orders and manage payments and invoicing. “We believe that this platform and our overall digital strategy will offer our custom-ers and suppliers even more robust resources to manage their businesses and strengthen their relationship with Empire,” said Eric Pfeil, Empire’s pres-ident and CEO. City Hive currently has over 3,000 retail partners in 40 states across the U.S. The fifth-largest distibutor of wine and spirits nation-wide, Empire Merchants has projected 2022 revenues of $1.8 billion, all in the…

BEAM SUNTORY HAS ALIGNED WITH Southern Glazer’s across all U.S. con-trol states in a new four-year deal. This agreement builds on a national distri-bution agreement announced in 2020 that aligned the two organizations across open states. With the control state accord, SGWS and Beam Suntory are now linked across 43 markets nationwide. “By expanding with con-trol markets, we can continue to make the right long-term investments that drive mutual success across both of our businesses,” said Tony Truzzolino, EVP and managing director for Beam Suntory at Southern Glazer’s.…

INDUSTRY VETERAN SIMON HUNT, formerly chief executive of William Grant & Sons, has partnered with Dana White, president of mixed martial arts league UFC, on the Howler Head Banana Bourbon brand. Howler Head, an 80-proof whiskey that sources its Bourbon from Green River Distilling in Owensboro, Ken-tucky, is blended with natural banana flavor. Retailing at $30 a bottle, it’s rec-ommended as a shot, an accompani-ment to beer or hard seltzer, or for use in cocktails. The brand is off to a fast start, reaching 55,000 9-liter cases in its first year, with pronounced growth across markets including California, Florida, Michigan, and New York as well as control states. Howler Head has leveraged exposure as the official flavored whiskey partner of UFC to seed growth. The brand has amassed more than…