Who & What —

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

HIRED:  Leena Jain as Chief Marketing Officer of Coravin,a the wine technology company.  She joins from Humanscale, where she was CEO for three years.  Earlier she had been with L’Oreal.

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Lone Star Beer Celebrates Beauty, Culture of West Texas

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

Lone Star Beer’s High Desert Days release is now available at retailers throughout Texas.  It’s intended to honor the culture of West Texas.

High Desert Days is a smooth, wheat-style beer with an ABV of 4.6% brewed in the Hill Country of Austin with the finest ingredients Texas has to offer. The beer is brewed with white wheat and Pilsen malt and then finished with hibiscus and agave nectar. High Desert Days has a unique-to-Texas flavor that provides a crisp and refreshing taste with sweet honey-like notes from the agave and tart, herbal, almost cranberry-like flavor from the hibiscus. High Desert Days is the latest offering in the Lone Star Culture Series, which also includes Rio Jade, a Mexican-style lager, and Das Bier Y’all, a German-style kölsch.

“We’re really excited to continue our Culture Series with High Desert Days – our goal is to capture the essence of Far West Texas and celebrate the beauty of the Texas landscape through design and locally minded flavors,” said Lone Star Brand Manager, Daniel Crawford.

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XED Beverage Co. Raises $4.5 Million in Seed Round

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

XED Beverage Co. (XED) said it completed its second seed round of funding.  In the past year, XED has raised a total of $4.5 million which will be used to grow XED’s flagship brand SESH and launch XED’s second disruptive brand, which is currently in stealth mode.

Founded by Zeke Bronfman and Nate Medow, best friends and former college roommates, XED was conceived as the antidote to what the two young entrepreneurs identified as lacking in the alcohol industry.

Bronfman, carrying on his family legacy of spirits titans Samuel Bronfman and Edgar Bronfman Sr. of Seagram’s fame, developed a refined taste for beverages early on and yearned to craft a beverage with authentic and robust flavor.

Medow, a star athlete and Type 1 diabetic, needed alternatives to beer and cocktails without the sugar, carbs or calories. Nate and Zeke realized there was nothing on the market that combined the rich flavor they wanted in the better for you format they needed. So, they started mixing in their dorm room until they created delicious cocktails with zero sugar and all-natural ingredients. SESH: Cocktail Meets Seltzer was born, and XED Beverages began to build its platform to launch brands.

Additional investors include:

  • Bob Hurst, Former Vice Chair & Head of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs
  • Edgar Bronfman, Former CEO of Seagram
  • Ilan Sobel, Founder and COO of WeissBeerger
  • Strauss Zelnick, Founder of Zelnick Media Capital, CEO of Take Two Interactive and Former CEO of BMG Entertainment

Randi Zuckerberg has also joined Edgar Bronfman, Strauss Zelnick, Barbara Bernstein, Dan Schwab, Adam Zoia, Steven Edelson, Susan Greene and several others on XED’s Board of Advisors. SESH is currently on shelves in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Ohio, and is also available direct-to-consumer across 36 states at www.drinksesh.com.

Additionally, XED Beverage Company has also expanded its Board of Directorsto include Jared Kash, Managing Partner of Surround Ventures, and DisPact Ventures’ Andrew Merinoff, along with Bronfman and Medow.

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Murphy Goode Picks 17 Finalists for ‘Really Goode Job’

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

We think it’s a really clever promotion because it plays off the brand name.  It drew more than 7,000 applications seeking their dream job in the wine industry.   As announced in June 2021, Murphy-Goode will select not one, but two, candidates to earn $10,000 salary per month, live rent-free in Healdsburg for one year, and receive a year’s supply of Murphy-Goode wine.

In late July, Murphy-Goode will welcome the finalists to Healdsburg, where candidates will complete a variety of in-person interviews, giving them the opportunity to further demonstrate their personalities, passions, and everything else that makes them the ideal candidates for “A Really Goode Job.” While in Healdsburg, the finalists will also have the opportunity to experience California wine country firsthand and meet with Murphy-Goode winemaker Dave Ready, Jr., who the selected candidates will shadow for the first few weeks of the job. The two winners will be selected in early August.

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Moët Hennessy and Campari Group to partner in a 50/50 joint venture to create a premium pan-European Wines & Spirits e-commerce player through Tannico

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

Campari will be contributing its stake in Tannico to the JV.  Tannico focuses on online sales of wines and premium spirits under the Tannico brand.  Some 92% of its business is to consumers, and it has a 30% share of this segment.

Tannico also owns a majority stake in Ventealapropriete.com, a major e-commerce platform for sale of premium wines and spirits in France.

Tannico and Ventealapropriete.com have complementary business models, territories and capabilities in terms of technology, marketing and logistics and generated pro-forma aggregated sales of more than €70 million ($83.02 million USD) in 2020.

The current CEO of Tannico will lead the joint venture.

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Speakeasy Hits 250 Brands on Platform

Posted on July 11, 2021 by Joel Whitaker

Speakeasy Co., an integrated DtC solution that enables bev/al brands the ability to sell direct-to-consumer while remaining three-tier compliant, is proud to announce that as of July they will be servicing 250 distinct beverage alcohol brands on their platform.

Since January 2020, Speakeasy Co. has scaled from roughly 40 to 250 brands on the platform, helping partners survive the pandemic, and with the top brand selling hundreds of thousands per month, e-commerce is now a differentiator to thrive in the new digital world.

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