The best drink you've never heard of

19:43DJ !We:So it's just about getting people to crack the can and try it. And we try not to oversell the money. Like if we say it's a gin, four or fifths of people say, I don't want to try it. Right. If we say it's a seltzer, be like, I don't need another seltzer. If we say it's spirit-based, be like, okay, everybody else says that. If we say it's a flavor, like, oh, fine, another flavor. Everybody's doing flavors. We just try to create curiosity. And so the best way is to try to use these little stories. Oh, it's one of the biggest drinks in alcohol. They drink more long drink than the Irish to have Guinness or, you know, the story created for the Olympics.

20:11DJ !We:And this is a category now. We launched our own version in the US. We use these little quips to try to create curiosity. So they'll try it. And then once they try it, they're going to 91 % chance they like it. And then they get their own story to tell their friends. There's that transferability. And you see all these, there's like folks like DJ where they've told so many of their friends about it. Like he's like, okay, people are texting them all the time. Oh, there's a new store that has long drink or see this new, this new post I saw. So I would say the vast majority of our, of the growth of the brand really is from people trying it because they're curious and then advocating to their friends and family.

20:42DJ !We:You ask most people how they found it, they're like, either I found it in a bar or one of my friends is a super fan and they were like, you have to try this and made me try it. I think a lot of other canned beverages are doing a lot of legwork to also just introduce that option to consumers beyond beer, beyond wine, beyond traditional spirits and cocktails. Are you pushing more on-prem or retail right now? Because when you're describing the sampling opportunities, it seems like it's a real mixture of everything currently. Yeah, it's a really good question, Nate. The thing that we're trying to do, and this is what I'm going to say is really ambitious.

21:14DJ !We:And Jenna, you actually mentioned earlier, is pretend like we're Coca-Cola. Like Coca-Cola won because they were available everywhere. It's either I'll have Coke and like, here you go. Or you say I'll have Coke and they're like, oh, is Pepsi okay? Like, it's like they win the game everywhere. And so for us, like, we're certainly not there. But the fans that like it, there's pockets in the country where we are like that, right? Like in Athens, Georgia, Reno, Nevada, most of Michigan, where you can go anywhere. You go to a little dive bar, you can go to a fancy restaurant, you go to a hole in the wall gas station, like it's everywhere.

21:43DJ !We:The pocket store that we've gotten distribution to be everywhere, the brand is a top five or six volume brand. I'm not talking about RTDs, not anything. There are chains out there where we are in certain states where we are 15, 20 % of volume in RTD and number one or number two in alcohol revenue. It shows when we do our job and make it readily available where it can be your go-to drink, then the volume is nuts. So Coke is a great inspiration for that. I think Medell is a great inspiration for that. I think that Tito is a great inspiration for that. People say like, you know, Tito's and vodka because they mean to say Tito's and soda, but it's just so out there.

22:16DJ !We:But if you want to say Tito's and soda and they say, oh, we don't have that, and then you go ask for it the next month and say, oh, we don't have that. You probably don't ask it at the third place. So the game for us is you have to scale on premise and off premise and awareness at the same time. They're all three. And if you don't have wide distribution, New York's a great example. We don't have it ready available in New York yet. it's like three or four percent of the bars that have it so it's a cool treasure hunt when you find it but you're not going to ask for i own the brand and i don't even ask for it half the time it's a much different thing so that is the big push for us and i would challenge a lot of brands to where they want to innovate a lot they want to do a lot of cool marketing and like i agree those are cool but if you do cool marketing innovation and it's not where people already go and shop it doesn't matter right i mean that yeah that's how a lot of these other canned products i think are winning especially here in new york like that yeah you just they're they're they're everywhere like you can't example surfside is totally totally won the northeast corridor like everywhere you go like you walk in like do you want to surfside during the marathon i mean they were just handing them out like everywhere i think i would have rather had a long drink that sounds a little bit more i would have also rather you had a long drink yeah i know we recently saw that you did around 3 million cases in 2025, up 22 % from last year.

23:29DJ !We:That's impressive growth. How are you thinking about maintaining that momentum as you continue to scale? Is it still just distribution? Yeah, it is. I appreciate the compliment. We think it could be a lot more because going back to the pockets where we've done a good job and done it readily available and visible, where you walk in, it's kind of in all the right places. Again, think about any light beer, something like that. The volume is just so big. And so for us, we do think there's the ability to build a, with this brand, a 30, 40, 50 million case brand over time. And also because people stick with it.

23:57DJ !We:We've been around for seven years in those pockets. People are still doing the same thing they were five, six, seven years ago. So we think it's possible. It is extremely difficult and painful to pull that off. So it's about driving the availability, the visibility, and also the awareness. And like I said, a few minutes ago, you have to do all three at the same time. And so there's pockets we're doing it. And so we're just trying to get those pockets bigger and bigger and bigger. Like again, New York City, we just haven't tackled it yet. It's a lot to do. There's finite resources. We'll get there eventually, but we're just not there yet.

24:24DJ !We:So I think there'll be a world where we actually accelerate on growth rate as we get to some of the bigger states. When we really pop off in New York or New Jersey, like Surfside has, I think that'll be a massive growth rate. It'll be four or five, six X in those states.

24:35Evan Burns:I was thinking a lot about, as you were talking, exactly what you just said, like balancing accessibility and availability with awareness. Because I do think there's this point where you can actually be available in too many places where you don't yet have awareness and then velocity struggles. So this like lofty goal of we want to be everywhere also, yeah, as you know, has to be maintained by maintaining awareness and therefore like maintaining velocity. So back to this awareness piece of things, you have a pretty killer lineup of celebrities who are involved in some way. I know Nate mentioned them at the intro, but as a refresh, like Miles Teller is one of the biggest advocates and investors of the brand.

25:16Evan Burns:How are you kind of balancing using a celebrity partnership in some way to advocate for the brand versus these like grassroots super fans who are organically talking about the brand? How does that, what does that like marketing push and pull look like?

25:32DJ !We:People always assume that we like went and wanted to have all these celebrities involved because celebrities are such a big part of CPG these days. We actually didn't. I mean, very intentionally when we started the business said we did not want to do that. We did not want to be a celebrity brand. just like the super fans they came to us just like us the one thing that's constant between the founders the super fans and the investors is we all just like the brand want to be part of it and i want to have it across the u.s so my style is a great example like like the liquid found it in new york in a liquor store was like i'm just having it shipped out to la where he lived well before we were in anywhere anywhere in california i was like i love it once to get involved we had some mutual connections uh this is super early i think when the first year and we're like great like he's like i don't want to be the face of this he's like i want to be somebody that helps advance this story and how cool this is i'm like okay that's on that sounds exactly what we want there's this 70 year old story in history let's see let's advance that together and then every other uh every other you know quote unquote celebrity that's involved came out of just people liking the brand some of them were miles's friends um kygo's manager whose name is also miles was that was that miles teller's wedding and they were drinking long drink i believe kai was there too i sometimes forget the detail but they were drinking long drink because miles was a partner now and so they became friends and they wanted to get involved and then and then kygo and his manager whose name is also miles introduced the product to ricky fowler who's like this is great and then he got involved so you just go piece by piece and then ricky fowler was post posted on on uh instagram on a story and ken block and we're you know we're sad that we the world lost ken block what an amazing guy but ken block was a big fan of long drink from finland and so So he became an investor, he and his wife did Lucy in the US.

27:09DJ !We:So there's all these really cool stories of it's not us pitching them, it's folks just finding the product, becoming a fan and wanting to be a part of it. It's amazing how much organic growth this has seen and the word of mouth and people finding it organically, like Miles finding it organically. That is such a powerful tool for a brand because that's a rare thing to find. I can take no credit for it. It's just a liquid. For anybody that's listening, you can go to longdrink.com. you can type in the zip code hopefully it's somewhere close to you we're working on if not we're sorry but the liquid really is that you got to give it to you got to get to the fins that they made something that's pretty unique do you think it's it's helping that it's just called long drink i i think so i think so because it's sort of it's finished long drink people just call it long drink eventually others will launch their own long drinks i'm sure luckily we trademarked finish long drink so they can't call it finish long drink that is crazy but uh yeah i think look it's super early days and you guys cover a lot of categories.

28:06DJ !We:It's always like cool and slow and steady. Then all of a sudden, if you get lucky and you do it right, then there's that kind of an inflection point where it goes everywhere. So we're hoping we can do that. Do you think that the ranch water craze helped your business? From a consumer standpoint, I don't know if it mattered because it's such a different taste profile and experience. But I do think the proliferation of more categories is helpful. Right. It makes people realize, oh, it doesn't have to just, I can try something new, offer something new to my customers and they're interested in learning about that.

28:37DJ !We:Yeah. It exposed the consumer to that sort of style of brand so that when they're going in to maybe buy a Cutwater or something in a similar space, that they'd be more willing to try your product as well. Knowing that it's probably just because it's in a can doesn't mean it's not good. Exactly. Yeah. Which, by the way, I thought that was kind of true 10 years ago.

28:59Evan Burns:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this made me think about how Nate and I have been talking a lot about the beer category and how there's kind of this new like craft beer era, or I would say actually anti-craft beer era that's happening right now, where craft beer was everything. And now people are trying to, I would almost say like genericize, like look at garage beer, for example, really try and make these more like standardized Apple looking, Apple logo looking beer brands instead. So I'm curious what you think is going to be the next like era of RTD, if it's analogous to that of the anti-craft beer era, or maybe not.

29:40DJ !We:It's a really good question. The one thing I have high conviction, I'm not sure it's about just RTDs, and I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on it too. You spend so much time studying this. I sort of feel like there's just going to be a lot of pushback to innovation for innovation's sake. I think a lot of folks are trying to go for the quick hit of the benefit of sales today at the expense of a relationship with their customer. I'm kind of like mourning the fact that I'm not in this industry at a time where like brand was king. I look at like the brands our parents got to grow up with and like they had such terrific advertising, such stories and characters that were involved in these advertisements.

30:13DJ !We:You look at the advertisements from like the 90s and the 80s and it's like, wow, like, oh my gosh, like these are really cool. And then you look at like advertisements and everything's like millennial beige. And you're like, oh, okay. I kind of wish we could get back to that. I think Longdrinks tried to do that. We luckily have that story. But I kind of think that there's just going to be a big pushback to like anything that's corpo slop. You know, there's ASLOP, there's corpo slop. And then people gravitate towards something that has something there there.

30:37Evan Burns:I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I was listening to another podcast you were on where you were saying that Long Drink is a brand that will never have a pumpkin spice flavor. And that is shorthand. That hurts my heart personally. Pumpkin spice flavor. Love that. But that's kind of shorthand for the fact that what you're just saying, that flavor alone isn't innovation to you, or innovation for innovation's sake isn't innovation. So what is innovation for long drink then? Because once you reach full market penetration, everyone knows what long drink is. You have customers who are going back to the drink.

31:14Evan Burns:What's next?

31:15DJ !We:Well, for 95 % of people who've never heard of long drink, what's next is hearing about us. So they don't even need new. They just need to hear about us. and I'm always trumpeting that over and over and over with my co-founders to our partners of like if you know about us, we do need to keep you excited but if you never heard of us, it's just making you know about us in the first place. That's what's next is scaling marketing, scaling availability. For our fans, what we're really inspired by is creating experiences with Long Drink like on premise and having moments. There's a program going on that we did last year, I guess it's continuing this year where there's QR codes in states where it's allowed, which is many states where you can scan a QR code and we'll give you like$5 back per can or$10 back per bucket.

31:51DJ !We:It's like a drink on miles teller. Right. So it's like a really fun experience. It's kind of a give back and you know, it's also great marketing. The pack sizing, anything is interesting. So we launched when the federal law changed last year, we could build tall boys, the 19.2 ounces. We launched those, which have been really cool. Yeah, that sounds good. It's super fun. I think we didn't expect how many 8.5 % long drinks we'd sell. Cause laundry has, you know, three main skews. There's the traditional flavor, there's a zero sugar version it's like that's like coke and diet coke and then we have an 8.5 percent the first two are like five ish percent so these are coming to tall boys you've got a tall boy of 8.5 percent like that's a lot but people seem to like it and it's really it's really crisp doesn't feel that heavy so i think sizing matters um we'll do more of that we launched a 12 packs we're making a huge amount of our volume now we might even do some more with 18 packs in uh some areas now like club and some big retailers so i think that that matters but we're going to keep going back to just how can we how can we continue to to drive that that awareness and interest i think like a lot of it would be cool cool social moments like we'll do giveaways and merch we've done cool things in the past where like ricky fallow did a post once that every single person who tagged him drinking a long drink got got free merch it wasn't like you got entered like everybody but it could have been like a million good it wasn't a million but that's a cool we could get back to uh we're actually trying to do more of that more more of that soon so yeah you got to long drink in the next top gun movie that's that's that's that's the real end goal also when you

33:16Evan Burns:launch a tall boy it should be called longer drink i'm sure someone thought that first of all you're

33:21DJ !We:right our marketing team is they're gonna be watching like we did that we did that so there was some good social posts about it and there's i think they're looking at some more more marketing but it is funny that way too often people make the joke of because for the listeners that don't know like long drink is a traditional 12 ounce style beer can so there's some irony that it's not in a more slimline white cloth style can. So people are like, why did you call it long drink and make it a short can? So finally, we now have a longer can in the 19.2 ounce.

33:47Evan Burns:Love that. It's definitely an interesting way to look at innovation where it comes more from the marketing end than the product end. I am curious though, if you may at some point do some kind of product innovation that has more to do with collaboration. Is there a brand that you're a big fan of that you would want to collaborate with one day?

34:08DJ !We:I think we're definitely into collaborations, but it kind of goes back to like, I expect more of them in the future as we drive more availability. Right now, it's just like block and tackle and make it to where when I walk and I can find it. And that's the main driver of this year. But I think as we get into next year, we do want to line up kind of a series of more collaborations we can do. And also in the hockey space, like we really leaned into hockey recently. People in hockey actually know what Finland is. Americans are able to. Our Jeremy's not so great, sadly. So we're leaning into hockey.

34:34DJ !We:We launched in Canada also with a partner up there. So it's pretty widely available in Canada, but the hockey space, like pretty under appreciated compared to like golf or football or whatever, but the fans are insane. And so in a good way. And so we're trying to do more there. So I think the collaborations in that space are going to go through the roof. There's also going to be a lot more hockey fans. Rivalry has another season. You're going to be golden. This is not related to Long Drink, but I'm curious, like what are some of your favorite brands? Like not you'd collab with, Just what are you enjoying right now in the CPG world?

35:07DJ !We:I think Taco Bell is amazing. That brand has been around for more than all this has been alive. And they continue every year to both keep their core for their core customers, but do innovation that's LTOs and things like that make you pay attention. And people talk about it. I'm consistently impressed by them. And they also have challenges, right? So that's a brand that I think always has inspired me. All of these have come and gone. They've stuck it out. I don't know if you guys talked to Brian at Banzo, but I think bands of the protein, I think that they've done a really great job. And it goes back to, again, like they've stayed very focused and that, that brand's probably eight or nine years old.

35:40DJ !We:Also lots of come and gone. They've done a great job there too. And also something that they've done that's really inspiring to me is like, they really went for mainstream America. They didn't try to just be niche in like Brooklyn or West Hollywood. And so that, that impressed with, there's a lot more out there, but those are ones that are really interesting. Yeah. I think bands is a really good one. And I think something that we see a lot with a lot of the brands that we talk to is like that that focus on national but also i like what they did and i always find like if i have to give advice to brands if i have to give like one thing it's like if you're launching something have it be slightly novel and mostly familiar that is like the thing i'll repeat all the time if you really want to do something different but a lot of consumers like don't want anything crazy to your point what we were talking about earlier like long drink is really simple and accessible and it's fun it's slightly new it's slightly different you know what you're going to get in a good way and it makes it easier also if you're ultimately focusing on a mass market national appeal for that brand yeah i think yes and that's i can't say that we're smarter about this i think we just took the inspiration from finland where it is everywhere so we never thought about it being introduced for a certain group like we always were how do we win these mass market audiences.

36:56DJ !We:Again, not saying it has to be Walmart, but consumer that goes to, you know, Walmart has all types of consumers, right? Like how do you win that type of audience, which is very different than just a niche retailer that's in one area of the country. So I think that matters a lot. And I think if brands really want to get there, they have to think that way. They have to get outside their comfort zone. And frankly, I look at a lot of brands, New York's a huge CPG capital, obviously. I think a lot of times that people need to get out into the market and be like, what's going on in St. Louis? What's going on in Chicago?

37:20DJ !We:What's going on in Dallas? By the way, those are three separate places. Like you can't just call it the flyover states and be like, oh, that doesn't matter because these are very unique. Like, Indiana and Kentucky are different. But also at the same time, like, I challenge a lot of my friends, especially that are younger and newer to the space. They're like, oh, we want to go international. Like, dude, do you know Illinois has a trillion dollar GDP? Like, why don't you go focus on winning Illinois before you go to France, right? Like, there's plenty of things to do here and go deeper instead of just trying to go wider.

37:45DJ !We:It might have been probably more boring in some ways because, like, we're having to do the boring work right now. Like, we've got the brand out. We've got a lot of cool partners. And we're having to do the legwork of getting this into convenience stores. making sure when it gets in it's in the right spot getting the right pricing on the shelf that's a non-sexy honest truth of what brands that really win do that's i'm sure it could be cold that's probably what they're obsessed over every day or red like red bull but i should have said right like how this the like they have stood the test of time and like it's merchandising team like they need to learn like an olympic gold medal it's so good it's it's still everywhere and like i i don't know people who drink it but it's still everywhere and it's they're still coming out with new flavors and like yeah monster energy is another great example like their stock return is apparently better in the past 20 years than nvidia and like you walk in you walk into any gas station what do you see there's a wall of monster energy i'm sure they're just in a room laser focused on continuing to win that and it's not always it's not always the funnest thing to do but that is the thing and we have to do that thing right now yeah well evan thank you for joining us this was so much fun we learned i think we learned a lot i learned a lot i learned a lot absolutely i want to find one of those tall boys.

38:54DJ !We:Any more on New York, I'll tell you that for sure. I think there's some either Grand Central or Penn Station where the grab and goes, but it should be everywhere. Yeah, it should be. It should be in every bodega. I should have more in my fridge. Uber Eats has it. Guys, thanks for having me. I really enjoy a lot of what the work you guys do and think it's cool. And I think it's important for the community too. Like CPG is really awesome. We need more people like leaning into like showing that it can be something that people should spend their time on. Yeah, it's really fun. Yeah. Do you want to shout out anything where people can find you or?

39:24DJ !We:Longdrink.com. Beautiful. It's going to come up, put in your zip code and it's going to tell you the closest places that sell it and what versions we have there. Amazing.

39:33Evan Burns:And once you try it, you'll quickly become a DJ, a long drink lover for life.

39:38DJ !We:Of the trail. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you.