Elevator Talk: Corpse Reviver, MAA • TE, The NA Beverage Company, Big D Energy Drink

0:05Hey, folks, I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of BevNet's Taste Radio Podcast, and you're tuning to the latest episode of Elevator Talk, the series that profiles early stage and disruptive brands from across the food and beverage industry. Today's episode will focus on five beverage brands whose entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to hear feedback and advice from our co-host for this episode. That's Courtney O 'Brien, who is the founder of the Outlier Initiative. Courtney, great to see you again. You too, Ray. Thanks for having me. Yeah, having you back. You were so amazing in past episodes.

0:39And I, of course, got to have you back on Elevator Talk. I hope all is well with you. And, you know, certainly these are interesting times for entrepreneurs and anyone in business. But I'm curious to hear from you about your perspective on the industry. And before we do that, actually, I should ask you to please introduce yourself to folks who may not be familiar with you or the Outlier Initiative. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Times keep changing. So I have to keep coming back, right? Absolutely. I'm Courtney O 'Brien, founder of a brand consultancy for growth stage beverage brands called the Outlier Initiative.

1:16Come to you from decades in beverage leadership at both alcohol giants as well as Coca-Cola, Evian, etc. So I'm a student of the industry constantly. I love meeting with founders and helping them work through growth challenges. And the challenges that founders are facing today, I believe, is really in the category of uncertainty. I think there's a lot of worry about what's happening tomorrow, what's happening next week, what's happening a month from now. And it's difficult for brands to forecast and demand plan and source ingredients. But what are you seeing? What are you hearing on the ground as being some of the most challenging pain points for founders?

1:59Yeah, I would say all of the above plus sourcing capital. You know, capital providers are even more uncertain and are keeping their money close to the vest. I think the people I'm talking to are in various situations, whether they're sourcing from abroad or aren't sourcing from abroad and are either excited or nervously optimistic or very pessimistic, depending on where their product's coming from. But I think the uncertainty is helping very few people. Where can you be optimistic? I like the fact that you brought up that there might be some hope for brands. Where can brands be optimistic? There are some people I'm talking to that are sourcing bulk wine, for instance, which may or may not be impacted.

2:42There are certain people that feel, and again, it's not that it's great for them, but it might be worse for their competitors. So comparatively, they might have a leg up. There's a lot of pausing going on though. So even the most optimistic people that I'm talking to, they're still kind of waiting longer than they expected to need to wait to kick off their projects. I recall you and I chatted about your passion for and admiration for founders that are scrappy. And now is the time to be scrappy, I guess, more than any other time. But where can you be scrappy and succeed? Where can you find those spots where you might be able to save a little bit of money or operate in a way that is frugal, but not damaging to your business?

3:29I think you could still do most of what you need to do to start a beverage brand and to scale a beverage brand, which is listen to your consumer. It's very obvious what they're going through right now. And the tensions and the trials and tribulations have never been more obvious than now in terms of what your consumer is going through. So for example, there's a group of people that are all about kind of moments of respite and relieving the tension through everyday moments of feeling good. How can you leverage that in how you talk to people? Can you think about package formats? Knowing your consumer being on the ground is free and that's always something that's going to benefit you.

4:13That's just an example. So it's an excellent example. And I love the fact that you said being on the ground, talking to your consumers, knowing who they are, knowing what they want, knowing what they're going through is free. You can, it's just a matter of hustle, I think, at this point. And as we know, you know, entrepreneurs, especially in the beverage industry, are some of the best hustlers that have ever existed. And hustlers in a good way, not necessarily hucksters, you know what I mean. But yeah, and as I mentioned, I think we have an outstanding group of founders today. And I'm really excited to get into this conversation with all of them.

4:49Are you ready to meet our first, Courtney? Absolutely. All right. That first person is Anna Zezbaugh, who is the founder and CEO of Corpse Reviver. Anna, great to see you. Great to see you, Ray. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining us. I love the name of your brand. I've heard a lot about it. There's been some buzz. In fact, I believe my family, which owns a business in Connecticut, they stock your product there. And I was like, wow, I'm going to be talking to Anna pretty soon. So excited to hear all about what you do and excited to share your brand with our audience. Tell us all about Corpse Reviver.

5:26Amazing. I love to hear that. I actually got started back in the beverage world back in 2020 with a different product line called Hooch Booch. I started the business in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had been furloughed from my job wondering sort of what was next. And that brand launched in May of 2021. And, you know, Courtney, kind of similarly to what you were talking about, obviously, lots happening with the consumer. We put our ear to the ground and we listened to our consumer who was asking for non-alcoholic options, asking for better for you options. And so decided to innovate into this product, Corpse Reviver, which is a hydration beverage inspired by the classic Corpse Reviver cocktail, which is a botanical beverage that was made with absinthe.

6:09So we took similar notes from like green tea, cardamom, and built a hydration beverage. It's bubbly and tea-based, and launched that at the beginning of last year, 2024. Outstanding. I mentioned you're sold in a small store in Connecticut, but where else are you sold, distributed? Yeah, we sell in a lot of incredible retailers. Since launch of last year, we have probably over a thousand doors, some notable ones being Air One, Natural Grocer, Central Market, launching next month in Walmart, coming to Sprouts this August. So lots of big retail expansion this year. Outstanding. Courtney, I've never heard of the Corpse Reviver cocktail.

6:49Have you? Are you familiar with it? Not until I looked it up. Okay. Okay. It sounds pretty good. And I believe I've tried Corpse Reviver and it is pretty darn good as well. You see a market for this type of beverage? I mean, clearly a thousand doors in about a year is impressive. So there must be people out there that are looking for this kind of product. That's it's very impressive. I've got so many questions for you, Anna. Yeah, please. Do your customers tend to know what that is? And they kind of like the hair of the dog sort of thing or a hangover reliever? I would say no and sort of intentionally no.

7:26So our sister brand Hooch Booch was inspired by Prohibition here in Denver. The mayor of Denver shut down all of our liquor stores, which is why I started the business called Hooch Booch, like classic cocktail, hard kombucha. As we were looking to innovate into a new product line, we said, let's stick on this sort of same theme. And someone on our team had brought up the idea of the Corpse Survivor cocktail. And we started thinking about it. And then we're like, we could do a really cool play on words. That's like a recovery beverage called Corpse Reviver. I would say maybe 20 % of people know about it, but most people just find it to be an interesting name to revive your corpse after a night of drinking, post-yoga class, post-workout, et cetera.

8:00So when people know, I think it's fun, but I also don't think that it has to be something that people are aware of to enjoy the beverage. But they get it. They get the usage occasion. It sounds like whether or not they know. Totally. Immediately. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So to answer your question, Ray, I think, I mean, hydration beverages are very hot right now. We're not satisfied with water anymore. We want everything to do double duty. I think the question for me is and was, how clear is it to people? How it's different from every other of the millions of hydration beverages out there right now?

8:32What's it for? Who's it for? You know, it's a really interesting package versus the name. It's, you know, immediately kind of like a, whoa, what's that name on this pretty looking package? So all things to think about. Talking a little bit about usage occasion and sort of how we're positioning our product different from the rest. I think first and foremost is our tea-based and bubbly approach. You don't often see that. And the real reason for that is to be able to take the drink morning tonight. You mentioned the packaging. It feels elevated enough to drink it in sort of an evening social beverage setting.

9:03I think a lot of people are drinking their functional beverages in that evening setting. So not only capturing sort of the morning timeline, but all the way into social function. And so we like to think about the hydration spaces like, you know, the Gatorades and the Powerades of the world were built for athletes, right? Like marathoners. But what about the everyday mover and shaker? And so for us, it has three grams of sugar. It doesn't have a ton of sodium, only 20 milligrams. So you can drink it after, you know, a neighborhood walk or things like that. You don't have to feel like you've, you know, done an Ironman or completed an Ironman to drink the product.

9:35And then, of course, the social beverage aspect, like I mentioned as well. Anna, how much do you rely on and talk about the dead part of what you do, for lack of a better word? I see some of it on your Instagram. And certainly there's, you know, there's a tie and there's a connection to corpses. And, you know, Liquid Death certainly is one of the hottest brands out there. But how much do you lean into that? How much do your consumers respond to that? I think we actually lean a lot more into the revived piece of it. And it's one thing that we've been trying to utilize a little bit more in our imagery, in our verbiage.

10:12I think there's other brands out there. I think Unwell is a great example of another hydration beverage that is sort of speaking to the opposite of what we want the consumer to be. So we say like you're a corpse before you drink the beverage, but then you're revived after. And so what does revival mean? It not only means, you know, getting your daily dose of hydration, your electrolytes. But I think talking about the consumer sentiment right now, what is the moment in the middle of the day where you just need like a little afternoon pick me up, right? You need a little bit of that revival, that daily dose to make you feel a little bit better, kind of like the break in your day.

10:43And so we're leaning a lot more into the revival element than the corpse element, because I think a lot of us right now have that sort of corpse like feeling. So how can we find those little moments of revival throughout the day? In terms of merchandising, and I'd love to hear from you and then have Courtney follow up. Where do you want to see your product in store? Or what should it be next to? Certainly, there's a functional component to this. There's a hydration component to this. There's a sort of creating our own category to this. So where do you want to be? And Courtney, I'd love to hear from you just as a follow-up of how you can convince merchandisers and retail buyers to present the brand in its best form on shelf.

11:21Yeah, we say functional beverage. It has potassium, magnesium, and sodium traditional electrolytes, but it also has L-theanine and zinc. So it's a pretty hearty blend. that's in each one of the cans. Obviously, sometimes it's completely up to the retailer, but somewhere between functional and hydration, and they often sit quite close to one another. We are a shelf-stable product. We prefer, of course, to be merchandise cold, but there are a lot of opportunities for us to do sort of case stacks, shippers, and things like that because the product is shelf-stable. And yeah, that's pretty much where we've seen it thus far.

11:53I would answer my question in terms of, you know, as a student of the category, but also a user. How is it different than the others? I think really, these sets are getting crazy at this point. So many colors, some brands, you know, you've never remotely heard of. How do you use your unique usage occasion to provoke merchandising opportunities? So should you be merchandised on alcohol stacks as a antidote for the next day, in addition to being shelved with the functionality. Because you've got two different occasions you're talking about. You're talking about midday slump, which I think is more common for a lot of these beverages to be talking about.

12:38And you're talking about after for a better morning sort of thing. How can you use both of those to think about how you could position what you talk about and where you show up? even interesting places to show up outside grocery. You know, how could you take that? I think that's a really interesting point. And I think coming from our alcohol lens, we've thought a lot about this because we started an alcohol distribution with our sister company. And so we still push this through actually alcohol distribution. So some of the interesting places we found in our like brunch spots, right? Sort of like a hair of the dog, but a better for you hair of the dog.

13:14And definitely some other, you know, liquor store placements in the recovery section. And I think that's where we sort of find ourselves with a competitive edge over some of our some of the other other beverages in the space, because we're thinking about different usage occasions, thinking about how we could incorporate it into a mocktail, for example, or even a cocktail, like a sort of better for you cocktail. We sometimes mix our prickly pear with a splash of tequila to make like a better for you ranch water, kind of hydrate while you dihydrate sort about the same time. So I think there's a lot of different usage occasions.

13:46Ray, thanks for laughing at that. I love it. I love it. Hydrate while you dehydrate. I think you should use that more often if you're not already currently using it. Last question for me, Anna, the pack size, 16 ounces, the can, the package itself. Why'd you go with a 16 ounce can versus, well, I guess anything else that you could use? People ask this question for the pack size, the tea based and the bubbly nature of the product. And to be honest, a lot of it was personal and things that I didn't see that were currently on the market. I feel like when I have a 12 ounce can, I like there's more to be desired at the end.

14:25And with a hydration product specifically, when we were innovating into hydration, we asked the manufacturer who we were working with the electrolyte mix on to say, like, does it matter if it goes in a 12 or 16 ounce? Like does the liquid matter for how much of the mix is going in? And they said either it doesn't matter, you're still going to get that same dosage. So when thinking about hydration specifically, we thought adding the additional ounces on there would be an added benefit to the consumer, especially when targeting hydration. For sure. And price point, we didn't talk about price, but what is the average price of your product?

14:59The MSRP is$3.99. So pretty competitive, especially when you compare it on a per ounce basis to some of the other products in the functional set. You nailed it. I think that is the appropriate price right now and the expected price for a lot of consumers for a product like yours. Anna, thank you so much. We covered quite a bit in a relatively short amount of time. I really am excited about your brand. I think you've got a great runway. And clearly, you know this business, which is awesome. So please let us know if we can help in any way, reach out anytime. If you get into new retailers, new distribution, new funding, let us know.

15:37We'd love to follow up on it and feature you on BevNet. Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. All right, on to our next guest for this episode of Elevator Talk. We have Santiago Martinez-Zorzanon, who is the founder and CEO of Mate. Santiago, it's great to see you again. Good to see you, Ray, and thanks for having me here. Yeah, I say again, because you and I caught up a couple months ago in Miami at Taste Radio's first meetup of the year in the amazing city of Miami and got to try some of your amazing products. A lot of people who attended were big fans, and I think you're doing something pretty awesome.

16:17Please tell us all about Mate. Thank you, Ray. And I think we are, indeed. So my name is Santiago Martinez-Sorcenon. us Latinos get crazy long names. Maybe our moms want us to be diplomats or politicians in the future. Who knows? Well, I'm from Argentina, from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have been drinking mate. This is yerba mate, by the way. I don't know if you get to see it. This is the traditional way of drinking yerba mate. Yerba mate is the most caffeinated green tea on the planet. It's become a category in itself. Just a couple of years ago, there is one major brand who started hitting revenue over 100 million.

17:00They're probably right now 200, 250. And it just became a category within the, you know, better for you alternatives for energy drinks. My problem with energy drinks is the jitters, the acidity, the nervousness, and the so-called courage. And so yerba mate is very different because it delivers calm yet hyper-focused energy crash-free. And so that to me is fascinating, how effective and how powerful the plant is. This is packed with nutrients and antioxidants. Since it's a green tea, you get the best of both worlds. You have those nutrients and antioxidants. It's a very nutritious plant with minerals and vitamins.

17:41But at the same time, it has that strong caffeine kick to be perfectly on par with a good cup of coffee, right? For people that have a very demanding daily life, they work 10 hours, 12 hours a day, and they need that energy to be consistent and to be powerful for you to be sharp in the mind. And so this plant, what it does is it elevates mood. This is scientifically proven because it taps into the serotonin neurotransmitters in the brain. It also improves physical performance and it supports weight loss. It even goes as far as to support weight loss. And so that's why I created mate. This is the brand that you have seen.

18:21We have three different flavors. This is the first ever ceremonial grade yerba mate brand, which means the highest purity and quality. The way we set ourselves apart from the pack is, first of all, it's all organic ingredients. It's low calories. It's real fruit juice as opposed to the juice from concentrate, which is even more expensive to produce, but you can taste the difference right away when you when you try it there's a freshness there's a there's an aliveness to it there is that is different and it's also only sweetened with stevia and agave so that's the the the breakdown on how this is different but there's one last piece and this is what we were talking about on that event in miami the craziest part about our brand is that this right here is the only energy drink in the world to be made with sound.

19:14So what we do here, and this is the crazy fun part about the whole thing, and it creates so much reaction and engagement. So this is a very powerful narrative that we stumbled upon. What we do is we play the sound of mantras. Mantras are ancient sounds that have a very high frequency. Vibrationally, these are used in meditation and yoga and have been used for millennia. So we play these mantras, one for each flavor, on big speakers, we expose the liquid, we open up the tank, we expose the liquid to these sounds. And so by doing this, we create an energetic infusion because sound carries intention and frequency.

19:53And there's a ton of research about it, mainly Masaru Emoto. If you have seen his research about the water molecule, what he did is he took pictures of frozen water molecules under different intentions and with different sounds that were exposed to it. and even label the different bottles. And crazy enough, the water molecules were shape-shifting differently to harmonic symmetric forms when they were exposed to high vibration and tensions like love and peace and totally chaos and disarray when they were exposed to the other end of the spectrum. So based on that, we decided to do this. And the full circle and the bottom line here is that if you look at the cans, they have a QR code here.

20:34If you scan the QR code on the can, you get to listen to what you're drinking. Okay. I heard part of this in Miami, and I'm still enthralled. And I think Courtney is as well. She was kind of leaning in and looking at me like, this is really, really cool. So I asked a lot of questions already in Miami. I'm sure you have quite a few, Courtney. Take it away. I do. Who are you making this for? I'm making this for if you talk about demographics. First of all, there's two angles here. Okay. One angle is the yerba mate in itself. That brings in a demographic of people that are not so prone to go after any type of regular energy drinks that maybe other demographics wouldn't have a problem with.

21:23Right. So as I said, it's a category in itself for a healthier alternative that presents a lot of benefits health-wise and no downside. Literally, there's no jitters, acidity, nervousness, as I said, no crash. So that is a category of people. So the other part of the demographic that aligns with the brand is associated with these mantra sounds. So people that do yoga, meditation, that have a more spiritual way of looking at life, maybe through self-awareness, transformation or healing, that is the other demographic that we are tapping into. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Thank you. Awesome.

22:05I think there's another part of this in terms of who is this for, because the retailers that are going to carry your product, I think, are pretty specific to those consumers who are looking for the attributes that you're promoting. Certainly, Erewhon is the one that everyone, I'm sure, is the first retailer that comes to mind when people think about this. But I guess, how do you pitch mate to retailers that may not necessarily, and this is just certainly I love what you're doing, but may not necessarily care about some of the other aspects or attributes. They really just want that your mate energy function.

22:45Do you focus on that? Do you think just focusing on that is going to be the primary road, the primary way you get into retailers going forward? So what I think is interesting is that I've had this conversation with a lot of people before about, you know, you must align your brand with healthy retailers in these niche type of stores. And interestingly enough, I did some research on major retailers that are high volume and low pricing, and they are moving with a very good velocity of all sorts of healthy products like kombuchas at prices that are even above$3.50 or$3.50 per bottle. And so we realize there may be a gap that's bigger than we think in terms of these healthy alternatives.

23:33I think they're going to go mainstream. And I think a lot of retailers that are not specifically aligned with the organic healthy lifestyle will carry some sort of alternative in their stores. I don't think we're as limited as people think. And I think it's a matter of just being bold enough to take that shelf space that's available. Courtney, in terms of, you know, any other questions that you might have, I mean, certainly, I feel like we could keep going for another half hour because this is such an interesting brand. But any other questions you might have for Santiago? ago. Yeah. I mean, as you think about your distinguishing characteristics for coming in, there are already your Bermatis, as you said, you have mentioned that you're the first ceremonial grade one, which then you said what the benefit is.

24:15It is going to be more potent than anything. Are you charging a premium price for it? Therefore, are you finding the consumers are happily paying a premium price because they're getting a more potent source? And is that part your messaging? As far as price, we were lucky enough to sell off product in stores here in LA, even above$4. And that was a great test run for the product. Of course, we're not above$4 anymore. Right now, the MSRP is$333 for the little cans and$377 for the larger cans. And And we have a path of decreasing COGS to be able to retail at$299, which we think is a very decent and competitive price for these type of products.

25:04But even though right now we're only selling in independent stores, we are in the works of entering a large retailer because that takes at least six months and we launched this four months ago. So in the next couple of months, there's going to be major brands carrying our product. we understand that we have to be below$3 on some of them if we really want to stay mainstream and competitive and cast a more wider net. And that's doable by us. Outstanding. Santiago, as I mentioned, I mean, I think you have a really interesting brand and one that is very much on trend. And, you know, you start to see the way that, I'll just say their name, Guaya Key, has really focused a lot more on promoting Yerba Mate as a key ingredient and one that is a super ingredient in so many ways.

25:50And I think, you know, your brand is definitely coming along at the right time and differentiated, very differentiated from what the big players are doing. So excited to see where all this goes. And please, please stay in touch. Let us know how we can help in any way. Thank you so much, Ray. I appreciate you having me here. Thank you, Courtney. All right, on to our next guest for this episode of Elevator Talk. We have Dan Choi, who is the founder and CEO of the N.A. Beverage Company. Dan, great to see you. Hey, Ray, how are you? I'm doing well. How are things shaking? We literally had an earthquake, right?