The Fightback: Is 2026 the Year Alcohol Roars Back? With Paul Thomas, Rob Wallis & Tristram Coates #26

0:04Hello and welcome back to YouMe and CPG, the podcast at the heart of consumer goods. now today we've got a really interesting one so before christmas we had a podcast um billed as the future of drinking uh which obviously is a really interesting topic how consumption is changing how people are drinking differently we had guests uh from club soda bativo and iwsr it was a really good one please listen if you haven't however i was called out on linkedin quite rightly uh by one paul thomas to say how can you have a future drinking podcast with such a biased lens towards non-alcohol, which is completely fair enough.

0:46So today we've got a bit of a fight back, a round two to understand, well, what's going on from an alcohol perspective? Yeah, the narrative can be a little bit doom and gloom if you look at the press, but there's got to be another angle. What are big brands doing, thinking, what are small brands doing and thinking in the space? And that's what we want to talk about today. We've got some brilliant guests to talk us through it. Paul Thomas, Ex-Suntory, Asahi and Diageo to give us a viewpoint from the big corporates, but at the same time, a kind of insight background as well. So that should be really good from a consumer perspective.

1:23Rob Wallace, founder of Moth, probably thinking, what is all the fuss about with the growth that they're seeing, conquering the UK at the moment and starting to in the US, which is fantastic. And then Tristan Coates, founder of the Glass Half Full Agency. So at the coalface, sales and distribution for independent alcohol brands. So really giving us a viewpoint of what's going on specifically there. So thank you very much for joining. Paul, first question coming at you. I know that you're a bit irked by the narrative that says it's all doom and gloom, that alcohol brands are fading, non-alc is the future, all of that stuff.

2:00What's a fair narrative? Yeah, thanks, Jimmy. I'm quite easily irked. It might be an age thing. I mean, look, the reality is, if you look at the data and you exclude COVID and you do a trajectory from before COVID, the alcohol industry is pretty much exactly where it should be. RTD is growing. Rob, thank you. There's growth in cocktails, absolutely no and low. There are so many pockets of positivity. Now, of course, we're not daft. We acknowledge health trends. We acknowledge Gen Z. We acknowledge that this is the first time in sort of trackable history that alcohol is having a wobble. However, my belief coming into this is what makes this industry great and will grow it is investment behind incredible brands and people.

2:48So just looking at some of the numbers as well, just thinking it and we'll get on to some of those points. I think some really big points about brand building, right, and short termism. I think that's something, you know, you look at the success stories that we're seeing, Moth will get on to an MO, clearly doing brand building at a very high level. Non-alc is 4 % of total sales across alcohol or like-for-like products. It's very small. And yes, growth is significant. Do you think we're getting a little bit wrapped up in the noise coming from non-alc? And it's London-centric potentially as part of that.

3:34But what's going on there? Because 4 % is so small. Are people getting confused with growth versus scale? I think it's a great question. Look, no and low offers new choices to consumers. If I don't want to drink alcohol, it offers me more choices. but even in the most developed known low market, Spain and Germany, in beer, the most it's ever reached is about 15 % share. So it is a great incremental opportunity for the industry, but we cannot go on believing that that is going to fill the gap of the declining volumes we are seeing in good old-fashioned, full-strength alcohol. And if we don't address that as an industry, long-term we're in trouble.

4:17Rob, Moth, from the outside, brilliant success over the past few years. And when you do see the narrative around Gen Z not drinking, Lenor's drinking less, Silva's drinking less, all of that stuff, particularly in the UK, and you look at your success, how do you reconcile those two things? I think the headlines lack a lot of nuance. I think it's easy to say Gen Z this, older people this. I think from our perspective, what it means is the no and no story. It's a, it's great, good news. Like the alcohol industry wants to write about it. It's a good news story. We'll feel good about the increase of moderation.

4:56It's great thing to write about, but I think it's harder to write a headline of alcohol is changing and consumption are changing. Gen Z drinking less is a very simple thing to get your head around. However, is that actually true? A lot of the new data says, no, what they were is broke. Yeah. Not teetotal. Yeah. And that's, that's the market. And so now that they've been in the workforce longer and they've got more disposable income, alcohol trends, they're very close to millennials and people older. So I think it's difficult to try and write a nuanced argument here when there's so many things going on across so many categories and comparing what's happening in wine to RTD to no and low.

5:32It's really difficult. But I think we can all say that there is a headline, that there is change, but that also presents opportunity for brands like Moth. IWSR data in the last pod actually said, yeah, Gen Z participation in alcohol is rising. And that's not just because more people are reaching the age that they can drink, it's actually rising, they're spending more money. I think pubs as well will get on hospitality, but pubs are actually from a value perspective up across how much people are spending in the pubs. So again, there's conflicting data, isn't there? And sometimes it doesn't fit in the narrative of kind of the doom and gloom.

6:10Tristan, from your perspective, from a kind of, yeah, from a sales distribution bartender said, what are you seeing? How does, again, how does the narrative fit in a kind of real bar setting? We represent three pretty much category leaders in the No and Low space in Heverleaf, Non-Alk Spirit, Wild Idol, Non-Alk Sparkling Wine. And we're actually in the process of launching an NBD product for our Noam, our German Varien Lager brand. So we can see all the trends happening. I think the biggest thing, the biggest change from our perspective is that No and Low is not a category you can laugh at and ignore.

6:48in that three years ago, even five, six years ago, people just didn't take it quite seriously. I don't think bartender advocacy was where it is today. And the data is undeniable. The category is booming. And the majority, all three of our non-alcohol brands are in double or triple digit growth. So it's definitely growing. That being said, as you pointed out, it's from a very low base and it still represents a tiny share of total alcohol consumption. I think that what we're finding day to day is that whilst we're dealing with big consumer trends and a massive change in consumer behavior, really driven by the pace in which technology is influencing the consumer and our lives, the brands are succeeding.

7:34And the good brands that really are doing something different and being bold and being creative and driving categories forward in their way are doing so very well. So I think that, you know, there's so much optimism to be had and, you know, we shouldn't listen too much to the doomsters. You know, every single year you hear a different thing and predict a different thing. I think if brands continue to just focusing on, you know, why they exist, their reason to exist and peddling, you know, a real challenger story, then there's a lot to be excited about. I think there's also a really interesting thing, building on what both Rob and Tristram have said, which is for years and years and years, alcohol looked at share of throat, which is a horrible expression, but it only compared itself to teas and coffees and waters and Coca-Colas and whatever else it might be.

8:23alcohol now needs to think more about share of entertainment because people coming through now, Gen Z, Gen Alpha in time, have more choice with what to spend their money on than any generation has had before. Alcohol is now, and we can talk later about why, a very premium price point. It's now facing the Freddo test. The pint of a Guinness in London is becoming the new Freddo. and that's seven eight pounds younger people are starting to think well what else could i do with seven eight pounds if i'm going out and i want to drink a couple of pints with friends in a pub let's say that's 30 40 pounds what else can i do with that and because alcohol has stopped talking about the wonder magic and fun of its brands for quite a long time it can't easily justify it as perhaps it once could.

9:17So that idea of fun is an interesting one, isn't it? The other brands in front of us, we've got Buzzball and we've got Moth and let's not have a competition, but they are fun. They're lively, they're dynamic, they're great flavors, they're great packaging, they're colorful. I mean, it's not as simple as that. Of course, it's not, Rob, but you guys have thought about that within the positioning and the building of the brand is how do we bring a sense of of quality but also a sense of joy to the category yeah i think there's a trend that we were so aware of when we were looking at sort of the branding on moth of being too cool for school of being too aloof and too disengaged with the consumer and too far removed from the reality of like how you actually consume and drink and enjoy a product and i think you've got to give credit to buzz balls if they are unashamed look they know what they are they know what they're for they know what they're not um and people have really resonated with that and then for a moth consumer we like to think with a tinny that you could take home to meet the parents it's that sort of you can have brand loyalty with an rtd for the first time and we play in that space but again be like as as paul said i think there is a disengagement from the day-to-day of you know you can have these lofty extremely expensive commercial advertising for your are you advertising for the one occasion a year while you might be on a beach drinking this rum or this whatever or you drink are you advertising for the 99 days a year you wish you were and we we looked out of home last year and sort of what we were doing billboards and things and you ask the question do you want to put a picture of a beach up and say like moth takes you there and it's the one the one day a year you're on a beach or do you want to speak to the people who want a little bit of that feeling 300 days a year or whatever it is so i think yeah you got to be careful into how you speak to the consumer i always think that positioning question is interesting about how can you create kind of magic in the mundane versus pure escapism and we talk about like the haynes the iced tea phenomenon every iced tea brand say drink this take you to the beach uh but after a while you drink every day right you're actually sat in your cubicle at work and and you don't you want to feel good about your life in front of you not what what it could be so i i think you're so right uh from a positioning perspective just thinking about gen z then specifically uh drinking less um as they are right and and you're right it's it's income driven it's economics they are starting to earn a little bit more more money and they are starting to spend more on alcohol part of me also thinks talking about brands that are fun a lot of non-alc brands are not particularly fun right they're quite lofty and they're quite holier than thou and quite serious about their their uh i guess purpose and vision and all of that so do you get some point people think for goodness sake i'm just going to spend money on a beer i'm just going to have a cocktail i i've had enough of a of this holier-than-thou non-out world at some point, I just want to have a laugh, and I know alcohol doesn't always facilitate that, but at the same point, at some point, the COVID hangover, the health and well-being tidal wave, the impending doom of a World War III, does that not just go, you know what, I'll spend£16 and have two beers with my mates, rather than another health class, rather than some non-out.

12:30Do you think that sense will come back as a trend? I personally think it will, but do you think that will come out of heaven? I think there's always a swing back. When we started, we were, and still are probably, the highest strength RTD on a shelf in the UK. And we're unashamed about that of, look, if you are not drinking, right now in the moth range, we can't offer you anything. But there's a swing back against that of, look, if you're going to drink, it should be spectacular and brilliant. And if you're going to have less, make what you're drinking brilliant. And I think the brands will succeed and not the holier-than-thou, whether they are booze or not are the ones that genuinely are just looking for an experience in a relationship with the consumer but evo i would not say is a holier than that i think it's fun their activations are with a bright yellow piano and people singing and doing drag like you can't say that that's a holier than thou and even lucky saint do a wonderful job of playing with the holier than thou of like thou shalt go to the pub like there's so i think there's opportunity to not be serious whether you are booze or not but it is as you say it's that engagement with the consumer and Are you being, for when they do decide to spend the money they have left, as opposed to like, what are you offering?

13:33Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because those two brands you mentioned, both fantastic. And they come from a point of how can we bring the joy? How can we look at just great drinks, right? And Emma said, we'd like to think about the future as kind of ABV agnostic. It doesn't matter. We're just going to bring great brands. Exactly that point. I guess some of the brands that are kind of rooted in health versus joy are the ones that maybe can lean too far that way. Or probably shouldn't play in the alcohol category because there's functional and there's loads of other stuff, right? I think it's the danger.

14:00I remember when Hard Seltzer came to the UK and that sort of wasn't the easiest transition for that product coming over of trying to sell alcohol as healthy is fundamentally flawed. You know, you shouldn't drink this and do a yoga class or go driving. That is not the point. Like indulgence, whether it's because of taste and it's zero or because it's alcohol and taste. But indulgence, you're allowed to have that. We still have chocolate. We still have, you know, things that you wouldn't have every day. But I think not shying away from that, what the purpose of it is, is... Sorry, Paul, go on. I'm just building exactly what was said there.

14:33Where the alcohol industry, the big players have not helped themselves, is for the last 10, maybe even longer years, pushing prices up continually, continually forcing through a premium. And the way they've justified that is by talking very rationally about ingredients, about process, about provenance, about the people making the product. And all of that is great and it's interesting, but it's not fun and it's not entertaining. And so, so many brands have tried to justify putting their price up by talking about the liquid inside the bottle, rather than the sort of emotional experience, the fun, the joy that you might have as a result of the drink.

15:16So now all of these brands feel completely stuck, not being able to talk about fun, experience, enjoyment. and it's allowed the moths, the buzz balls of the world to come in and go, well, have us then. And that's the point around premiumization. At some point, premiumization hits a ceiling. People think, I don't want to spend that amount of money. And I think there was a great example on cognac, which is to say, cognac has done nothing to attract a younger generation, has done nothing to come to their consumer. It is a come to us type of category. And the prices have gone up and up and up and up and demand has fallen.

15:58Like, is that not a case of, yes, one big brand's not taking the, I guess, the non-drinking thing seriously? What is that a case of? I will slightly disagree with that on Cognac because Hennessy has managed to embed itself hugely in sort of culture, rap culture. I'm not part of that culture. which is why I'm not going to go any further on it. But that hasn't talked about the purity of the liquid as the courvoisiers of the world and the French water coming through it. It's made itself relevant, fun, and aspirational. And that brand has managed to grow whilst the rest of the categories decline. So brands can do it.

16:35It's just, unfortunately, it's increasingly the exception rather than the rule. I heard it, saw a stat the other day, Hennessy has been mentioned in 4 ,000 rap songs. Much like us, Jamie. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, yeah. So, I mean, that in itself is amazing, isn't it? And it was a very good pushback, actually. But the question remains, holistically, do some categories need to think we need to go to our consumers, not wait for them to come to us? Categories do so at their peril. And it's why the existence of the Challenger brand is so exciting. Because ultimately, that innovation is what takes those categories on.

17:10And it will ultimately take their share. And so, you know, categories, old-fashioned categories, I look at something like, you know, in the wine world, the port category. If you look at cognac, you know, these are categories that have existed how they have for, you know, so long and have continued to sell on exactly the same credentials and put their prices up more and more. And unless they reinvent themselves, they will be challenged at some point. I think there's something interesting. We did a massive piece of work on scotch a few years ago. and what we found was the routines and the rituals and the stories and the cues and the semiotics were interesting to everybody including gen z but they didn't feel like they could own them because an older generation owned them and you look at something like coffee which is always the example when someone wants an adjacent category but a younger generation has got into coffee like no other you know understands where the beans have come from how to make it all the kind of depth and nuance to to the coffee category now is vastly different to it was 10 years ago because that category has opened itself up and said yeah you know be part of us can't we know be part of the the rituals and routines is that again you know looking at some of the the challenges that the whiskey category is facing is that not part of that to say just give these give Gen Z a new sense of what whiskey can be, a new world that they can relate to, the rituals and the semiotics.

18:44Give it to them and allow them to explore it. Is it as simple as that? Yeah, well, it's very relevant. We've just acquired an English whiskey brand called Fieldin, which we're incredibly excited about. And one of our biggest motivations for the acquisition and the purchase was exactly that, not being bound by the Scottish Whiskey Association, being able to do things differently, being able to appeal to consumer in a modern and bold sense. And for all of those reasons, we believe that with the right brand execution, positioning and build, we can bring new consumers into the category, get people drinking whiskey again, get them drinking whiskey in a different way that's more relevant to the contemporary cocktail culture that we now exist on.

19:27And somewhere along the way, everything in the whiskey world just went back to talking about distilling and age statements and barrels, etc. And I think that the opportunity for a new world whiskey, which we're already seeing, to appeal to consumers in a contemporary format is just so exciting. So, you know, let's see what happens. But I can only see a positive from being sort of, you know, taken out of those rules that have governed what is such a powerful house for so long. Yeah, I think to build on that as well, the introducing new people to the category like whiskey, but also in other spirits, it may also be part of the rise of RTD, but also the role of the bartender.

20:09if you want to own tequila and that sort of thing for the first time going to a tequila specialty stop or a supermarket in the uk it's an intimidating place to go and spend 40 plus pounds on a bottle of tequila whereas for brands like moth you can go and try it at four pounds and waitress ainsuys wherever and that allows you to start getting into that world with a foot in the door that that huge initial outlay and whiskey is the same you know great whiskeys are not cheap these days um so but i also think it's the the role of the bartender in the entree to introduce those flavors sort of one at a time you know you don't have to go and buy a whole bottle of tequila to taste a tequila cocktail which maybe contains a flavor that you're familiar with anyway you know the spicy margarita probably introduced a lot of people to their first great tequila drink and that's you know but so i think acknowledging that driving trial other ways yeah recruitment is a is yeah hugely that's a kind of a classic kind of way in isn't it to a lot of different categories both food and drink that that people do and i think that's a very good point vodka for a second there are different categories right that are I guess seeing a rise that people are interested in and they feel cyclical you know obviously gin has had its moment recently a category which I guess hasn't really seen a huge amount of growth across the last year some versus something like tequila or gin sorry the last decade is something like vodka which feels like it's been potentially stuck in neutral a little bit.

21:35There is a, I guess, a feeling of excitement that hasn't been tapped into, obviously, the world of Mernoff Ice. And that world was quite exciting and young. But, you know, that was quite a long time ago now. Just, you know, what are your views on vodka, the future of how can it kind of engage younger consumers? Well, I think it's linked to exactly what we were just saying about whiskey. And what I was going to say on whiskey, and it's the same for vodka, is there are brands which are succeeding. So in vodka you have the brand au yeah which isn't targeted for me or probably anyone in this room it's targeted for a younger urban demographic it's cool it's bling it's a good price point it looks great you know it looks great on your insta reel they're tapping into culture they're making it relevant what they're not trying to do is try and sell the number of time it's been distilled the purity of the process yeah that isn't interesting what will make vodka popular is by getting in culture and people being wanting to see with those kind of brands i think the other thing with vodka as well it's it may see success and it has is in high growth like tequila and especially in the uk is premium vodka is more accessible than mid-tier whiskey so you can have a really you know a brand that you can be proud to have on the shelf and is accessible and you can get into that so much so much more easily than you can other spirits including tequila and some other things so i think it being non-age and you can talk about distillation all the rest of it i think it is an accessible luxury and i think rtd and other categories people are looking for that you know you look at smaller serves as well that you see in the states a lot of smaller spirits offering just to get that price point over the line so yeah i think vodka has a bright future yeah we we represent a brand called sapling vodka which is one of the big sort of success stories of vodka the vodka actually in the uk of the last sort of five six years and um it's an amazing brand that has been built off you know fantastic sustainability and submission-led purposes and we've been able to win a considerable amount of share by giving people a fantastic you know british vodka at a competitive price that's selling off you know all of the the all of the themes of sustainability that we're seeing in the market and you know we've been able to take quite a lot of very boring vodka share and, you know, in the process.

23:53I think what I found, what we found challenging, and this is a category piece is that it's very hard to get people to spend more than£25,£30 on a bottle of unflavoured vodka. So you need flavour innovation in order to, you know, I don't know why it's the case, but consumers are happy to pay more for something if it's got flavour in it. People care about sustainability and boost? Well, you know, we're seeing a sort of bit of a counter revolution, aren't we? I think that, you know, for five years it was five to ten years it's been a huge movement it's been on the tip of everyone's tongue and um you know i think a lot of the sort of big picture narrative was heading that way i think as with every sort of revolution there's a bit of a counter-revolution a little questioning of the authenticity of a lot of those brand stories um and so we're definitely seeing it sort of probably slightly less important than it was especially in what a very challenging economic environment you know people think about their wallet of all they do for sure and just buzzball is a good example of that rob yeah i mean i i think it probably is i think what we see is there's a bunch of consumer data out there no doubt you guys have seen of where purchase intent is affected by sustainability and it's right down the bottom as to what actually when you come up to a shelf makes the difference now i don't think that any brand should listen to that and therefore decide that sustainability shouldn't be important to them i think it is our duty as a baseline to do the sustainable thing and to be here for the long term if you want to use it as marketing in the center of your brand, fine.

25:17Do the hard work. Don't greenwash it. Sapping is a great example of doing it properly. But I think it is a minimum standard whether consumers want to engage with it or not. We're a B Corp. That's important. But it's not why people pick up Moth first time, probably 99 out of 100. There's nothing wrong with focusing on great product, great taste, great liquid, and doing your homework. And I think that's very much where we take it. You should all be adhering to these standards as a minimum. And then what's the product is what you talk about. And what about the consumer saying do you get? I think there is, unfortunately, still it's a bottom of the purchase consideration.

25:49Right now, if you are time poor, cash poor, and you are not in the trade nearly as much as you used to be, you just want a little something. And probably it still comes down to the companies doing the hard work, whether consumers pick them for that or not. What's exciting about this, though, is just on vodka there, we have presented two incredibly different ways that the vodka category can grow. and it's by understanding your consumer and it's by understanding their motivations and the moment they're having at one end if i'm having a party and i want to impress my friends with something that's cool i'm choosing au vodka and i don't care the sustainability of that gold bottle sapling's not the right brand for that moment however i'm making some beautiful moscow mules for my friends coming around you know in my swanky pad in london and i want i want to have a nice story to engage them with.

26:39I want to look sophisticated. I'm not choosing AU, I'm choosing Sapling. So the problem in this industry is we always tend to go, oh, there can only be one way. There's hundreds of ways of growing. And I think the more that these stories can be communicated and celebrated, the less we'll get away from the perpetual doom and gloom. And it has to be this or that, right? There's so many ways of growing. A nuanced story is around socializing and the future of it and how consumers are socializing, connecting differently. We've talked about pubs. Yeah, that's been a narrative that's run really since about 2008, since that crash and recession has been pubs are folding weekly.

27:24The numbers are shocking. yet there is actually a little bit of good news for pubs. Consumers are coming back to pubs so there is a growth in spend, 7 % per visit a 1.9 % growth in the UK and bar industry as of November 25 year and year so there's a little bit of green shoots potentially to say it's not all doom and gloom. UK pub numbers are down 15 % since 2007 though so it's a big story. Tristan, good person to start with there around socializing. What do you see? How are people engaging differently across bars, across the trade? And what do they want now versus 10 years ago? Just very quickly on pubs because I'm a huge pub goer in sports and we work with some of the best operators across the UK.

28:18I think it's fair to say, and I'm going to sort of sound probably controversial when I say this, but there were too many pubs before. I think there was something like 62 ,000 pubs about 15 years ago. It just simply isn't enough consumers to be able to keep 62 ,000 pubs as profitable businesses. And so as with anything, when there's an over-expansion of something, there needs to be a consolidation. And what we've seen is that the pubs that have been really getting their kitchens up to top standards are doing things differently and bringing people in on different weeknights and really worked for those consumers are doing incredibly well.

28:58And I definitely think that some of our most successful operators are new public businesses that are doing things a bit differently and sort of leading a new generation of pubs. So I think that there are definitely some positives, but learnings from that too. I think that the biggest thing from our perspective is that 70 % of what we do who's selling to the UK Andre to restaurants, hotels, bars, caterers, is that you've got to really be sympathetic to the fact that these operators are going through the most challenging trading conditions they've ever had. And that, you know, the days of just purely storytelling and flavours and fun bits and, you know, why don't you list us?

29:38But you've got to think about their GP. You've got to really, you know, you're often a sort of a counsellor to them of, you know, what a challenging time it is for them. And, you know, the important thing is to listen and be on their side and support wherever you can, rather than to, you know, shove your brand down their throat, which I'm afraid, you know, has happened for a long time. So, yeah, you know, being a sort of a real partner to your customers rather than just trying to sell them. But from a consumer perspective, though, I think there was some, again, some good numbers to think about.

30:11I think the fastest growing drinking occasion at the moment is 3 to 4 p.m. on a Saturday. It used to be 9 to 10 p.m. It used to be the most popular time to drink. That shifted. People are drinking earlier. We know that. And that's changed the dynamic a little bit. people are wanting to do things later in their evening that are not drinking related. They want to get up the next day and not feel like crap. All of that's going on. At home consumption as well has been on the rise pretty much year on year since COVID and is very, very high. It looks like it is sort of plateauing a little bit as people are going back maybe to the trade.

30:57But give me your views on that. again from a bigger business perspective. On behalf of the big companies, what's really clear from our work with bartenders is exactly what Tristram is saying. Bartenders want brands to come and be genuine partners to offer ways to the bars to create footfall and create increased sessionability. So I want customers to come into my bar and I want customers to stay longer and sell more. Knowing that my whiskey is distilled twice or my gin as a heather as a botanical is not going to do that. Offering unique serves, offering entertainment, it all comes back to what we said almost at the beginning for me, which is consumers have a mental share of their wallet for entertainment.

31:44The pub has to justify why they're going to spend that much. It might be brilliant food. It might be the rise of sort of augmented darts and those sort of gaming-type places. It is so expensive now that you have to justify why people will go. And big brands are missing a trick, in my opinion, by not helping the on-trade as much as they should. And allowing smaller brands who can offer a more personal, you know, you don't have a faceless national account management. You might have the founder coming to your bar and talking to you about the brands. that's where the big brands are missing out losing that personal relationship with bartenders and we need them and they need us but somehow that's been lost over the years in favor of cost cutting it's the biggest opportunity one of the biggest opportunities for challenges and the entree go in and help solve the problems they're all facing be on their team you know this is where the reactivity of small brands can genuinely change the face of like what do you make week on week not just a retro not just a occasional visit from an account manager of like genuinely changing we're sort of no secret we're looking at draft cocktails we have a terrible reputation but a huge opportunity to for people to start a cocktail stay on cocktails have a better time have quick service make the pub's lives easier the average span of a bartender last year or something was six weeks in london the rotation was crazy fast and so how are you solving the problems in vodka it might be how are you you know premiumizing a vodka serve and making people feel good about a sustainable choice in sapling can do that in lucky saint how are you keep how are you capturing the people that aren't drinking and making them stay have a good time feel part of a connected social occasion like you say on draft we'll do that all these opportunities that we can be so quick to address and to help with that big brands right now because they are in chaos and they're having the difficulties it's down the list it can be top of the list for a startup and that you've got to pick places as a small brand where you can win and i do believe the trade is one of them and that's i guess it's a really interesting point because that in itself will start to bring consumers back, right?

33:49And I guess you could say, well, if consumers don't want to drink anyway, if consumers don't want to spend their money on alcohol, having a cocktail in a draft might not bring them back, right? And because they want to do different things, they want to go to do their spinning class instead of going to the pub, right? So I get the point and say, we need to make pubs, we need to help pubs, we need to help bars to attract more consumers, to be the place where consumers want to go. But that sense of a bigger picture of younger consumers not actually going to the pub in the first place. How do you reconcile that?

34:25So I think there are, it's a responsibility of pubs that brands can support of making that first time, those occasional experiences for people who don't get that often phenomenal. You know, it's nothing like, there's an exact parallel in our category. If the first time you pay four pounds for a ready to drink cocktail, which is twice as much as everybody else, is a bad experience, you've killed the category and their experience they won't come back great pubs can make that first experience not intimidating not queuing 20 minutes for a margarita for example might be one of those having great entertainment experience having if you're not drinking phenomenal non-alc options that first time through the door how do you make it brilliant brilliant food brilliant brands brilliant experience that i think is what will keep people coming back and keep people engaged with the category but pubs that are you know underloved undersupported aren't adapting and bringing in the changes that the consumers who are going to walk through that door need, they will struggle.

35:14But you look at great brands that people would be proud to be associated with and to join the first time. You look at the Devonshire. No one would have said 15 years ago that you could have one of the biggest social media pubs on pouring Guinness nicely and the guy charming the pants off you in every interview, right? But it's so well run. The food's incredible. The service is incredible. The level of thought and detail and support from brands in that is unbelievable. So you can win in pubs. And you mentioned social media and finding those moments of virality is what helps pubs and helps brands.