Drinks Insider

How do you launch a category-busting brand from New Zealand and storm into the US market? Lisa King can tell you, because she’s done it. A serial entrepreneur from New Zealand, King's first venture, Eat My Lunch, tackled the issue of child poverty in New Zealand with a buy-one-give-one model that provided thousands of free lunches to Kiwi kids. Her current venture, AF Drinks, is a non-alcoholic beverage company that is rapidly gaining traction in the US and Australia.

In this episode she talks about how she formulated a non-alc cocktail that experienced tasters identified as alcoholic, from how she assembled the right team and how she unlocked funding, to how she landed on retail shelves throughout the USA.

The episode covers:

And even how meeting Barack Obama is like meeting Santa.

Professor Tim Stockwell is the most influential figure in the world of alcohol right now. His research claiming there are no health benefits to moderate drinking has attracted wide media attention and directly led to people either moderating their alcohol intake or quitting altogether.

In fact, The New York Times has called him “one of the people most responsible for our cultural course correction on alcohol.”

The J-Curve hypothesis claims that people who drink light to moderate amounts of alcohol have lower all-cause mortality rates than those who drink heavily or not at all. Professor Stockwell challenges this hypothesis, arguing that many studies that support the J-Curve fail to account for the "sick quitter" phenomenon. This is what happens when people who have given up alcohol due to bad health are grouped with lifetime abstainers, which makes the health outcomes for moderate drinkers appear more favourable.

But his work has been harshly criticised, by both libertarians and by other scientists. He’s been accused of bias, cherry picking and sloppy referencing.

In this in-depth episode, Professor Stockwell explains his research, pushes back against his critics and explains his ties with Movendi.

This interview covers:

Relevant articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/15/magazine/alcohol-health-risks.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/health/alcohol-health-effects.html
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/27/why-scientific-support-for-alcohols-health-benefits-is-fading

Drinks Insider has also interviewed Chris Snowdon, one of Tim Stockwell's harshest critics. You'll find that here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2k1XtETvfywIi14MYqJYtY
And here is a summary of Snowdon's criticisms: https://snowdon.substack.com/p/cherry-picking-the-evidence-on-alcohol

Who truly understands what people are drinking? In this episode of Drinks Insider, host Felicity Carter chats with Gary Ross, Chief Growth Officer at Union, a point-of-sale and guest ordering platform that gives new meaning to the phrase “data mining”.

There’s not much he doesn’t know about drink trends and consumer behaviour, because Union sees what’s happening in real time. From the meteoric rise of tequila to the enduring power of celebrity brands, Gary dissects the forces shaping what we drink and how we drink it.

More importantly, he explains the inner workings of the Mexican Candy Shot. You'll never look at your drinks menu the same way again.

Here are just 7 of the insights:

Why are there so many anti-alcohol stories appearing in the media? One of the harshest critics of the anti-alcohol movement is Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the free market think tank Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK. In this wide-ranging discussion, we delve into the anti-alcohol movement, exploring its implications on personal freedoms and public health.

Topics covered include:

Relevant documents:

While many entrepreneurs are backing away slowly from both the wine industry and China, Don St Pierre Jr is rushing back in — because he sees plenty of opportunity.

In 1996, two Don St Pierres — senior and junior — changed the world of wine forever when they founded ASC Fine Wines in Shanghai.

Don St. Pierre Snr saw an opportunity in wine: as he later wrote about China’s 1.2 billion population, “all of these folks had to drink and eat something.”

Before long, the St Pierres were distributing Beringer and Bollinger, among other fine wines. They pretty much singlehandedly established China’s fine wine market.

Don St Pierre Jr. retired from the business in 2015, and shortly after became CEO and co-owner of California’s Vinfolio. Don St Pierre Sr died in 2023.

Recently Don St Pierre Jr founded AdaptEdge, an investment and advisory company. One of its first investments was in Vino Joy News, the media company founded by Natalie Wang.

And on St Pierre emains bullish on China, even though wine consumption there peaked in 2017. In this podcast, he explains why he believes so strongly in the country, and why he remains so optimistic about the wine industry in general.

In this wide-ranging conversation he reveals:

As always, the takeaways will be in the newsletter, which you can sign up for at drinksinsider.com

Entrepreneur and co-founder Marian Leitner-Waldman has single handedly overcome all the problems facing the wine industry. Archer Roose has a thriving audience of young consumers, who can’t get enough of high-quality wine in cans and bagnums, which appear in more than 6,000 outlets.

The reason that sales are up 35% year-on-year? The brand is built on a combination of high-quality wine, total transparency, and plenty of data.

In this fascinating episode, Marian talks about:

Not only is Marian a fount of useful knowledge and advice, she’s also a great speaker. Tune in to learn more — and all the takeaways can be found in the Drinks Insider newsletter. Sign up for it here.

Why do winemakers add chemicals to wine? Are these additives dangerous? How do we know? And why do winemakers take the risk?

The person who knows more about this topic than almost anybody alive is pharmacologist and toxicologist Creina Stockley, who has been not just in research, but in the regulatory process. In this episode, she delves into the use of additives and processing aids in winemaking, and explains how they’re developed, why winemakers use them, and what it takes to get them through the regulatory process. 

Health policy

Creina has also had a front seat to worldwide discussions about wine and health, from the uprush of research in the 1990s, to the current situation. She discusses the politics of research and funding, and how we know what we do about the impact of wine and other alcohol on human health.

The conversation covers:

Increased sales of more than 40%. High customer loyalty. And the ability to spot a customer who’s about to unsubscribe.

As Ben Gibson explains, there is still plenty of growth to be found in direct-to-consumer sales. He’s the founder of WineHub, the wine and spirits plug- in for Shopify, which is enabling exponential growth in wine sales.

Ben explains how and why he created WineHub, and explains how wineries can use the tool to increase their average order value and maintain customer relationships. Ben also discusses the importance of having a loyalty programme and how it can help retain customers. He shares insights on the changing demographics of wine consumers and the opportunities for growth in the wine industry.

There is a massive fight brewing in the United States, and it's over the question of how much alcohol people can safely drink.

Every five years the US government updates its dietary guidelines, and in that process outlines what the limits of alcohol consumption should be.

The process has been fraught, with claims and counter-claims of bias and irregular dealings.

David Clement, North American Affairs Manager for Canada’s Consumer Choice Center, based in Ontario, saw the exact same fight play out, involving some of the same scientists. At the time, he wrote about what happened for the Canadian media.

In this lively episode, he discusses:

Relevant articles:

What does science tell us about hangovers? Frustratingly, very little is known about them, apart from the economic havoc they wreak.

But everyone who has experienced them knows exactly how evil they are. Wouldn’t it be great if it was possible to drink without any side effects?

Professor David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist, has been hard at work on that very thing. In this episode, he discusses the work he’s doing on a molecule called Alcarelle, which is currently going through regulatory testing. In the meantime, he’s introduced a vermouth-like drink called Sentia to market.

In this episode, Felicity Carter and Dave, as he likes to be known, talk about how alcohol affects the brain, the misery of hangovers, and how Dave devised and created Sentia, and brought it to market.

The conversation covers: