📉 January 2025 Shipments -8.7% YoY; 🫧 Jiant Wants to be Hard Tea’s Olipop; 🌑 Blue Moon Denver Brewpub to Close; 🍹 A Round With Austin Cocktails Founders; 📰 WellBeing Deal; Saugatuck Closures;🥉 Circana: 3 of 10 Segments Post Growth; 🚫 ‘You Can’t Fucking Make Beer Legally in DE’; 🖐️ Constellation’s Rule of Five Hard Punch
The hard tea segment operates similarly to soda, with one or two leading national players, and a handful of regional winners. With that analogy, and Boston Beer Company’s Twisted Tea equating to a Coke or Pepsi, California-based hard tea maker Jiant believes it can be hard tea’s Olipop – a flavor-forward, ingredient-focused functional brand that connects with new and lapsed consumers.
Spotted: Nate Archibald with a new job and a hard tea in his hand. Actor Chace Crawford has joined hard tea and kombucha maker Jiant as chief creative officer and part-owner. Crawford is best known for his TV roles on Gossip Girl (Nate Archibald) and The Boys (Kevin Moskowitz/The Deep).
Five years ago, hard kombucha was expected to become the next big “fourth category” product, building off the initial momentum of hard seltzer, but promising bolder flavors and potential gut health benefits.
Fresh off the heels of being recognized in VinePair 50- VinePair’s annual list of talented individuals catching attention across the drinks space- modern alcohol brand Jiant continues to cement its reputation as an impenetrable force in the RTD sector, announcing four brand new 7% ABV Hard Teas: Peach Iced Tea, Kiwi Strawberry, Mixed Berry, and Half & Half, available in a variety 12 pack.
Jiant announces the release of Citrus Safari, the sixth hard kombucha in the modern beverage brand’s celebrated seasonal series available now through April 2023.