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- Monster Energy hard seltzer *WHEN*
Monster Energy hard seltzer *WHEN*
Plus: Brothtail taste test, craft brewing divestments, counterfeit bourbon + more!
*extremely Penny Lane voice* It’s allllllll happening, Fingers Fam.
Yesterday, news broke that Monster Beverage Corporation planned to buy CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective for $330 million. The move will put big craft beer brands like Oskar Blues and Cigar City at the energy drink heavyweight’s disposal, and with the stroke of a pen (or the click of a DocuSign link, no idea how people Do Deals these days) establish the firm as a major player in a beverage-alcohol industry tilting towards its flavor-forward sweet spot.
To which I say: it’s about damn time.
Like many industry observers, your fearless Fingers editor has been waiting on Monster’s entry to the hard drink category for quite some time. Back in the hot vaxx summer heyday of June 2021, when PepsiCo’s Rockstar Energy filed for trademarks to make branded beer and hard seltzer, I laid out the case for “the energy drink-to-hard seltzer pipeline” for boozeletter readers:
It makes sense! The same people guzzling White Claw and Truly by the 12-pack already look to non-alcoholic brands like Rockstar to get themselves through the sober portions of their day. Take those same already-popular styles, swap the caffeine for sugar- or malt-based booze to avoid the FDA’s ban-hammer, run it through the same proven marketing playbook, and voila—you’ve got yourself a nice little chunk of the $4.5 billion and growing hard seltzer segment.
Bang Energy’s Jack Owoc, a longstanding object of editorial fascination here at Fingers HQ, already had a hard seltzer called MIXX headed to store shelves in February 2021. Once Pepsi made that move, and another to produce Mountain Dew hard seltzer with Boston Beer Company, Monster—around 17% of which is owned by Coca-Cola—seemed practically obligated to respond in kind. The Monster x CANarchy deal hasn’t closed yet, and any crossover products are still very much in the wind, so the other (radioactive green) shoe hasn’t technically dropped yet. But move that big hand one minute closer to midnight on the Fingers CPG Singularity/Doomsday Clock presented by FOSSIL® Watches, folks, because the energy drink-to-hard seltzer pipeline only flows in one direction, and it ain’t backwards…
🤝 Paying Friends of Fingers received much more original analysis of Monster x CANarchy in the paid version of today’s newsletter. To read it in full, purchase a subscription today:
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