Brandon Cason, the founder of Canteen Spirits and Waterloo Sparkling Water, is moving into malternatives with the release of TEABIRD this week, a hard tea backed by country music star Jason Aldean.
The new product uses a Southern-style sweet tea to take on the category dominated by Twisted Tea and drawing in competition from other major BevAlc players. At 5% ABV the 12 oz cans also boast a better-for-you angle with 110 calories and five grams of sugar per serving.
Cason is the co-founder of Austin-based Canteen Spirits, including the brand’s ready-to-drink extensions Canteen Vodka Soda and Cantina Tequila Soda. The company launched in 2019 and was backed two years later with a $31 million round led by ATX Venture Partners and including a suite of country and pop music stars.
Cason is also the co-founder and CMO of Waterloo Sparkling Water, which was acquired three years after the Texas-based sparkling water brand launched in retail in 2017, following a $3.2 million funding round led by CAVU Venture Partners.
TEABIRD isn’t Cason’s first venture into sweet tea, as he’s also the former CMO of Deep Eddy Vodka, a Texas-based spirits company that made its debut in 2010 with Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka. That company was purchased by Heaven Hill in 2015.
The new RTD aims to find the sweet spot in a hot category with a line that’s more “aspirational” in terms of packaging and brand, and is diet-friendly but doesn’t use artificial sugars, said Cason. In addition to the Original Hard Sweet Tea, TEABIRD also launched a lemon-spiked Half and Half version.
“Early signs are that people really are excited about the Jason [Aldean] component,” Cason said. “He certainly has a huge audience and one that fits perfectly with not only the category but with the brand itself.”
In addition to being a partner, Aldean will also serve as the brand’s chief ambassador, and will pop up in advertising campaigns over the next few months and in social media.
The brand is now available in 1,500 Walmarts across the South, Southeast, Midwest and Northeast, with 400 pallets already dropped in stores. Initial retail orders have reached about 5,000 stores (including Walmart) according to Cason.
But Cason is focused on one of his top lessons from the RTD business: balancing production capacity with growth.
“You’ve got to be mindful of how much you make, you don’t want to flood the market and not move it,” he said. “So we’re looking at indicators that give us clues as to how and when to lean into more production so if we do strike lightning we’re not missing out on that moment.”
Hard Tea’s growth slowed slightly up +24.4% in the latest two-weeks off-premise ending April 6 versus 35.9% in the 52-weeks. Despite Twisted Tea’s dominance, newcomers are looking for shelf space, and the number of brands in hard tea alone has grown more than 80% over the past three years.