In a recent story in Philadelphia magazine, La Colombe co-founder and CEO Todd Carmichael teased details of his next career move: launching Rebel Beverage Labs, a sparkling water company focused on developing a “platform where you can play within mouthfeel.”
At age 58, Carmichael is set to begin the next chapter in his diverse career, which has seen him take on roles ranging from TV host and extreme outdoorsman to leading La Colombe’s charge into mass retail as one of a handful of major players in the RTD coffee market.
Yet even as La Colombe continued to grow over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a change in Carmichael’s thinking, according to the magazine. Having lost his mother to the disease and suffering his own bout with the virus over the Christmas holiday last December, he began to reassess his position as the brand’s CEO, coming to the realization that his ambitions lied elsewhere. By New Year’s Day, he had determined his next move: “I’m going to live my real life,” he told Philadelphia.
In an Instagram post earlier this month, he wrote: “Many of you have heard that after 30 years I’ve elected to greatly downshift my responsibilities at La Colombe – and I have. Know that my insides, even given my love of coffee, especially after this last year and a half, drive me to start again, this time to change the world of ALL beverages. Count down November. Join hands, start over, join the imagination revolution.”
Though he will remain involved with La Colombe, Carmichael emphasized he’s stepping away as CEO because “I don’t want to be an administrator anymore.” His longtime friend and La Colombe co-founder J.P. Iberti is also involved in RBL, and is following suit by taking a reduced role in La Colombe’s cafe business. Instead, with Rebel Beverage, Carmichael is looking to “take my ideas and climb again” as the company’s chief creative force.
How that creativity manifests in an actual beverage product, however, is yet to be worked out. Writer Mike Zimmerman paid a visit to Rebel Beverage Labs’ headquarters in the Delaware Valley just outside of Philadelphia, where Carmichael has been doing hands-on R&D on the new line in search of developing a “new” mouthfeel for water that exists beyond still or sparkling. This includes a zero-sugar, sweetener-free variety with a soft carbonation and sweet flavor, and a SKU dubbed “Fat Daddy” that uses nano bubbles that “pop slightly in the back of the mouth.”
Carmichael said the brand can produce 40,000 cases of water per week from its current production base, and is focusing on the Northeast market for now.
“RBL is about creating a platform where you can play within mouthfeel,” Carmichael told the magazine. “Now, we’re going to work with other people and say, ‘Okay, what mouthfeel are you looking for?’”