Hunter S. Thompson once said “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” And in a CPG marketplace where canned water can raise tens of millions of dollars with bloody heavy metal branding and major conglomerates are making “Transformation” and “Dream” flavored sodas, the weird have certainly taken charge.
So it makes sense that Drink Weird, the Texas-based beverage startup created by a team of former Rockstar Energy executives, feels the time is now right to move out of a soft launch period and into a full-on rollout of its expanded and rebranded line of teas, waters and yerba mate drinks.
Drink Weird launched in 2021 as Weird Tea with a four SKU line of 16 oz. canned iced teas, selling into a limited number of retail chains and college campuses across Texas and California. According to CEO Jason May, who prior to co-founding the business spent 20 years at Rockstar as its EVP of marketing, that initial launch, entering the market mid-pandemic, was primarily a test run. Last year, May said Drink Weird “pulled back” on its growth by maintaining existing accounts, but pausing further expansion, while it reformulated and redesigned the beverages in preparation for the “real launch” this year.
“What we found was there was definitely a true and real need for energy-adjacent, clean label type products,” May said. “We found that our liquids were good, but our branding was off the mark a bit, and we decided to take all of the inputs from basically our first six-to-nine months in-market and dive into a complete repositioning exercise.”
In October, the company closed a $3 million funding round to support sales and marketing expansion, May added.
Weird enlisted local Austin artist Michael Sieben (who is also the managing editor of Thrasher Magazine) to design its new labels, creating a cast of unique alien-looking characters to represent each flavor. The mascots, with names like “Namaste” and “Batty Bat,” draw inspiration from a variety of sources – including good luck symbols and local Texas culture – to promote a welcoming and positive association with the word “Weird.”
The teas were reformulated to increase the caffeine content to 100 mg per 16 oz. can, making them a more suitable alternative to energy drinks, and to optimize flavor. And the brand itself was renamed from Weird Tea to Drink Weird, allowing the business to expand into new categories with yerba mate and still and sparkling waters.
The yerba mate is available in a single Blue Pom Acai flavor which contains 150 mg of caffeine per 16 oz. can.
“I see [tea] as a category that has not seen a giant amount of innovation, and it seems to have been a little bit left behind. The options really don’t align with what I call lifestyle brands,” May said. “So our objective was to create a lifestyle brand for the category. But then [to make the Weird brand] a platform, rather than a segment, we thought the natural expansion into yerba would make a lot of sense. It gives us a platform for higher caffeine content; we were seeing the teas naturally land energy adjacent at retail and very often it was close to that shelf.”
According to Drink Weird president of sales Ronnie Bruland, another Rockstar veteran, the brand is currently in about 2,000 doors in Texas and along the West Coast. Since the rebrand rolled out, he said, orders in individual stores have increased around 100%, with the yerba mate and the White Peach Oolong Tea flavor leading sales. The company has partnered with KeHE and UNFI for distribution, and also has a network of about 20 DSD distributors as well.
The immediate focus, Bruland said, is on growing Drink Weird in the convenience and foodservice channels, with other conventional and independent accounts also playing key roles in the strategy. May noted the brand has had early success in specialty grocery and will have new listings coming by the fall with “large players” in the specialty channel.
“The grab-and-go business, the foodservice business, is huge for tea,” Bruland said. “People drink tea during the daytime and your foodservice places – your coffee shops or delis or pizza places – are great volume for us.”
Meanwhile, the extension into water puts Weird into more direct competition with canned water and subcultural marketing trailblazer Liquid Death. While Drink Weird’s still and unflavored sparkling waters are similarly packaged in 16 oz. cans, May said he sees the products as being sufficiently differentiated from Liquid Death’s disruptive approach to the water category, noting the branding speaks to different consumer bases.
Water is also not Drink Weird’s main focus and that line is part of a charitable initiative, with 100% of water profits going to charities, including the Central Texas Food Bank and Protect Our Winters.
However, as Liquid Death itself moves into the iced tea category, there may still be some head-on competition between the brands. May sees that as both a smart play for Liquid Death and as a positive for Drink Weird, with Liquid Death helping to inject the “life” he feels is missing from the tea space and laying ground for Weird to build on.
“Look, I’m a metalhead, so I think everything they do is hilarious,” May said. “I think that brand is great – but, you know, it’s not for everyone. Maybe we’re a bit of a safer play, they’re a little bit dark and we’re a little bit light.”
As Drink Weird sets out to carve its own path as a lifestyle brand, the company has brought in pro skaters Evan Smith and Garrett Young as influencers and the brand will look to market within arts and sports communities, with music festivals and winter sports events targeted as key activation spots.
“The idea that we’re able to work with creative people in a creative capacity, to me, that’s the more important thing for this brand,” May said. “The platforms that really resonate for us are skate, art and music. Important culture, for sure, and it’s what we like personally and it’s where the brand plays and resonates. So, so far so good.”