With no- and low- alcohol now a $11 billion business and new brands jumping into the zero-proof movement, what’s the playbook to make a splash?
The Pathfinder Hemp and Root, a fermented and distilled non-alcoholic amaro, saw the fork in the road and went straight by replicating the market saturation push of a top carbonated water brand and borrowing the channel strategy from its alcoholic counterparts.
Launched in 2021, The Pathfinder has made headlines recently as the Stoli Group’s first foray into the zero-proof space. The global spirit group backed The Pathfinder in a Series A round in May and will bring the brand into its distributor footprint in Illinois, California, and Florida in 2024. The Pathfinder is currently distributed in Washington state now, and recently kicked off in New York with non-alc wholesaler and retailer Boisson. Paced distribution will allow the brand to avoid having to wait-list orders as in the past, and gear up to produce five times the volume of its last batch.
The drink, designed to represent the mid-to-late 1800’s age of apothecaries and homemade remedies in the American West, was founded by Guy Escolme, a brand builder with 22 years of experience at Diageo; Chris Abbott, the founder of cannabis mints Mr. Moxey’s; and Steven Grasse, founder of beverage producer Quaker City Mercantile, itself the creator of Hendrick’s Gin and Sailor Jerry Rum, among other labels.
Before The Pathfinder spread its wings outside of Washington, the brand hit the streets seeking to replicate what Abbott calls the “Topo Chico Effect.”
“‘Remember when suddenly everywhere you looked, it was behind the person on Zoom, at the restaurant, it was everywhere, and it made you ask, what is going on with Topo Chico?” he said. “They did this incredible job of saturating and that’s how we launched but with a bar focus.”
Abbott is referring to Topo Chico’s cult following in Texas, where the Coca-Cola owned brand proved itself before growing sales nationally. Part of Topo Chico’s boost came from bartenders in trendy bars and restaurants who adopted the bubbly water and helped transition its sales beyond Hispanic grocery stores into the mainstream.
The Pathfinder is aiming to recreate that “effect” by claiming territories neighborhood-by-neighbohood, three months at a time. Starting in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the team first entered a bar, then a music venue, the coffee shop next door, an apothecary, and finally a liquor store. A poster campaign covered utility poles as well. The push into the neighborhood was thanks to a brand ambassador and the company’s first employee, Kraig Rovensky, also a partner at a local bar, Life on Mars.
Rovensky’s presence helped win over local bartenders, said Abbott, and spread through that network to other cities in Washington. Rovensky is now the global brand ambassador for The Pathfinder, and will manage the new ambassadors in Chicago, San Francisco and Miami.
“I think we took a really spirits-driven plan with this Topo Chico effect around it, and created a lot of noise in a little area,” he said. “You could not walk into that neighborhood and then walk out without at least wondering what The Pathfinder was all about.”
It’s a model they plan to continue by adopting a “home bar” as a launch pad in a specific neighborhood in each new state: Chicago’s Lincoln Park, San Francisco’s Mission District, and Miami’s Wynwood. Those neighborhoods were chosen based on the brand’s success in Capitol Hill: their anchor bars will be in close proximity to restaurants with strong cocktail programs, a coffee shop that could serve a Pathfinder drink and sell bottles, a liquor store, an independent grocery store, a live music venue and a unique speciality retail store, ideally an apothecary, said Abbott.
Gaining on-premise traction is certainly a goal for many non-alc spirit brands, but The Pathfinder stands out for gaining early adoption in a channel that is just now evolving to include more zero-proof options, said Nick Bodkins, founder and president of Boisson.
“Keep in mind many of these brands launched right around the tail end of Covid,” he said. “So between the inherent education required to get any NA [non-alc] placement, venues sticking with the familiar, and traditional distributors not particularly interested in the low volumes of NA, a lot of brands were and are forced to focus primarily on direct-to-consumer and specialty retail first.”
Bodkins argues that The Pathfinder’s reception on-premise also has a lot to do with the liquid itself. The product’s versatility as a base spirit alternative as well as a modifier opens up a number of options and opportunities, he said.
“The Pathfinder has already earned some highly coveted placements for any spirits brand, not just NA,” he said. “And while alcohol- free menus are growing, they’re still relatively limited comparatively speaking.”
The Pathfinder’s ingredients – including Douglas fir, sage, juniper, saffron, wormwood and angelica root, in addition to hemp – have made the drink an attractive addition to the back bar and allows it to get on any section of the menu without competing against other spirits or their analog replacements, added Abbott.
“I love Pathfinder straight but cocktails are more than one, right?” he said “I think that’s what is starting to get really fun is using The Pathfinder with other other brands.”