Hard tea is all the rage right now, but one ready-to-drink (RTD) company has been championing the style since 2013.
Founded by Jennie Ripps and Maria Littlefield, Owl’s Brew is dedicated to creating beverages “that prioritize real ingredients, transparency, and delicious flavor.” After expanding into other spirits-based canned cocktails, the founders have returned to their roots with a Sun Tea & Vodka line launched this month.
The first Owl’s Brew spirit-based tea arrives as hard tea continues to rise: Tea flavored ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages are ranked third overall in RTD flavors with sales growth of 291% over the last year, one of the largest flavor trends in the RTD category, according to NIQ data compiled for BevNET by 3 Tier Beverages.
But for Ripps and Littlefield, experimenting with tea flavors (and beyond) is part of the brand’s DNA and Ripps’ background as a tea sommelier. Ripps began making tea blends when her father fell ill, leading to a passion for tea. The two founders started the company making tea-based craft cocktail mixers, and later transitioned to canned boozy teas in 2020.
As the brand’s portfolio now includes anything from its original line of hard tea seltzers to a skinny margarita to a co-branded line with comedian Chelsea Handler, the founders have grown to see their approach to RTDs similar to craft breweries.
“I think we’re really unique in the seltzer and RTD space in the fact that we have someone like me, I am sort of almost a counterpart to a brewmaster,” said Ripps. “In the RTD space, you have a lot of people bringing in flavor packages from the lab or bringing extracts in, but you don’t actually have someone blending and brewing.”
“Meeting Our Consumer Where They Are”
Operating more like a craft brewer means that “everything has been motivated by what we think our consumer is looking for at all the moments of their life.” To meet that need, the business has changed significantly both in product offerings and points of sale.
“We never innovate just to innovate, or just to have something new, it’s very much based on what we’re hearing from our consumer,” Littlefield said.
The company expanded to a line of canned cocktails as spirits-based RTDs began to pick up traction, offering tequila and rum cocktails, and vodka seltzer variety packs.
Now, the founders are convinced consumers will trade up to their vodka-based Strawberry Basil, Half Tea & Half Lemonade and Blueberry Lemon tea RTDs that are brewed with real tea versus extracts.
“We actually fresh-brew the tea, which is the biggest differentiator for us against everything that is in the market right now,” Littlefield said.
Owl’s Brew is also meeting their consumers where they are in the literal sense: now in 20 states, the mix of product bases has allowed the company to hit different channels in each state depending on how spirits and malt-based products are regulated. Other RTD brands, such as BuzzBallz – which has malt, wine and spirits-based products – have pursued the same strategy.
Sales at off-premise chains such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s remain a big portion of the business, but the company has also found a niche on-premise and on draft.
“Even though we thought we would never get into draft, traditional seltzers – which are not made in as craft a way as we are – didn’t translate to someone who was looking for a draft program,” Ripps said, giving boozy tea an opportunity.
Accounts such as Disney World were looking for something “crafted with all the craft of draft beer,” but with no gluten and a sugar and calorie point that people were interested in.
Much of the company’s growth has come from similar on-premise venues in the past year, places such as Yankee and So-Fi Stadiums, and contracts with national hotels, such as Hyatt and Coral Tree Hotels are picking up as well. Having an array of sizes, such as the Boozy Tea 19.2 oz can, has aided placements at stadiums, while their range of light, tropical flavors and lemonades have been top picks at hotels and resorts.
An Organic Celebrity Partnership
Owl’s Brew has also dipped into the hard lemonade set, backed with star power. Released at the top of the year, Chelsea Handler’s Vodka Lemonade, a collaboration with the comedian, entrepreneur, and six-time New York Times best-selling author, happened organically.
Handler’s book, released in tandem with the canned cocktail, details a story from her youth when she opened up her first lemonade stand. The comedian’s team reached out to Owl’s Brew to produce the line, which has been sold at Handler’s book tour and shows, as well as at retailers.
The celebrity partnership gave the brand “higher visibility” and helped open up new conversations with retail partners, said the founders.
“We also didn’t quite realize how many Chelsea fans there were among our distributors,” Littlefield said. “If you had asked us to guess her demographic of fans, it would not have been our distributors necessarily.”
An expansion of the line is expected in the fall. As the founders look ahead at future innovation, paring down ideas is the tough part.
“Sun Tea was super obvious because we could see where it would work. We could understand the consumer. And then there are other things, other SKU lines, where we’re really excited about them, but we just don’t see there’s as big a commercial opportunity,” Littlefield said.