• 🔮 The Four Spirits Flavor Trends To Watch in 2024
• 0️⃣ “Sèchey for Targèt” Expands Cross Country
• 📺 The Gang’s All Here: Coca-Cola Unites Brands in New TV Ad

Adding to its roster of better-for-you, functional beverage brands, SYSTM Foods has acquired Humm Kombucha, the company announced today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

💸 Launched in 2022, SYSTM is a joint venture between SYSTM Brands and CPG investment firm GroundForce Capital. Its portfolio also includes functional beverage maker REBBL and Chameleon Organic Coffee, as well as education robotics company Ozobot.

🫧 Humm is among the leading kombucha brands in the U.S. and has often been an innovative pioneer in the category, helping to grow the market for zero-sugar and canned kombuchas.

See BevNET for more details.

From “garden party” to global citrus, we gathered the top flavor trends on tap for spirits and cocktails in 2024. Don’t know what a garden party is? We’ll let the experts explain. 

🫛 After savory cocktails saw a boost last year, expect even more botanical and herbal flavors to show up at the bar and in the can. It’s a trend flavor houses are calling the garden party. “Pulling in green things that you would actually find in the garden and anything extending from cardamom to radishes,” Eddie Simeón, co-founder and CMO of Hella Cocktail Co at Brewbound Live last month. That also may mean less common vegetables like beets and edamame in cocktails, according to one L.A. mixologist.

🍭 Beyond the garden, millennials are still expected to drive nostalgic trends (think flavored whiskey’s sweet comeback last year) so the flavors elder millennials might remember from high school and college may resurface, said Amanda DeVore, senior director of flavor innovation at Molson Coors.

🥥 But tapping into cultural nuances may also be the move from spirits whose flavored segments haven’t taken off yet, like tequila and rum, according to Jomaree Pinkard, former CEO at Pronghorn. Examples include Coconut Cartel’s Guatemalan rum proofed with coconut water or newly launched Madam Paleta Tequila, which takes its flavor inspiration from Mexican fruit popsicles.

🍊 When we say citrus, we’re not talking screwdrivers anymore. Global citrus like yuzu and calamansi are shaking things up behind the bar, tapping into the thirst for global flavors. 

🥃 The summer of Aperol spritz inserted aperitifs and amaros deeper into American bar culture, which means we may see those flavors in shaken cocktails and in more twists on the traditional spirit-forward drinks they’ve traditionally called home.

Read the full story on BevNET

Target is expanding a set of non-alcoholic cocktails and wines, specially curated by NA beverage retailer Sèchey, this month after a 450 store pilot run began last month.

🗓️ Timed for Dry January, the expansion will extend to hundreds more Target locations across the country, featuring brands such as De Soi, Ghia, Kin Euphorics, NOPE Beverages and Surely, alongside Sèchey’s own line of dealcoholized wine.

🛒 The set is designed to appeal to a wide range of consumer tastes and use occasions. For example, NOPE is a more party-minded brand offering NA riffs on classic cocktails like the margarita, while products such as Kin and De Soi fill a demand for non-intoxicating functionality.

📈 More consumers than ever are embracing the low- and no-alc trend. Last month, alcohol delivery platform Drizly reported that sales of the category rose 62% in 2023.

Read the full story on BevNET

About a year after launching its Cali Amaro variety, Los Angeles-based brand Optimist Drinks is putting the non-alcoholic negroni cocktail into a can for its first-ever RTD release. The 8 oz zero-proof citrus spritz sells in 4-packs on the brand’s website for $22 (or $5.50 per can).

🌞 Optimist initially came to market in 2021 with three multiserve varieties based on the flavor profiles inspired by Southern California environs — Smokey for the high desert, Fresh for Topanga canyons and Bright for Venice Beach.

🌱 Similar to other non-alc brands, Optimist has taken a functional approach to its formulation adding adaptogenic ingredients like ashwagandha and schisandra to its spirits to “lift stress, enhance moments of connection and enable people to ‘bring their own buzz’ to any occasion,” the brand said in a press release.

💚 Co-founded by husband-and-wife team Tommy Johnstone and Lisa Farr Johnstone with sustainability in mind, the company was the first non-alc brand to receive Certified B Corp status earlier this year.

We’ve heard Coca-Cola talk endlessly for years about its transition from soda giant to “total beverage company,” but that sentiment probably captured best in the company’s new TV ad spot, in which it showcases its broad product portfolio – from Honest Kids to Smart Water – rather than focusing on a single product, as per standard procedure.. 

📽️The commercial, which will air in both 30- and 90-second versions, follows a family consuming various Coca-Cola products while welcoming a woman’s significant other to the mix. The ad spot was directed by Christopher Storer, creator of popular FX series “The Bear.” 

🥤Coke isn’t the first beverage conglomerate to vie for consumer attention with a portfolio approach. In 2018, rival PepsiCo utilized its Super Bowl commercial to advertise a spicy iteration of Doritos as well as a lemon-lime variant of MTN DEW. Similarly, Anheuser-Busch In Bev has used Super Bowl ads to promote everything from Michelob Ultra to Shock Top.