• 🍺 Legal Issues On Tap In 2025
• 💧 Preme Relaunches With Gut Hydration Mix
• 🪙 Heritage Embraces Crypto
• 🧃 1 in 3 Will Try Dry January
• ♥️ How To Help: L.A. Fires Relief Efforts 

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The energy and wellness shot category can be a tough category: it has minimal shelf-presence and the shadow of the 5-Hour Energy behemoth that already dominates the impulse-buy opportunity at most registers. But one Venice, Calif.-based company is putting its mind to the task.

Magic Mind has conjured successful growth online since 2020 with its “mental performance elixir.” After its first full-year wading into retail, the brand is preparing to scale from around 1,000 doors to an expected 4,000 by the end of 2025.

“I'm very bullish on the shots category in general and believe it is one of the only beverage categories that can play in the omnichannel world,” said CEO and co-founder William Hicks, who came to the brand in 2021 after co-founding lupini bean snacks and pasta brand Brami.

Demand for “mood support” functional beverages was up 64% last year, according to SPINS’ 2025 Industry Update & Trends Predictions report. The estimated market value of wellness shots in the category was $6 million, representing a 6.5% increase over 2024.

Magic Mind is part of a growing new generation of functional shots, with other shot makers touting the performance-enhancing attributes of ketones to the immunity-support drinks made from cold-pressed juice.

Magic Mind recently closed an investment round and says it has two new innovations ready for release this spring. 

Read about Magic Mind’s approach to retail and how it built its cap table on BevNET.

Alcohol law: it’s still stuck in the post-prohibition era and yet always changing. We know it’s hard to keep track, so we put together some regulatory updates and info on increased enforcement areas that legal minds are keeping an eye on in 2025.

🤳 Work with influencers? The TTB put out an industry circular in October clarifying that the rules that apply to advertising in alcohol also apply to social media, so that means you’ll need to vet marketing firms and influencers to make sure they don’t commit big no-no’s like offer misleading claims or promoting irresponsible drinking. 

⚠️ As adult non-alc (ANA) grows, so does enforcement. Knowing the rules in each state is key: certain states still regulate ANA products as full-proof products or limit sales to 21+. Separating any non-alc salesforce from bev-alc salesforce might be a good idea too, to avoid any trade practice scrutiny. 

🏛️ Of course, then there are those tariff talks, as well as a turn in health policies, such as new dietary guidelines and possible labeling requirements, that the industry is anxiously anticipating.

BevNET Insiders can get all the info on the top issues of 2025.

Gut health food brand Preme is pivoting focus to the beverage set after debuting a new 3 SKU line of drink mixes on Friday as it works to build awareness for its four-year-old functional platform, which previously focused on pudding.

🥝 The mixes include unflavored, certified low-FODMAP Gentle Prebiotics; hyaluronic acid and apple cider vinegar-infused Kiwi Lemonade flavor for gut and skin health; and lactose-free, naturally sweetened Hot Cocoa, with 5 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber.

💬 What they said: “Everyone has a drink powder mix, so I didn’t want to do just another drink powder. I wanted it to feel really unique and special, so we’re targeting gut, skin, hydration. Water is not actually hydrating to your gut.” - Xeba Zareie, founder and CEO

🍮 Zareie hopes to use the line to reach a broader audience and hopes to eventually revive the pudding product, which she believes can become “complementary” to the powders. 

BevNET Insiders can access the full story to learn more about Preme’s approach.

This feels like a sentence we’d have written in 2022: Heritage Distilling is getting into Bitcoin. The publicly traded craft distiller’s board of directors approved a “Bitcoin Treasury Policy Statement” on Friday to allow the business to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment through its DTC platform, and to hold the cryptocurrency as a strategic asset.

• Heritage also formed a Technology and Cryptocurrency Committee chaired by newly christened board member and fintech exec Matt Swann.
• According to the policy statement, the company believes that its position as a CPG business “has a built-in margin” that “cushions” Heritage compared to other traditional Bitcoin investors. 

So what’s this mean going forward? CEO Justin Stiefel said Heritage will “develop product offerings for users and enthusiasts of bitcoin,” but what those products may be is still unclear.

Dry January continues to grow in popularity each year – to the tune of roughly 1% of market share, it would seem. Numerator found that the share of alcoholic drinks among total beverage sales fell around 1% each year from 2022 (45%) to 2024 (down to 43%).

🥤 The report surveyed 450 American households and drew from sales data to find that roughly a third of alcoholic beverage consumers planned to participate in Dry January this year, while 1 in 4 said they were “considering it.” A third also said they want to cut their drinking post-January as well.

🏅 Seventy-percent of those planning on abstaining for January 2025 have done it in the past, and of them, 75% said they were successful in finishing out the month without drinking any booze.

🏓 Quick Hits: Participants are most likely to be white Gen Xers from a household with kids, and they’re 60% more likely to be “heavy alcohol beverage buyers,” suggesting the trend isn’t just people who are already low propensity drinkers. 

As the L.A. area continues to reel from the ongoing firestorm, here are some ideas for helping both the citizenry and the food and beverage community.

• Regarding Her is collecting donations to help women-owned food and beverage businesses recover. 
• L.A.-based donut shop Fonuts is collecting and distributing gluten-free food donations at its 8104 W 3rd St. location. 
• Frontline Impact and Global Empowerment Mission is collecting CPG food donations to distribute to displaced individuals and frontline workers. Businesses can learn more about how to donate here. 
• West Side Food Bank is accepting donations at its 1710 22nd St. location in Santa Monica and also accepts donations of large collections of food by appointment. 
• L.A. Community Fridges operates 15 locations around the city. Food donations can be left at any of the locations.