• 🥃 Bardstown Bourbon Boom Solution
• ✨ BevNET Best of Awards 2025
• 🍸 New Year, New Spirits
• 🧑‍⚖️ Owocs Can't Escape
• 🆕 What Else Is New?

At Givaudan, we empower brands to develop with consumer understanding and innovation in mind. As the energy market evolves, consumers seek bold flavors and functionality. Let’s go Beyond the Boost to target the right consumers with the flavors and benefits they crave. Learn more

Aura Bora is the latest beverage brand to mark the new year with an exit. The sparkling water brand known for its creative can designs and botanical infused flavors has been acquired by New York-based investor and brand collective Next In Natural. 

BevNET readers likely know this brand well: headed by husband and wife team Paul and Maddie Voge, Aura Bora’s playful, innovative steak helped it pick up a BevNET Best of Award in 2023 as it scaled up to over 10,000 retail doors, including Sprouts, Whole Foods and Wegmans. 

Yet, as Paul Voge chronicled at BevNET Live last summer, nearly half that time was spent chasing more growth capital – with an eight-figure infusion led by Siddhi Capital in 2022 being the largest of five funding rounds – to support and maintain the brand’s gains. 

That was the plan heading into this fall, Voge told us last week, but a barren investment landscape proved too much of a challenge; Despite enjoying its best-ever year in 2024 with sales around $12 million, the company remained unprofitable. 

Enter Next in Natural, the Brooklyn-based investor and brand collective which acquired fellow sparkling beverage maker Sound last year. In the words of founder/CEO Jeff Lichtenstein, Next in Natural’s shared services operating model “lets founders do what they do best while we handle the rest.” 

• The group has been hunting for acquisitions ($5 million to $50 million in revenue) since appointing former Keto and Co. CEO Ted Tieken as Chief Future Officer last March.

For Voge, who’s staying on with Aura Bora, the exit represents (another) unexpected turn in his company’s story, though one he said he’s excited to witness. “This is not what I predicted for Aura Bora a year ago, but that's been the case consistently for the last six years of running this business.” 

How did the deal come together? And why has Voge prized “continuity” in the move? Read the full story on BevNET.

There may be a boom of headlines about the bourbon glut, but what are whiskey brands doing about the oversupply of the aging American stuff?

🌾 American whiskey producers revved up production in the last decade and analysts have warned there’s likely to be a significant excess supply in the next five years.

• If demand remains where it is, supply will outstrip demand by 1.29 million barrels by 2028.

▶️ Ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails may be one way through the problem, according to Bardstown Bourbon president Pete Marino. 

• The contract distiller already sports a growing portfolio of owned brands, and may now get crafty with RTDs to bring more audiences into the whiskey fold. 
• It’s not a silver bullet: Whiskey RTDs are still finding their footing in a vodka and tequila dominated segment. 

Check out the full story on BevNET for all of the insight.

BevNET’s annual “Best Of” Awards recognize the companies, brands, individuals, products, ideas, and trends that are driving the beverage industry forward. The highly-anticipated awards show will take place in Marina del Rey, CA during BevNET Live Winter 2025, happening December 7-9, 2025.

Nominations are now open – submit your top picks today!

Stay ahead of the latest beverage trends, sample new products, and connect with key suppliers at Bar & Restaurant Expo, March 24-26. From craft spirits to RTDs, find what’s next for your brand. Use code BEVNET to save 20% on your pass! Don’t miss your chance to elevate your drink program! Learn more

We’ve got quite a range in this year’s early spirit arrivals, from boozy milkshakes to culture-merging limited tequila releases. Here’s a preview of 2025’s releases:

🍍 Anyone else jazzed for the return of White Lotus? While you watch the drama unfold in Thailand, Deep Eddy’s Vodka Pineapple release may be the perfect party sip. 

🌚 Boozy milkshake lovers rejoice. Midnight Moon launched a Vanilla Moonshake flavor with cream liqueur that can be enjoyed over ice, swirled into coffee or blended into a grown-up milkshake. 

🐍 Mexican tradition meets Chinese culture with Don Julio’s new limited edition release: 1942 Year of the Snake Edition. The tequila is the same, but the bottle features a unique design depicting the Chinese Zodiac snake and the Aztec feathered serpent (Quetzalcoatl) intertwined, plus gold accents for good luck and prosperity.

🆓 Check out the full gallery on BevNET

You can’t say he’s not trying: embattled former Bang CEO Jack Owoc saw his bid to dismiss all of Monster Energy’s claims and liens against him dismissed by a Florida federal bankruptcy judge last week.

💰 The dispute stems from the aftermath of Monster’s successful 2022 lawsuit against Bang (read: they won $293 million in damages). A California judge awarded another $43 million in attorney fees and additional damages in October 2023. 

✅ Owoc, acting as counsel for himself and his wife Megan Owoc (also a defendant), argued that Monster received “full satisfaction” of all claims following Bang’s $362 million sale to Monster via bankruptcy in July 2023.

❌ However, the Judge did not rule on that specific question, but rather cited his lack of jurisdiction in the matter.

•  "I'm not saying the [one satisfaction] law doesn't exist, I'm just not the one to apply it as between Mr. Owoc and Monster… I’m saying the California court is the one to apply it," he claimed, according to a report on Law360. 

Go Deeper: Jack Owoc Charts ‘AI’-Driven Future

It’s Hump Day! Here’s a look at the new drops and activations from the first half of the week.

🥃 Sometimes, you just have to embrace the perfectly unreasonable in life. That’s the mindset Kentucky bourbon producer Maker’s Mark brings to its latest global campaign which asserts that going to unreasonable lengths – in life and bourbon – separates good from remarkable. 

💧 Zero-sugar hydration and energy beverage maker Positive Beverage will now go by Positive Hydration to “more clearly articulate” the functional benefits of the vitamins and minerals it contains. The brand also removed erythritol from both product lines. 

🥥 ROAR Organic has expanded its RTD hydration beverages line with the launch of Dragon Fruit Punch, featuring a coconut water base. The brand has announced a partnership with Plastic Bank to remove one bottle from the environment for every bottle sold. 

🏙️ In celebration of the vibrant hip-hop cultures across the U.S., Rémy Martin has launched V.S.O.P This is My City Limited Edition collection with odes to the “iconic sounds and styles” of four cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and New York.