Business of Drinks

Gratsi’s boxed-wine business began as a pandemic pivot. It became the foundation for one of the category’s most notable growth stories.
After selling more than 375K 9L case equivalents last year, the company expects to grow 30%+ this year to exceed 500K cases — driven by subscriptions, repeat purchases, and a carefully sequenced expansion into wholesale.
Founder and CEO Stephen Vlahos originally launched Gratsi in a half-bottle format designed for casual bars and restaurants. When COVID shut down most of those accounts, he needed a product that could work DTC. Bag-in-box was lighter and less expensive to ship, while offering consumers wine that remained fresh for weeks after opening.
Rather than persuading value-oriented boxed-wine drinkers to trade up, Gratsi targeted consumers accustomed to buying $20+ bottles. It reframed the box around quality, freshness, convenience, and value, then wrapped it in a simple, Mediterranean-inspired brand that strips away much of wine’s traditional complexity.
That DTC foundation is now giving Gratsi an unusual advantage in wholesale. Before entering a market, the company can identify existing customers, gather store requests, and activate local demand. Once wholesale launches, retail can quickly become roughly 80% of its volume in that state — even as DTC continues to grow.
In this episode, we discuss:
How Gratsi grew from 2K cases to 75K cases before entering wholesale

How it built nearly 30,000 subscribers averaging approximately three boxes per month

How DTC data helps “warm up” a retail market before launch

Why Gratsi is building geographic density instead of pursuing national distribution all at once

Why its lifestyle content often barely features the product

What Stephen means by “escape competition with authenticity”

For drinks entrepreneurs, Gratsi offers a compelling playbook for using DTC not as the final destination, but as the foundation for much larger retail growth.
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Erica Duecy, co-host: Erica Duecy is founder and co-host of Business of Drinks and one of the drinks industry’s most accomplished digital and content strategists. She runs the consultancy and advisory arm of Business of Drinks and has built publishing and marketing programs for Drizly, VinePair, SevenFifty, and other hospitality and drinks tech companies.
Erica Duecy LinkedIn
Instagram @ericaduecy
Scott Rosenbaum, co-host: Scott Rosenbaum is co-host of Business of Drinks and a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Most recently, he was the Portfolio Development Director at Distill Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of T. Edward Wines & Spirits, a New York-based importer and distributor.
Scott Rosenbaum LinkedIn
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What makes a beverage brand truly investable — and should founders be raising venture capital at all?
In this episode of Business of Drinks, we sit down with Nate Cooper, founder and managing partner of Barrel Ventures, to unpack what investors are actually looking for in emerging food and beverage companies — and why building a great business and building a venture-backable business are not necessarily the same thing.
Nate has been on both sides of the table: First as an operator, and now as an investor in companies including Olipop, Partake, Nowadays, and Ultra. That experience has shaped a candid view of capital, growth, and what really creates investor conviction.
For beverage brands, Nate would rather see strong velocity than a huge door count. He pays close attention to repeat purchase, pricing, gross margin potential, and whether founders really know their numbers. And when it comes to financing, his advice is simple: Raise more than you think you need, spend less than you think you have — and don’t assume venture is always the smartest money.
We also get into the consumer shifts Nate believes could reshape beverage over the next several years. He explains what he saw in Olipop before the category existed, why non-nicotine pouches could become a major competitor to functional drinks, how wearables may be changing alcohol consumption, and why he believes hemp-derived THC beverages could become far bigger than the industry expects.
Plus:
Why velocity matters more than distribution alone

What founders need to know before pitching investors

Why billion-dollar outcomes are far rarer than startup culture suggests

How brands should navigate the “messy middle” of scaling

Why the next competitor to your drink may not be a beverage at all

If you’re raising capital, planning to raise, or simply trying to understand how investors evaluate emerging brands, this episode is packed with practical takeaways.
For the latest updates, follow us:
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Business of Drinks LinkedIn
Instagram @bizofdrinks
Erica Duecy, co-host: Erica Duecy is founder and co-host of Business of Drinks and one of the drinks industry’s most accomplished digital and content strategists. She runs the consultancy and advisory arm of Business of Drinks and has built publishing and marketing programs for Drizly, VinePair, SevenFifty, and other hospitality and drinks tech companies.
Erica Duecy LinkedIn
Instagram @ericaduecy
Scott Rosenbaum, co-host: Scott Rosenbaum is co-host of Business of Drinks and a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Most recently, he was the Portfolio Development Director at Distill Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of T. Edward Wines & Spirits, a New York-based importer and distributor.
Scott Rosenbaum LinkedIn
Subscribe to the Business of Drinks channel for more insights on how brands, retailers, and operators are unlocking growth across beverages. And please rate and review us. Your support helps us reach new listeners. Thank you!

How do you build a 100,000-case tequila brand without a big marketing budget — or, until recently, even a U.S. sales team?
Arette Tequila did it largely from the bar out.
The family-owned brand shipped more than 100,000 nine-liter cases in 2025, growing about 20% last year, with another 20% growth projected this year. More than 80% of its U.S. sales are still in bars and restaurants — the result of a strategy built around bartenders, independent distributors, and years of relentless market work.
In this episode, we talk with Arette CEO Eduardo Orendain about what that kind of brand building actually looks like.
For much of the past decade, Eduardo was essentially working the U.S. market himself, at times traveling 36 weeks a year. He joined distributor ride-alongs, went account to account, and stayed at bars through the end of the shift — listening to what bartenders and customers were actually saying.
The goal was to make Arette a tequila bartenders would recommend when nobody from the company was in the room and no incentive was attached.
That approach also shaped Arette’s distributor strategy. Rather than moving toward the biggest national houses, the company has largely grown alongside smaller independent distributors — and has stayed with essentially the same network for more than a decade.
We also get into:
How Arette narrowed its business from bulk tequila, private label, and multiple brands to focus on one

Why Eduardo believes “awareness creates trial, but quality creates loyalty”

Why data is a rearview mirror — and working the market can reveal what’s coming next

How bartender demand turned Arette Fuerte from a distillery pour into a commercial product

Why smaller brands can sometimes win more distributor mindshare by choosing smaller partners

Arette’s next phase: building its first U.S. team and expanding beyond its on-premise stronghold

This episode is a practical look at how patient, focused, trade-led brand building can compound into meaningful scale.
For the latest updates, follow us:
Business of Drinks website (sign up for our newsletter!)
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Business of Drinks LinkedIn
Instagram @bizofdrinks
Erica Duecy, co-host: Erica Duecy is founder and co-host of Business of Drinks and one of the drinks industry’s most accomplished digital and content strategists. She runs the consultancy and advisory arm of Business of Drinks and has built publishing and marketing programs for Drizly, VinePair, SevenFifty, and other hospitality and drinks tech companies.
Erica Duecy LinkedIn
Instagram @ericaduecy
Scott Rosenbaum, co-host: Scott Rosenbaum is co-host of Business of Drinks and a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Most recently, he was the Portfolio Development Director at Distill Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of T. Edward Wines & Spirits, a New York-based importer and distributor.
Scott Rosenbaum LinkedIn
Subscribe to the Business of Drinks channel for more insights on how brands, retailers, and operators are unlocking growth across beverages. And please rate and review us. Your support helps us reach new listeners. Thank you!

How do you know if your drinks brand is actually growing?
It sounds like a simple question. But in beverage alcohol, the answer can get complicated fast.
Shipments may be up because inventory moved into distribution. Revenue can rise because of a price increase even as volume declines. And a brand can add dozens of new accounts without generating enough velocity or reorders to make those placements sustainable.
In this episode of Business of Drinks, we talk with Danelle Kosmal, Consultant at 3 Tier Beverages, about how to use data to understand what’s really happening in your business — and distinguish true consumer traction from growth that may look better on paper than it does in the market.
Danelle spent more than a decade at NielsenIQ, ultimately leading its beverage alcohol practice, and later served as VP of Research at the Beer Institute. She brings a deep understanding of the datasets available to drinks companies, as well as their limitations.
She explains why no single metric tells the whole story — and why emerging brands, in particular, need to know which numbers actually matter.
We get into:
🔶 Why distribution is only the beginning — and velocity is critical to understanding whether a product is working
🔶 What shipments, depletions, and scan data each tell you
🔶 Why revenue growth can mask declining volume
🔶 Why repeat rate may be one of the best measures of real consumer traction
🔶 How to diagnose whether slow growth is coming from distribution, price, promotion, placement, or demand
🔶 Which numbers matter most when pitching retailers, distributors, and investors
🔶 How smaller brands can access useful data without paying for more than they need
One of Danelle’s most important points: Data isn’t strategy. The goal isn’t to accumulate more reports or build bigger dashboards. It’s to use the right information to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where to focus next.
For drinks entrepreneurs trying to build healthier, more sustainable growth, this episode is a practical guide to knowing what the numbers are really telling you.
For the latest updates, follow us:
Business of Drinks website (sign up for our newsletter!)
Business of Drinks YouTube
Business of Drinks LinkedIn
Instagram @bizofdrinks
Erica Duecy, co-host: Erica Duecy is founder and co-host of Business of Drinks and one of the drinks industry’s most accomplished digital and content strategists. She runs the consultancy and advisory arm of Business of Drinks and has built publishing and marketing programs for Drizly, VinePair, SevenFifty, and other hospitality and drinks tech companies.
Erica Duecy LinkedIn
Instagram @ericaduecy
Scott Rosenbaum, co-host: Scott Rosenbaum is co-host of Business of Drinks and a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Most recently, he was the Portfolio Development Director at Distill Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of T. Edward Wines & Spirits, a New York-based importer and distributor.
Scott Rosenbaum LinkedIn
Subscribe to the Business of Drinks channel for more insights on how brands, retailers, and operators are unlocking growth across beverages. And please rate and review us. Your support helps us reach new listeners. Thank you!

Yes Way Rosé is growing while wine is shrinking.
The brand closed 2025 at roughly 167,000 cases and, in the first half of 2026, grew depletions 16% over the prior year — notable performance in a market where both rosé and wine overall have been declining.
So how is Yes Way Rosé taking share?
In this episode, we talk with co-founder Erica Small about the playbook behind the brand’s growth — and why there isn’t one silver bullet. Instead, Yes Way Rosé has built momentum by combining strong national-account relationships, consistent retail execution, cultural relevance, approachable pricing, and a product that keeps consumers coming back.
National accounts have become the brand’s “bread and butter,” with Yes Way Rosé earning and retaining shelf space at major retailers including Target, Walmart, Publix, Albertsons, and Total Wine. But getting onto the shelf is only the beginning. Erica explains why velocity, reorders, seasonal programming, and ongoing marketing support determine whether a brand actually gets to stay there.
We also get into the importance of winning the cold box, how Yes Way Rosé uses shipment, depletion, and retail data to understand brand health, and why maintaining relevance matters even after a brand reaches meaningful scale.
Plus, Erica shares the unconventional story behind Yes Way Rosé’s launch: She and co-founder Nikki Huganir built the lifestyle brand and community years before there was ever wine in the bottle. And when they finally launched the wine nationally in 2018, they knew the liquid had to over-deliver.
For drinks entrepreneurs navigating a slower-growth market, this episode is a case study in an increasingly important reality: When the category isn’t growing, the brands that outperform have to win share.
For the latest updates, follow us:
Business of Drinks website (sign up for our newsletter!)
Business of Drinks YouTube
Business of Drinks LinkedIn
Instagram @bizofdrinks
Erica Duecy, co-host: Erica Duecy is founder and co-host of Business of Drinks and one of the drinks industry’s most accomplished digital and content strategists. She runs the consultancy and advisory arm of Business of Drinks and has built publishing and marketing programs for Drizly, VinePair, SevenFifty, and other hospitality and drinks tech companies.
Erica Duecy LinkedIn
Instagram @ericaduecy
Scott Rosenbaum, co-host: Scott Rosenbaum is co-host of Business of Drinks and a veteran strategist and analyst with deep experience building drinks portfolios. Most recently, he was the Portfolio Development Director at Distill Ventures. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of T. Edward Wines & Spirits, a New York-based importer and distributor.
Scott Rosenbaum LinkedIn
Subscribe to the Business of Drinks channel for more insights on how brands, retailers, and operators are unlocking growth across beverages. And please rate and review us. Your support helps us reach new listeners. Thank you!