Kristina Marino - Scaling Mr. Black, Kombrewcha and other BevAlc Leaders

On this episode, we’re joined by Kristina Marino, BevAlc consultant and marketing leader, who’s helped scale brands like Mr Black and Kombrewcha just to name a few. Kristina brings an operator’s lens to today’s bevalc reality: tougher distributor dynamics, shifting shopper behavior, and the need to design brands that earn repeat in both off-prem and on-prem.

We get into what’s working now in bevalc: how to earn a distributor’s attention without overspending, why on-prem needs a purpose-built SKU or ritual, and how early wins come from ruthless focus on route-to-market and velocity metrics (not just awareness).

Kristina also shares her brand identity playbook, the levers that actually move repeat purchase, and what the post-M&A integration process looks like from the inside.

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Episode Highlights:

🥃 Learning lessons from scaling Mr. Black and Kombrewcha
📉 Distributor reality in 2025
🧭 Route-to-market first
🍸 On-premise with purpose
🔁 Driving repeat purchase
🪪 Brand identity playbook: briefs that translate, system-first packaging, and shelf ↔ digital alignment
🧩 Post-M&A integration
📈 Where she’d place bets now and the spirit trends she’s watching

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Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro
00:39 – Kristina’s experience in the bevalc
03:12 – The current bevalc landscape
05:14 – Trends Kristina is seeing
09:25 – Today’s bevalc distributor landscape
11:53 – How a bevalc startup can win in today’s market
13:42 – What category Kristina would focus on today if she started a brand
15:43 – Brand identity playbook in bevalc
17:34 – On-premise vs off-premise in the early days
18:49 – Driving repeat purchase
21:37 – What the post-M&A integration process looks like
23:17 – Brand and trends Kristina is excited about in spirits

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Links:

Follow Kristina on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/krimarino/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.

Transcript

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welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with Christina Marino early stage Bev ALC brand whisper I like to say she has been taking multiple brands from inception exit including kombucha which sold to AB Inbev Mister Black which was acquired by Diageo I think just that's a sample set of a few today to some of the most exciting early stage spirits brands in the market today so yeah just to kind of set the stage just tell us a bit more about your background kind of journey in the BEVAC space and maybe highlight a few things you want to highlight well thanks so much for having me on the podcast uh I've been in Beverly for 15 18 years something like that um got my start on the agency side and experiential agency called mirrorball it does not exist anymore but I came on there to lead the digital and influencer marketing department and in 2,009 no one was doing influencer marketing so we were one of the first out there um and that's really where I got my feet wet in the beveluxe scene I worked on hypnotic Perrier Amstel Light blown tequila all contention so quite a few brands and then I left there and went to stolen rum which was a rum brand from New Zealand they were launching in the US and was brought on to lead marketing uh for the brand and that was very cool counter culture lifestyle brand we did a lot with it in a very short period of time and that was acquired by Spirit Investment Partners and liquid asset brands in 2015 I believe and then from there I went to work with VX Ventures and the folks over at Abi in building kombucha which was first hard kombucha on the market so we're definitely way ahead of the time on that um but worked along alongside them that was my first accelerator experience so was glad to have that experience and then that eventually got rolled up into beyond beer over at AB and after that I went to Mr black um and you know built that brand from ground zero uh in the US to a brand that Diageo wanted to acquire in 2022 you know leading this espresso martini trend and really creating I hate using the term but a cult brand um so uh that's what LED me here to today so now I help you know early stage pre seed and early stage brands that are looking to accelerate growth and I pass on all of my knowledge learnings mistakes everything down to them so they could you know avoid them and scale faster totally yeah spoke like a few weeks ago you were just kind of talking about how much volatility you're kind of seeing in this the Bethalks space right now the state of bevok look like today to you and however you want to take that question well there's a lot of moving pieces within the Beverly Hills space right now and they're all kind of compounding on one another um you know due to a variety of recent economic fact factor the investment side is is tight right so early stage and smaller brands are having to work 10 times as hard to raise capital you really have to have like early stage proof points to and you know a really strong brand to generate that capital um and so the smaller brands are getting stretched really really thin from a from a budget and resources standpoint and then you know on the consumer side you know you hear in the news or I don't know maybe it's just me cause I follow all of the news but you know consumers are drinking less people are drinking more moderation which is definitely true but I think and this is just my opinion but I think some of it definitely has to do with health reasons also you know us millennials are drinking less cause we're just older but I think part of it has to do with just people are people are really feeling cash strapped I think at the moment you know we've been dealing with inflation over the past few years salaries have remained stagnant and I think especially in certain markets people are really feeling the squeeze financially so people are still drinking they're just drinking less but better they're drinking you know there there's zebra striping or they're doing other things um so so you know I think there's a few compounding factors there yeah totally that makes sense just as a side note a lasting impact like I don't this might be like a minor one but Mr Black is a good example like espresso martinis seem to be a trend that came on and is not going away so I'm kind of curious like along those lines any other trends similar to that that feel like popped up over the past 15 years that really have had some staying power yeah I mean look I feel like I'd be remissed to not bring up the moderation movement in general I think between lower ABV cocktails non alc cocktails as well as the addition of cannabis cocktails there's just a lot more options on how to spend your night or um you know if you're at a party um in terms of in terms of what you you consume right so you know I think that's something that will we will continue to see and we will continue to to see scale but at the same time like it's very oversaturated so again I think just speaking to having a really strong brand and knowing your consumer and how to connect with that consumer will become increasingly more important the rise of convenience um and cans now everyone wants everything in a can you know I think definitely makes sense for your you know out of home occasions that are you know parties parks picnics on the go things like that um I think still finding its place in the bar um but I know when I go out right right like I drink I drink High Noon's I drink Surfside too you know and so when I go out and if I don't feel like drinking hard alcohol you know that's by one sometimes they have it sometimes they don't so it's it's really interesting for sure then I think with Mister Black you know obviously we were really able to you know hit the nail on the head I guess in terms of with the espresso martini and we're able to connect coffee culture to cocktail culture in a way that brands haven't been able to before I think we will start to see some other trends like that and look I think Surfside's almost an example of that trend right like people love iced tea and now there's hard iced tea yeah aren't they gonna do like 100 200 million or something in their first like first or second year I read it some headline that brand came in fast and furious um you know but now high Noon's doing the the ice teas as well so I think it'll be interesting to see yeah which one prevails there for sure and I'll get on my soapbox about this all day but for Mister Black as well I think it was also like just resurrecting the liqueurs market I mean obviously you know Campari and Aperol are you know always on trend um but there's still a lot of other liqueurs that are either more obscure or haven't been reenergized or modernized where I think there's an occasion for you know and I think we were gonna talk a little bit more about trends later on but I could speak to some of it now but I think there's what I call like like wanderlust through flavor and I think consumers now especially now enjoy more of a global palate experimenting with flavors and liqueurs is a great medium to do that within the spirit space so I think there's a lot of opportunity with immacules and maybe I am just biased but you know we mix with every base spirit the partnerships are endless we compliment every portfolio so I think there's a lot left to be seen there yeah for sure similar a good amount of years in the BEVAC space he's both on the retail side and on the brand side as well and um he said one thing that resonated with me he said something along the lines of the BEVAC distro space has become just like the NBA in terms of the amount of people that follow NBA but like it's basically talking about how it's turned into a players league meaning the big conglomerates I guess the diageos maybe inves those those size ones are kind of really setting the priorities for distributor distributors a lot of way just because they have so much power and they're kind of commanding all the attention and so like smaller brands maybe more the level you're working with are kind of left to fend for themselves a bit more from from my kind of a selling standpoint merchandise and perspective and can maybe really more only depend on the distributors more from kind of a logistical standpoint would you agree similar taking that's totally off and what's your general take on yeah the distributor landscape today and how it's kind of changed yeah so I I agree with that sentiment 100% and I think unfortunately you know speaking about volatility you know we're just talking about volatility in the market there's been a lot of volatility also on the distributor side lots of movement with RNDC pulling out of California Arias coming in taking a lot of that business and there's you know little shifts and changes happening like that all over the country on the distributor side and the distributors are getting more and more of those bigger portfolio plays a lot of these bigger portfolios have their own dedicated sales teams within the distributor so it is getting increasingly difficult to get mind share and attention from the distributor I would say uh you know as tips or tricks or or hints but have you you know being able to prove before you even pitch a distributor you know if you're self distributing just being able to have those proof points be able to prove consumer pull consumer traction demand with the trade um and going in with those proof points and then when you're doing your DSM's or your presentations when you're asking the distributor what to do um or sorry you know what you'd like them to do just be really crystal clear and ask you know three things right um and again I think depending on how you compliment the portfolio and what partnerships you can line up in that portfolio will also help from an attention perspective but for new brands and I always tell all my all my brands this um you know don't expect the distributor to really be out there like pounding the pavement for you so either look to handle sales internally yourself you know now there's a bunch of different you know fractional sales models or brokers but you know if you're just expecting that the distributor is gonna go out sell your brand get you on menu get you on display all of those things as a new small brand like that it's just not happening so you know and I know some of the distributors used to have like a craft spirits division or or divisions dedicated towards emerging brands with everything that's happened in the past six months to a year you know I don't know if if some of those are still in play or not taking all that into account a lot of the ones that you're working at that early stage actually like and some of the mistakes you're commonly seeing yeah sure so you know I think just again in terms of winning really figuring out how to create the demand for your product um and not just get on shelf for you know behind the bar obviously you wanna be in accounts right that's how you sell move product but if you go too wide too soon it's gonna be really hard to get the kind of traction that you're looking for so I always say you know go deep not wide you know almost better to be in like 25 accounts 50 accounts and really be able to show that you could drive velocity in those accounts and you know what your growth drivers are before you go start expanding elsewhere and also know where where your brand works and where your brand doesn't work from an account perspective um you know whether that's you know some spirits brands do well in grocery a lot do not so then it's like okay you know if your brand doesn't perform well in grocery then why are you in so many grocery stores at this stage when you should be focused on more like Total Wine or ABC something like that so you know sometimes there's shiny opportunities whether that's getting into Walmart or getting into um you know some of these other big retailers AVP Kroger something like that but if you don't have any consumer awareness to drive that pull then you're just sitting on the shelf and that doesn't make the um you know the customer happy and you know if you if you get Dq'd it's very hard getting back in those stores so I would just say build build slowly and build the right way um so you can prove out the playbook in a totally different CPG category told you I wanted to start a brand in the Bev ALC space not sure category I want to go after what category would you recommend I focus on and why and based on where we are in today's market I'd say I think it depends on what your ambition is overall right because the hot categories whether that's agave RTDs non ALC they're growing they're growing and they're growing fast but they're also extremely crowd crowded so what are you gonna do to stand out amongst that crowd and how are you gonna differentiate and compete then there's a lot of overlooked sexy categories whether that's you know in liqueurs I would say you know rum now I mean I know with my inside knowledge of some like cool challenger brands that are coming out in the rum category I'd even argue even in vodka there's not a lot of like cool emerging vodka brands so I think it really just depends you know what your ambition is and what you're looking to do and what you personally have passion for right like always talking about like your big why like why did you create this brand so you know I'd say that but I think you know when we launched Mister Black no one was asking for a new coffee liqueur I mean people weren't even really necessarily using Kahlua behind the bar don't come you know don't come for me on that but you know the category was a bit antiquated and so you know we saw the connection to what was happening in the specialty coffee regular standard coffee industry and market and how consumers were gravitating towards cold brew and we were able to modernize create a new cool modern coffee liqueur that was also really grounded in specialty coffee at Mr. buff we roasted all of our beans ourselves we did the cold brew extraction ourselves all of that and then we created that demand for the product so you know that's what I'd say about that what would like your playbook generally kind of look like in terms of building the brand identity brand story you know visual identity um and what can people really easily get wrong at this stage especially in the bevoc space well that's also a loaded question in some ways right cause I think it depends what stage the brand is in I'll say the one thing I always recommend to brands is to invest in the brand right and that's in the the brand identity the packaging the messaging the people behind the brand and who's helping you grow that brand because all of that is the brand which is also the product that you're selling it's all one thing so cause if you launch with one brand ID and then you have to go back and redo everything it's just gonna waste a lot of time and a lot of money and especially in the beginning your packaging is almost your first salesperson right that's the first thing that people are gonna pick up and be like oh what's this so or see an ad and be like oh let me click so make sure to get it right you know or as close to right as you can off the bat um and then I think just kind of building from there just settling down and building that core asset suite your selling story and um just how you're gonna go to market whether that's and what markets you're gonna launch in you know that all kind of plays a role in that pre launch but in terms of focusing on like should we really fuck try to just focus on one get really good at you know one and really hone in on one and and really get good at that channel or try to test both initially see what response we get and then kind of hone in on whichever one we're getting more attraction with yeah so I'd say again depending on the brand and the skew I would recommend testing both and then proving out how you could drive velocity in both but I also think launching when you were your first launching just having some direct to consumer so you can one learn more about your consumer test what messaging works what doesn't work so that cause that could then filter down to what messaging goes on assets in store and to start building that awareness locally yeah uh and then you'll also have some early stage proof points to take into retailers to take to distributors to take to um you know other buyers so you know they always say brands are built in the on premise which I am a believer in but depending on what kind of product you are retail is also gonna be important I think with retail you just need to have well and both you need to have some budget to support to support it right so in retail you're gonna have to do tastings and for for on prime you know just just being able to show up and and show love and show support uh is also needed so any thoughts in terms of how brands can you know ensure that these strategies that you're spending time and resources on don't just drive same day sales which obviously they probably will um but actually drive you know repeat purchase after the fact a week two weeks you know what not later yeah I'd say be memorable so in terms of what is your in store tasting setup what assets do you have what are you giving away to consumers to make sure that they will remember you after the fact and then just going back to my earlier point about going deep and not wide if you're in a market where you know you have some good on premise traction some good retail traction and you're focusing all of your marketing efforts whether it's events you know influencer activations digital in that market um they'll start to see you everywhere and they'll remember you so but if you go too wide and then you just come and do a tasting and it's like set it and forget it then you know you're not gonna you might not see that traction after the fact building on that on um off campus retail side of things um retail employees from that same perspective in terms of increasing the chances that they're gonna recommend your brand yeah so retail retail employee education is important and buyers right and we sent her a lot of education programs around them not to say that we don't do it for retail it's just a bit sometimes harder especially if you're working through big chains to get that attention from them right cause they have every supplier and they're trying to get master classes or big um you know education seminars with their staff on the books so but just in terms of retail coming in giving them love giving them merch um again making sure your brand is easy to digest and communicate back in terms of your point of differentiation and what makes your brand so special because if you make everything so convoluted and really complex to understand they're gonna have a hard time relaying that information so but I would say just back to advocacy you know the bartender analogy I think relates most to how we get view trade in terms of bartenders buyers got it cause they're the ones that I think also spend more time yeah that makes sense yeah they're the ones that are really recommending oh what cocktail should I try right totally you know yeah good point so yeah totally good point shifting gears a bit let's circle back to that brand we're building together uh sure let's just say fast forward 10 years we had a lot of success recently got acquired by one of the big strategics I know you've been through this a few times so I don't want to definitely don't want you to disclose anything specific you're not supposed to but just in from a more general kind of high level standpoint what is like and you know what should I keep out of mind or I think mentally prepare myself for let's say yeah so I think every portfolio and every strategist is probably going to be different in terms of how they integrate brands but I'd say one make sure you have everything all of your trade assets anything that you want to keep and continue to roll over just organize because everything is going to have to go through a very thorough review and thorough legal review in terms of what to keep in mind I would just say get really clear on the DNA of your brand that you want to protect and the things that you refuse to compromise on because you will have to compromise on different various ways of working so I know again and I could just speak to my experience but at Mister Black you know we were obsessed with product everything that came within 10 feet of it and that includes all of our assets all of our creative our social and we didn't want that to go to an agency so we still wanted to keep that in house and it still does remain in house today which is very rare for a lot of these larger portfolios to be doing that kind of work internally so that was like one area that we refuse to compromise on yeah I think just being really clear on what areas of the brand are like must protect at all costs before and being clear on that before you go in any specific brands that you're just kind of tracking in the market or just general trends in this kind of spirits space that you're particularly excited about yeah I think there's a few things so you know I I spoke a little bit about it earlier but I'm in general just excited about flavor exploration and to our storytelling through the world of spirits and I think that's being brought to life in a lot of different ways whether that's just you know unique liqueurs or unique flavors or it's you know rum from the Highland regions of Mexico or you know something like that you know now everyone has gins that are made with all of their kind of local botanicals and things like that which I think is really interesting I'm obviously keeping an eye on non Elk low AVV and really I'm just personally interested in the cannabis like RTD space especially now that they're being rolled out across total lines where legal they're following a very similar route to market that about does um and I'm just interested to see how that pans out um and the the products that are coming out within that sector same yeah um and then I think functional functional beverages they're a section of non ALC but just interested in um how like I guess what wins in terms of flavor versus function um and what consumers start gravitating towards yeah I think that's another interesting any of the trends that came up previously that like looking back and now you like I wish you would have jumped on earlier maybe like you were so you were like looking back I wish I actually would have started my own brand in this category cause it's exploded so so much or anything along those lines I mean I think I mean I think with the RTD space I think that there there's a lot of a lot to be said there for Santa Claus you know surf sites not the hard iced tea the first hard iced tea like there were ones before as well so again I think it's just again how you bring that brand to market that makes all the difference um yeah do I wish I came up with high noon yeah fair enough fair enough well yeah this has been great anything else anything else that you want to share about what you're seeing in the space that we didn't really touch on at all I think this is actually just more of a more of a marketing trend yeah it doesn't necessarily have to do with liquid or the actual product but more of a marketing trend so I think we're starting to enter an era of digital fatigue and well I do recommend especially during your test and learn phase to be testing things online as a consumer um as well as a brand marketer I'm just finding it very interesting where this level of digital fatigue will take us cause I think at first everything was DDC everything was online everything was pushing to digital and short form content always having to be pumping out content and now you know when you're on social media it's like you're and QVC network I mean every other swipe is someone selling you something so I think there's consumer digital fatigue everyone's aware that everything is an ad and now what you're seeing in other CPG sectors or other sectors in general whether that's fashion or music are other ways more analog ways of marketing the brand some are novelty an example of this is there's there's been a few brands doing the scrap like scratch and sniff ads that you and that we probably grew up with yeah and that is making you know a comeback I know when Mary a beauty brand was launching one of their new perfumes they did some scratch and sniff campaigns I'm also seeing people doing it now on out of home so little things like that I'm finding really interesting because I feel the digital fatigue myself as a marketer and a consumer so I know other people are feeling that well as well as um I think in line with that is more IRL experiences events smaller events more curated I think we're slowly seeing yeah just the pendulum swinging back the other way and I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how how brands cut through when they're you know trying to zag when everyone else is zigging so I think it's gonna be really interesting I've seen interactive labels like I've seen ones where you like peel things off of the label and it like create shapes um and I think now just outside of packaging the other trend is community so community building but like real authentic community building it's not necessarily how many followers you have on your Insta but how many like engaged superfans do you have with your brand how are you engaging with those people and like really being able to build a community around your brand and we see again in other categories brands starting their own Reddit or their own substack like people are exploring other digital mediums so um and creating their own smaller communities so this is not something I'm keeping an eye on as well for sure that's why it makes sense Kristina this is an awesome really appreciate the time you definitely have a lot of knowledge in this space what's the best place for people to follow along with you whether it's K R I Marino the profile handle and hopefully by the time this airs my substack will be live but I'm launching a substack which will be free Marino dot substack dot com and you can find me on my website which is Christina Marino perfect yeah if if the subs are ready by the time we publish it I'll put in the notes for sure okay great awesome appreciate the time it's been great we'll talk soon she's trusted advisor partner and then we'll go from there sure what are the biggest or maybe most impactful trends but I think you know one thing I had another guy on the pod a few months back win in today's market let's say I I had a successful exit in well it's a bit of a loaded question let's just say decide on a category would you generally suggest and this might be two of a ambiguous question depending on where categorizing after tastings trade promos what kind of programs have you found to be the most impactful on this front on premise how we look at bartenders um and we just got the typical kind of integration process look like so my LinkedIn is just KRI Marino