Early Look At Spirits RTDs in 2025 - Quench Report Issue #25

There Is A New King Of Growth

Author

Matt Rice
January 26, 2026

Welcome to Issue #25 of The Quench Report, the newsletter that raises a glass and delivers the latest and greatest in Beverage Alcohol and the broader Beverage category.

This week, instead of focusing on a few different topics, we decided to dive deeper into the main topic of Spirits RTDs.

What’s on tap for today:

  • 🥃 Spirits RTDS In 2025

  • 🔥 Hot Jobs Worth Applying To

 🥃 SPIRITS RTDS HAD ANOTHER RECORD-BREAKING YEAR IN 2025

The early results for Spirits RTD performance in 2025 are in, and the results are fascinating. Other than High Noon, which everyone saw decline this year, all the other big competitors had incredible years.

Check it out for yourself 👇️ 

🧠Our Thoughts:

  • High Noon Finally Slows - Make no mistake - High Noon has been one of the most successful spirits launches in U.S. history. It’s hard to have perspective on performance as it’s happening - but few people realize the growth in some years was so high the incremental growth alone would have been the #2 spirits brand in the U.S. by volume. Think about that!

  • Surfside Grows Nearly 6 Million Cases - There is a new growth king in Spirits, and it’s Surfside. 6 million incremental cases in 1 year is more than the total sales for Jack Daniel's and Woodford Reserve combined. That’s insane. That said, is all the recent Innovation from Surfside a sign that they expect the core product to slow now that it has hit 10 million cases? We will see.

  • Carbliss - Don’t call this a “midwest brand” - showing growth of over 50% shows this is a major growth brand across the U.S. They grew 3x the speed of Nutrl without that ABI route-to-market muscle. Don’t sleep on Carbliss.

As we mentioned above, it’s hard to appreciate growth while you are still experiencing it. We decided to go back and look at the fastest-growing “growth years” in spirits (by volume). Most of the fastest-growing years have been in RTDs, and most have been in the past 5 years. Check it out 👇️ 

🧠Our Thoughts:

  • High Noon Perspective - High Noon had 3 of the 4 fastest growing volume years for a spirits brand ever, and did it in consecutive years!

  • Titos / Fireball - Folks who have been in the industry for a while will remember the peak years for brands like Tito’s and Fireball (and to a lesser extent some of the boom years for New Amsterdam) - interesting to see how peak volume growth years compare to more recent RTD growth

Next week: A trip back in time when High Noon launched. You won’t want to miss it!

THIS WEEK’S HOT JOBS IN BEVERAGES

These roles came to us via personal recommendations (not public job boards). Want your open role featured? Email: [email protected] 👇️ 

THANKS FOR READING

The Quench Report is a free weekly newsletter from Thirsty Insights, a beverage alcohol consulting company that serves top clients in data, strategy, insights, and analytics.

Any questions, please email us at [email protected]