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  • Innovation Has Never Been More Important - Quench Report Issue #40

Innovation Has Never Been More Important - Quench Report Issue #40

Plus: The Value of Growth and Hot Jobs

Author

Matt Rice
June 22, 2026

Two different lenses this week, both pointing at the same thing: change is speeding up, and growth has never been more valuable. First, we zoom way out… 50 years of the biggest spirits brands, and why the category's famous "stickiness" is finally cracking. Then, a question a founder asked me over lunch at BevNet: how much is growth actually worth when you go to sell?

What’s on tap for today:

  • 🥇 Deep Dive - Is Spirits Evolving More Quickly?

  • 📰 The Value of Growth

  • ♨️ Hot Jobs - Apply Today

🥇 FIVE DECADES OF EVOLUTION

If you've followed us for any amount of time, you know we spend a lot of time "zooming out" and researching how brands and companies evolve over the long term.

A few recent examples:

This week we thought it'd be interesting to look at how the largest spirits brands have evolved over the past 50 years and, as a point of comparison, how that stacks up against how the largest companies have evolved.

Check it out below👇️

A few reflections:

Companies Don’t Stay Important Long - Tracking Nvidia's market cap might not feel relevant to bev alc, but understanding the nature of competition and change absolutely is. The reality is it's extremely hard to stay on top. Of the 10 largest companies a decade ago, only 4 are still top 10 today.

That Rate of Change Is Remarkably Stable - Over the past 50 years, every decade brings the same phenomenon: the majority of the top 10 turns over. It's a reflection of ingenuity, innovation, and changing consumer taste. For argument's sake, let's call it "the natural rate of change."

Spirits Has Generally Been An Exception - The category is famously sticky. Smirnoff, Bacardi, and Jack Daniel's were top brands for your grandparents and are still top brands today. Decade on decade, there's been far less churn than in the broader market.

Things Are Changing - Until now. There's been more change this decade than any in recent history. Only half of the top 10 brands from ten years ago are still in the Top 10. For the first time, the degree of change in spirits is matching the rest of the market. Innovation is quickening, creativity is quickening, and barriers to entry and scale advantages are shrinking. Spirits is finally evolving at its "natural" rate.

THE FINAL WORD
Innovation has never mattered more than it does today. The rate of change is quickening and the top brands that genuinely resonate with consumers have never had more impact.

Buckle up.

📰 THE VALUE OF GROWTH

At BevNet last week, I got to talking over lunch with a founder who hopes to have his brand acquired in the next 2-3 years. He asked what he should keep in mind. I gave him three or four big considerations, but the one he kept circling back to was how much growth matters going into a transaction.

Here's some data to illustrate the concept, plus a few things to keep in mind:

A few reflections:

Growth Is Rare - Companies can manufacture profit. Take a color out of your shipper, lighten your glass, push your partners for better terms, raise your prices… there are levers. Growth is much harder. Sure, you can "push" demand to a degree, albeit temporarily, but real "pull" demand is very tough to create. That's what acquirers are actually buying.

The Value of Growth - Looking at the chart, every +10 points of growth has historically been worth, on average, about 6 turns of EV/EBITDA. Simplified example: say you're a wildly successful brand doing $10M of EBITDA a year. All else equal, the difference between growing 25% and 35% is worth roughly $60M of extra consideration. That's substantial.

THE FINAL WORD
M&A isn't “paint-by-numbers”… at the end of the day, a brand is worth what someone's willing to pay. But founders thinking through the scale they want at the point of sale would be wise to think just as hard about their growth rate at that same moment.

THIS WEEK’S HOT JOBS IN BEVERAGES

These roles came to us via ThirstyTalent.ai. 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.

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