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When You Stop Being As Important to Your Distributor - Quench Report Issue #30

Plus: Mezcal Returns to Growth, Hot Jobs, and More

Author

Matt Rice
March 09, 2026

Welcome to Issue #30 of The Quench Report, the newsletter that raises a glass and delivers the latest and greatest in Beverage Alcohol and the broader Beverage category.

What’s on tap for today:

  • 🥤 The Importance of Being Important - The hidden risk of the enhanced RNDC-Reyes deal

  • 🥃 Mezcal Returns to Growth

  • 🔥 Hot Jobs Worth Applying To

🥛 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IMPORTANT

Here’s something we’ve seen consistently across years of distributor performance analysis: all else being equal, brands perform ~100–200 basis points better in states where they’re a top priority for their distributor. The RNDC-Reyes deal is about to reshuffle that priority list for hundreds of brands.

The biggest news in the beverage-alcohol industry’s middle tier keeps getting bigger. Reyes Beverage Group will acquire five additional state operations from Republic National Distributing Company: Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Reyes is already the largest beer distributor in the U.S. Picking up more of RNDC’s wine and spirits operations means they’re building a true cross-category distribution empire, beer, wine, and spirits all under one roof.

Plenty of coverage is focused on the local implications. We want to focus on a different angle: the shift in relative importance for legacy RNDC suppliers.

The Importance Question
Think about your own brand’s state alignment. Are you the #1 brand in your category and price segment in certain states, but #3 in another? We’d wager your depletion trends are stronger where you rank higher in your distributor’s portfolio.

That’s not a coincidence. While local teams always consider what’s in their immediate interest, corporate priorities set the tone… who gets featured in incentive programs, which capabilities to invest it, who gets the best new hires, who gets proactive outreach to key accounts. Corporate perspectives matter.

For many suppliers that were strategically important to RNDC at a corporate level, the transition to Reyes likely means becoming “all other” in a much larger portfolio. That’s a meaningful shift in how your brands get prioritized day-to-day. See below for a illustrative look 👇️ 

🎯 THE BIG TAKEAWAYS

  • Scale is becoming more important. As the middle tier consolidates, it creates additional tailwinds for supplier-tier consolidation. As we wrote last week, more successful small suppliers with hot brands should consider becoming buyers, not sellers.

  • How important is being important? Every brand knows how they’re performing in each state. Far fewer analyze how important they are to their route-to-market partner in each state. With this deal, that analysis just became urgent for any brand distributed through RNDC in the five affected markets.

  • The action item is concrete. Pull your depletion data by state. Stack-rank your importance to your distributor in each market. Compare trends. If you see the ~100–200bps gap we typically find, you have a data-driven case for how this transition might affect your business, and a framework for the conversation with your new Reyes team.

🥃 MEZCAL RETURNS TO GROWTH

After a few years of declining sales, mezcal returned to growth in 2025 with sales up 15% versus the prior year.

That’s a strong rebound, but context matters. Even with double-digit growth, mezcal remains a tiny fraction of tequila’s U.S. volume. The visual below puts the relative scale in perspective. 👇️ 

The question worth watching: is this a durable recovery driven by broadening distribution and consumer education, or a bounce-back off a low base? We’ll be tracking the category closely in the months ahead.

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.

Any questions, please email us at [email protected]