For years, the energy drink market answered a very simple need: deliver a fast boost when it was needed. That model has not gone away, but it has become more layered. In some recent category data and in a few product launches, a direction is visible: energy drinks are no longer read only as emergency […]
For years, in much of Europe, tequila was presented mainly as a late-night shot: more ritual than tasting, more habit than category. Today the picture looks somewhat different, but calling it a full-blown shift would be too much. What we can see instead is a set of signals: some brands are moving upmarket, certain markets […]
Coffee prices have reached record levels in recent years, and Brazil — the world’s leading producer — recorded historically high export revenues in 2025, even as shipped volumes fell sharply. Behind those numbers, though, the people who grow coffee are working in an increasingly fragile environment. The real question is no longer just how much […]
For nearly a decade, tequila was one of the clearest growth stories in global spirits: volumes rising, new labels arriving almost nonstop, celebrities stepping into production, and a premium segment that seemed to defy gravity. That cycle now looks less relentless. This is not necessarily a crisis, but a different phase: value is beginning to […]
The ready-to-drink cocktail segment keeps moving, but the most interesting launches do more than signal market growth: they show how very different brands and categories are trying to find their place inside the same format. Sazerac, the American spirits group based in Louisville, Kentucky, launched three new RTD brands in June 2026: Lovebug Hard Cream […]
There is something paradoxical about bottled water. It is the most basic product in the beverage world, and yet it now sits at the intersection of health, sustainability, trust, identity and social impact. More than a simple category, packaged water is becoming, in some markets, a place where consumers are asked to have a reason […]
There is a thread running through much of what is happening in non-alcoholic drinks: sugar reduction is no longer just a defensive response to outside pressure, but is becoming a product choice. It does not apply everywhere in the same way, and it does not explain the whole market on its own, but it is […]
In the first half of 2026, the fine wine market sent a clear but measured signal: Italian wines held up better than other regions on the Liv-ex indices. The Italy 100 closed the six months as the best-performing regional index on the platform, a result that does not by itself amount to a structural shift, […]
There is a moment when a liqueur starts to say something before it is tasted: the instant it enters the visual field. The colour of the liquid, the way it catches the light, and its presence on a shelf or in a glass can shape how it is read from the very first glance. In […]
The death of Humphrey Smith, proprietor of Samuel Smith’s in Tadcaster, closed a chapter that is hard to pin down with simple labels. Smith was neither a craft-era visionary nor a market-driven manager. He was closer to an old-style owner who had ended up running a twenty-first-century business by inheritance rather than design. His pubs […]