Book a free consult at aliasadvising.com/appointments, or email adam@aliasadvising.com. We will spend 30 minutes on where you actually are and which engagement fits. If the Alias Pilot looks like a match, you will have a proposal within 48 hours.

Most beverage consultants come from brand or marketing backgrounds. I came up through operations — tank cleaning, manufacturing oversight, and running commercial production. Recommendations get tested against what a co-packer will actually run, not what looks good in a deck. And I will tell you plainly when the answer is no.

Yes. Partner introductions are a named deliverable in every engagement — up to two in the Alias Pilot, up to two per month in Alias Advisory, and up to three during Phase 1 of Alias Production. Introductions cover manufacturers, flavor houses, packaging suppliers, 3PLs, and analytical labs.

The Alias Pilot starts at $2,000 for a fixed 8-week feasibility engagement. Alias Advisory is $1,000 per month with a six-month minimum, or $5,400 prepaid for six. Alias Production, the full operational retainer, runs $4,000–$6,000 per month depending on whether you are a brand or a service provider, company size, and scope.

The Pilot answers one question — should you build this? — in a fixed eight weeks, and ends with a documented go/no-go. Advisory is ongoing access for founders who have already validated the idea and are executing themselves. The Pilot is a decision; Advisory is a standing resource.

The Alias Pilot is a fixed-scope, two-month engagement for founders developing 1–4 SKUs in a single product line. It delivers a technical and regulatory feasibility assessment, a high-level COGS and margin range, a written constraint summary, up to two partner introductions, and a go/no-go recommendation per SKU. Pricing starts at $2,000.

Yes — pre-launch is the core of the work. The Alias Pilot is built specifically for founders who haven't locked formulation, co-packers, or production, and who are at least six months from a target launch. Most expensive beverage mistakes are made in this window, which is why it's worth doing deliberately.

No. Bench formulation, lab testing, and sample production are handled by specialist partners, and those costs pass through to you directly. My role is defining the specification, pressure-testing feasibility, selecting and coordinating the right partners, and making sure what comes off the bench can actually be produced at scale.

Yes. For flavor houses, co-packers, and suppliers the value is qualification: early screening of inbound brands by scale, category, and operational reality, so your team spends its time on projects with a genuine chance of reaching production instead of on founders who aren't ready.

Primarily high-acid ready-to-drink products — energy drinks, hard seltzers, functional beverages, sparkling and still RTDs, beer, and cocktail formats. The common thread is anything where acidification, preservation, shelf-life, and co-packer selection determine whether the product can actually be made profitably.

That's a successful outcome, not a failure. Most early-stage brands don't make it past Phase 1, and finding that out in eight weeks for $2,000 is dramatically cheaper than finding out after a co-packer trial. You keep every deliverable either way, and there's no obligation to continue.

Alias Advising works with beverage brands and manufacturers nationwide, and most of the work is remote — async review, working sessions, and vendor coordination. On-site support during first commercial production runs is included where the engagement calls for it.