Co-host
DrinkUp Live
Podcast
I co-host DrinkUp Live with Samuel Anderson of BevAssets — a weekly conversation with the founders, operators, distributors and buyers actually moving product in the beverage industry. 130+ episodes of pricing, packaging, retail, distribution and what each move does to your margin.
What the show is
It's closer to a working session than an interview show. Samuel comes at it from the distributor and field side — he runs BevAssets and Frontline Beverage. I come at it from operations: feasibility, formulation, co-packer selection, and first commercial runs for RTD brands. Between us we cover most of the path a liquid takes from concept to shelf.
The guests are people with scar tissue: brand founders who have been delisted, co-packers who have seen the same mistake fifty times, buyers who decide what gets shelf space. We ask the questions I get asked privately by clients, and we ask them on the record.
What we actually talk about
- What a co-packer run really costs, and where the quote is incomplete
- Why a formulation passes in the lab and fails at scale
- How distributors decide what to push and what to let die
- What a buyer sees in the first ten seconds at shelf
- When a brand is ready to scale — and when scaling kills it
How we run it
- No paid guest spots — guests come on for the conversation
- Numbers where we can give them, and we say so when we can't
- Category-specific answers; what works in energy doesn't work in spirits
- Guests who've run the thing themselves, not just advised on it
Where to listen
New episodes weekly. The full back catalogue and the guest archive live on the show's own site.
A sample of recent conversations
- Thirty Stores, Ninety Days: Warren Ezra of Brand Vault 360 on Testing Before You Scale On proving demand in a contained market before committing to a production run you can't unwind.
- The 44 Foot Shelf Problem: Brian Rosen on Capital, Bourbon Gluts and Founders Who Get Back Up What happens to a category when supply outruns demand, and what it means for anyone raising against it.
- Craft Spirits Is Not Dead. It Just Went Back To The Tasting Room. Direct-to-consumer economics versus distribution economics, and when retreating is the right call.
- Ten Years, 20,000 Names, One Plastic Mockup: Building Strobe The Slow Way The unglamorous timeline of getting a product from idea to something a buyer will touch.
Why I co-host it
Consulting is a narrow view. I see the brands who hire me, at the moment they hire me — usually when something has already gone wrong. The podcast is how I keep a wider read on the category: what co-packers are quoting this quarter, which distributors are actually taking on new SKUs, what buyers are rejecting and why.
It also keeps me honest. It is easy to carry an opinion for three years past its expiry date. Saying it out loud to someone who runs a plant, or a route, or a buying desk, is a fast way to find out whether it still holds.
If you want to come on the show
Guest pitches go through the show directly rather than through me — there's a booking link and contact details on drinkuppodcast.com. We're looking for operators with specifics, not pitch decks.
Need this applied to your brand?
The podcast is the general case. If you want someone to pressure-test your feasibility, your formulation, or your co-packer shortlist against your actual numbers, that's what Alias Advising does.
DrinkUp Live is co-hosted with Samuel Anderson and is independent of Alias Advising.