Ice in a Drink Melts, and Then a Brand Goes Atomic

Early Adopters Are Easy. Scaling Is the Test.

The first 50 stockists? Fun.
They want to discover something new. You feel clever. They say yes.

Then it stops being easy.

Now you’re walking into venues where no one’s waiting for your story.
Where you’re not the shiny new thing.

That’s when the brand has to hold.
That’s when the strategy has to make sense.
That’s where most founders run out of road—and most agencies fall apart.

Brands Don’t Just Get Stocked. They Get Stuck In.

This isn’t passive distribution.
This is active, daily seeding—done in-market, in real time.

Brands that enter our portfolio don’t sit in a spreadsheet.
They move.

They show up in the same conversations, in the same areas, across venues that are actually connected.

That means the bartender hears about you twice in a week.
The buyer sees your bottle in another venue, then another.
The GM checks your story and thinks, “Yeah, this fits here.”

That’s when buyers stop asking “What is this?” and start asking “Why don’t we have this yet?”

12 Brands Per Territory. No Exceptions.

Twelve. That’s it.

That’s how we stay sharp.
That’s how we avoid dead weight.
That’s how we make sure every bottle in the bag makes sense with every other.

You get alignment between the portfolio, the buyer, and the venue.
No friction. No filler.

East London? That means 300–400 venues where this works—perfectly.
Not just “can we get it in?”
But “why wasn’t it here already?”

Not “Narrow and Deep.” Designed and Dense.

“Narrow and deep” has become a lazy mantra.
People repeat it because it sounds wise, not because they understand it.

We’ve already pulled that apart (read this).

This isn’t about playing small.

It’s about saturation with intent.
Where one win makes the next easier.
Where brand momentum actually builds—because the streets are connected.

The Flywheel Starts in the Field

You hit a tipping point when reps stop needing to explain.
When the bottle’s already been seen.
When the bar staff are asking for it.

That’s not brand magic. That’s brand gravity.
Built by territory reps who actually know their patch.

We see it all the time:

Small venue starts pouring.
Someone from a group walks in.
Bigger conversations start.
Momentum compounds.

You don’t scale by fluke. You stack by design.

After the Melt Comes the Snap

All those months where it looked like nothing?
That’s the melt.
That’s when the work’s getting done.

And then—snap.

Suddenly buyers are calling you.
Suddenly it’s “we need that, not just want it.”
Suddenly you’re not knocking on doors. You’re walking through them.

It doesn’t happen because you sprayed every bar in town.
It happens because you showed up in the right places until the market couldn’t ignore you.