When hordes of fans are pushing their way towards refreshment stands at Massachusetts’s Gillette Stadium during Taylor Swift’s much-heralded tour tonight, they’ll have the option to order a glittery purple cocktail inspired by the pop star’s hit, “Lavender Haze.” But there won’t be a bartender shaking those vodka drinks made with edible glitter, blackberry, and lavender for the 200,000 people expected to attend over three nights.
Rather, the sparkly cocktail is a custom release from Halfday Kegged Cocktails, a new ready-to-pour kegged cocktail brand that’s skipping the competition at the cold box and heading for the draft lines.
Halfday’s route to Gillette hasn’t been straightforward: Technically, spirit-based cocktails aren’t allowed in the brand’s 20-liter and 58-liter keg barrels, sizes traditionally used for beer. U.S. law prohibits spirits-based products from being packaged in volumes over 1.75 liters. But the Halfday team found a way around that. The company took advantage of a carveout for a class of fortified wine that, if imported from a foreign country and made in compliance with that country’s local laws, allows it to use distilled spirits in its formulas while being regulated and imported as a wine product. Each keg is made up of 51% non-spirits products, earning it approval to enter the market from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
The flagship cocktail, the Halfday Margarita, which will stay on as a permanent offering at Gillette Stadium, is made with tequila, lime juice, orange liqueur, and agave syrup, and comes out of the tap at 14% ABV. It wasn’t the first time founder Chase Brooks came up with a recipe for a kegged cocktail.
“I built beverage programs a bunch in the past, and I’d been very frustrated by the fact that we were kegging all of our own cocktails, literally in the basement sloshing lime juice around,” he said.
Halfday comes from beverage innovation company Feel Goods Co, a beverage brand studio and CPG strategy agency that counts names like New Belgium, Martinelli’s, and Canopy Growth as clients. Brooks serves as Feel Goods’ commercial strategy partner, alongside creative director Michael Kiser, who is also the founder of online publication Good Beer Hunting.
As a Boston-based beverage consultant and longtime bartender, Brooks is confident that the concept will unlock opportunities at large venues, restaurant chains and wine-and-beer-licensed establishments (some are already on a wait list). He’s betting on the math adding up for beer distributors, who typically sell lower-priced products. The price to retailers is $499 per half barrel, and with a high ABV and smaller serving size, the pour cost for retailers comes to $1.50, said Brooks.
The initial plan was to trial the new product at local on-premise partners, but when Gillette Stadium put in an order for approximately 100,000 servings, the entire initial inventory went out in two truckloads. The company is now ramping up production to roll into more territories in mid-to-late summer, while balancing the stadium’s year-round demand. Possible increased demand means Brooks is aiming to partner with major beer distributors who are accustomed to selling kegs — the order from Gillette was four times the largest order its current distributor, Craft Collective, had ever received.
As other ready-to-drink cocktails also find inroads on-premise, there may be some challenges facing the new concept.
“When we walk into accounts, and the keg is $499, it’s almost like a disqualifier immediately,” he said. “Once they do the math and realize that same keg makes them $4,000 then they find it super interesting, but the shock value on the front end of that is a bit intense.”
To bring in accounts with buying power, custom cocktails are a big part of Halfday’s business plan. Brooks hasn’t put a minimum order limit on the custom program yet, but he’s targeting chains and large restaurant groups who are cut out of the craft cocktail market, but want to pour premium cocktails at high volume. Gillette Stadium is also bringing in a sparkling vodka cranberry cocktail as the house cocktail.
“We can make anything, sky is the limit,” he said. “We’ve already done glitter, what’s more ridiculous than that?”
Branding, however, may be tricky for a business-to-business company competing with business-to-consumer brands. While other beyond-beer offerings such as hard kombucha have also been creeping in on draft lines, those brands also benefit from exposure on shelves. Brooks is hoping to leverage the reach of artists and large events that will co-brand the cocktails.
“We love our tap handles and lean into co-op marketing as much as possible by getting our name on the menu, but it’s not easy,” he said. “Luckily we represent such a great utility that venues, bars, restaurants are already giving us a ton of support.”