Tequila. Fresh lime juice. A splash of soda water. The inspiration for Katie Beal Brown’s career change was simple, but the journey had more of a twist. Ms. Brown—paying homage to ranch water, a classic cocktail from her home state—devised a bottled hard seltzer version that became a hit.
Before starting her own company, Ms. Brown had put in the work—late nights and ramen meals out of vending machines—to rise through the advertising ranks on Madison Avenue. But jumping from client to client as an account director at downtown New York-based Anomaly, Ms. Brown felt she was falling short on herself. “It got to the point,” she says, “where I thought if I could spend time and energy I spent building someone else’s brand into building something myself, I’d be a lot more fulfilled.”
Entrepreneurs run in Ms. Brown’s family. More than 100 years ago, her pioneering great-grandfather moved to West Texas and established the family wildcatting business; her grandfather established a working ranch that still operates today.
Katie Beal Brown last November at a dinner for a client in Malibu, Calif., while she worked for ad firm Anomaly.
Photo: Patrick Connor“I always had a lot of different ideas but was never sure how to build them into a business,” she says. Among those thoughts running through the back of her mind was ranch water—the drink she turned to when feeling homesick in her New York City life.
While various bars and cities throughout Texas stake their claim to the margarita-Tom Collins mash-up, one legend about the origins of ranch water stems from the historic Gage Hotel in Marathon, near Ms. Brown’s family ranch. Phillip Moellering, the hotel’s operations director, said the Gage used to be a cattle stop, or a place ranchers could stay when pushing their herd through the area. According to the legend, one such rancher concocted the drink as a lighter, watered down margarita that could be enjoyed early in the day. A more refined version featuring orange liqueur is now a staple on the hotel bar menu.
For years, Ms. Brown had thought about packaging the regional Texas favorite and selling it. In 2017, her idea came up in casual conversation when a partner at her firm inquired about her roots. “‘Why the hell haven’t you done it already?’” Ms. Brown recalls the partner asking. “It made me realize maybe I’m underestimating myself and underestimating the idea,” she says.
Ms. Brown began to dip her toes in the water. Anomaly fosters entrepreneurship and has developed its own ventures, including EOS lip balm and the dosist cannabis pen. “The culture itself really celebrates the side hustle,” she says.
Originally, Ms. Brown thought of making a tequila-based beverage, so she and her husband traveled to Jalisco, Mexico, to learn about the distillation process. The couple and some close family and friends pooled capital. Eventually she and her partners changed direction away from hard liquor, and Ms. Brown worked with a formulation partner to develop a commercially viable recipe, landing on a hard seltzer version.
The hard-seltzer category has become immensely popular in recent years, with sales of $3 billion in the U.S. in the 52 weeks ended July 11, according to Bump Williams Consulting Co.—more than triple the previous year. Ms Brown used a sugar-brewed malt base, so the beverage could be sold in grocery stores and compete on price with a six pack of light beer, and added organic agave, natural key lime juice and proprietary flavoring to make the drink taste like tequila.
At the end of 2018, Ms. Brown pitched Lone River Beverage Co. to Anomaly’s “Shark Tank”-like incubator program and won, allowing the company to grow using the agency’s creative and strategic resources. She hired her first employee, vice president of sales, last year. She also gave birth to a daughter, giving new urgency to her desire to be her own boss. She left Anomaly last December.
In order to stand out, Ranch Water eschewed the skinny cans and overtly fruity flavors associated with most hard seltzer brands. Ms. Brown, who has opted for a traditional can that fits a regular koozie, hopes the drink will appeal to light-beer drinkers. “When I think of people in West Texas I think of a no-frills, get-the-job-done attitude,” she said “The drink very much embodies that straightforwardness and simplicity of lifestyle.”
As Lone River prepared for an April launch, the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, creating disruptions across every part of the supply chain. An aluminum shortage kept the cans Lone River had ordered in October from arriving until two weeks before the product’s delivery deadline to retailers.
Amid the scramble, Ranch Water arrived at a local craft beer store in Dallas April 16. When Ms. Brown called to ask if it was on the shelf, she was told it had almost sold out within hours.
Ms. Brown worried about early trends showing consumers in lockdown gravitating toward familiar brands. Then a much bigger trend triumphed: Americans’ drinking at home has surged. On sale at more than 2,000 stores throughout Texas and Tennessee, including Whole Foods and Albertson’s, Lone River passed its sales projections for the year in three months. A six-pack’s suggested price is $8.99.
Ms. Brown traveled with her husband and daughter from New York to Midland for a photo shoot for Ranch Water in early March. Because of the pandemic, they’re still there, bouncing between their families’ homes, and intend to move to Texas full time.
“Growing up in a small town, I had big ambitions of moving to a big city. And New York City was amazing,” Ms. Brown says. “But it’s been a really fun journey coming full circle back home and building a business where I came from.” She says she’s now happy to work late nights or get up early, because she’s building something herself.
Update
Name: Katie Beal Brown
Age: 34
Location: Midland, Texas
Education: Bachelor of arts in markets and culture, Southern Methodist University
Former job: Account director at Anomaly
New job: Founder and CEO of Lone River Beverage Co.
Aha moment: At a work event, a respected industry professional encouraged her to develop her idea.
Most important piece of advice for changing jobs: “Surround yourself with the kinds of people that can help you get there and give you the courage to do it.”
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August 23, 2020 at 08:00PM
https://www.wsj.com/articles/she-left-an-ad-agency-to-launch-a-hard-seltzer-with-a-west-texas-tang-11598187600
She Left an Ad Agency to Launch a Hard Seltzer With a West Texas Tang - The Wall Street Journal
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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