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The MAFFEO DRINKS Podcast is a leading drinks business podcast, listened to in 120 countries worldwide with 125+ episodes. Honest conversations about how the industry actually works, from the bar and what it means for the boardroom.
This Episode is hosted by Chris Maffeo and brought to you by MAFFEO DRINKS.
This Episode is hosted by Chris Maffeo and brought to you by MAFFEO DRINKS.
This episode sits on one hard truth: the minute you launch, the brand stops being yours. Mark Ward founded Regal Rogue and has spent fifteen years watching venues and drinkers redefine his vermouth’s serve and occasion, from a keg spritz that started in an Australian bar to a Negroni twist a Brighton restaurant will not let him change.
The conversation covers the pilot-not-dictator model of brand ownership, the “invisible reputation” that has to stand up when you are not in the room, why bottom-up market observation beats top-down playbooks, what it means to win your home turf, and the surprisingly radical idea of scrapping every product but one.
It is a fifteen-year founder’s account of following the market instead of fighting it.
Timestamps:
- 00:06 The Bottom-Up Mentality in Business
- 00:42 Consumer Feedback and Brand Adaptation
- 01:25 Innovative Serving Ideas
- 02:23 Challenges in the Vermouth Market
- 04:41 Brand Stories and Market Strategies
- 17:07 The Importance of Home Market Presence
- 22:21 Finding the Right Channel and Occasion
- 28:30 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Wanna know what the conversation above means for your team? It's in the paid section.
For €100 a year you get access to Maffeo Confidential (Private Podcast) and get this analysis and access to the full archive of 125 episodes, each one translated from industry conversation into the commercial decisions underneath it. Find out more at maffeodrinks.com
Creators and Guests
What is The MAFFEO DRINKS Podcast?
The Maffeo Drinks Podcast is a leading business podcast in the drinks industry. More than 125 episodes. Listened to in more than 120 countries. This podcast closes the gap between Bottom-up reality and Top-down expectations with conversations about how brands are actually built, from the field, not the boardroom. Hosted by Chris Maffeo, founder of MAFFEO DRINKS, with over 20 years across 30+ markets.
Guests include some of the top voices in the Beverage Industry. Founders, Directors, Top Brands and Distributors such as Mark Ward, Jack Orr-Ewing, Maurice Doyle, Ben Branson, Heather Greene, Philip Duff, Steven Grasse, Francois Monti, Georgie Bell, Robert Simonson, Imme Ermgassen, David Gluckman, Brian Rosen, Danil Nevsky, Felice Capasso, Nick Gillett, Paul Hletko, Racheal Vaughan Jones, Andre De Almeida, Kaitlin Wilkes, Paul Thomas, Stephanie Jordan, Roberta Mariani, Adrian Michalcik, Hunter Gregory, Filiberto Amati, Julian Davies, Alex Ouziel, Daniel Szor and more.
Welcome to MAFFEO DRINKS.
Mark Ward:Thank you. Thank you for finally having me on here. How exciting. Fun. It's a good mix.
Chris Maffeo:So we had a a chat a couple months ago, and we were talking about the the bottom up mentality. And this is what I mean about bottom up that you may think that if you do it top down because you've got big company money, you can do anything. But it doesn't work like that anymore because it's not the nineties.
Mark Ward:And I think everyone's starting to realize and see that. Right? Because your show highlights these conversations, and people go, oh, you know, the craft brand owners that are starting now might look at any of these examples and say, well, I saw that differently. I also say that the minute you launch these brands, they're not yours anymore. You're the pilot making sure that the supply hits the market, but the behaviour, the interpretation of what works well is the bartender who gives you that feedback.
Mark Ward:The consumer at home that sends you a I was gonna say a tweet, shows how old I am, an Instagram message. You know, you get a DM on Instagram from someone at home, and it's so lovely, and you're like, oh, I'm so happy. I mean, I wouldn't have served it like that or done whatever you've done, but I'm really happy you're doing it. I think the minute you can appreciate that and say we've just got to let it fly, you know, and whatever it will do, we'll do. If we get a tiny insight, We've got a venue in Australia, I'm going to call them out because they're so lovely, called Flying Colors, and they came to our distributor in Australia and said, we want to put Regal Rogue in a spritz in kegs and put it on tap for the summer.
Mark Ward:And our distributor was like, okay, what do you need? And they're like, kegs. So we got them the kegs. They've done it. It's gone really well.
Mark Ward:It's a beautiful serve. And so we didn't get wind of this initially. And then our distributor told us, we're like, why didn't you tell us before? That's amazing, we love this! And we've now taken that idea to The UK, and we're going to run it for this summer with a pilot number of venues.
Mark Ward:We found someone that will help us with the cakes, and it's those little things that might become a growth angle for us, that unless we'd got that insight, you you can't be everywhere, you can't be in every country, you just hope that you get the feedback, It might be a really lovely new angle for us, because the one thing that happens in vermouth that generally doesn't happen in all categories, is people don't know what to do with it. They might know a Negroni and be like, I'm a Negroni drinker at home, so I'm buying my vermouth, but most people know with gin, you make a gin and tonic, it doesn't matter whether you're a drinker, not a drinker. If you say gin, say what's the number one drink you think of with gin? Most people would say gin and tonic, But you say vermouth, they're like, martini, maybe? Or they're like, I don't know.
Mark Ward:Is that the brand or is that the drink? And so there's a constant education on how to drink vermouth beyond the classics.
Chris Maffeo:A very good friend of mine. He was you know, he's been in the in the business for a while, and he had now has a a villa in Tuscany. We recorded in one of the previous episodes that we're I recorded in the in the in his villa there. And we went, and and then we set a dread. He had bought an old vintage or bought from the eighties.
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. And, you know, I I just wanted to have it on the rocks. And then my wife was ordering something and said, let me let me give you one and then with soda or I remember. I think vermouth and tonic. And she was just like she went crazy.
Chris Maffeo:She was like, what? Can you can you drink? You know, she had no idea how to drink vermouth before. You know? You you always keep educating people.
Chris Maffeo:You know? And then you can play with things because that's the success of Aperol. You know? They made it easy. Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:It's not complicated. Yeah. And everybody knows what to do
Mark Ward:with it. Anyone can make that drink. Right? And And like anyone can get up on the karaoke stage and sing Rocketman. Exactly.
Mark Ward:You know? Make it easy. But make it easy. Make it consistent. Make it easy.
Mark Ward:And I think that's a really good example. Name one other branded drink. Not to drink branded treat that matches the serve simplicity and scale that the Aperol Spritz has achieved.
Chris Maffeo:A favorite of mine is the Hendrix and tonic with could be is not as close.
Mark Ward:But it comes back to a gin and tonic, doesn't it? Did Steve tell you where the cucumber came from? His girlfriend loved Pimms cups at the time, which maybe is his wife or maybe it wasn't, and she was having a PIM's cup and took the cucumber out the PIM's cup and dropped it in the trial gin and tonic that he was having with the sample liquid and they went there you go and it was like fucking genius. When we were looking after Hendrix in Australia, we launched Hendrix into Australia in 2005, we had to do a proposal to William Grant and Sons and an agency at the time launching alcohol brands and we did this proposal and they said okay we'll trial year one, you've got to hit 500 cases, that's a success milestone and we hit 2,000 in year one and so they're like okay let's go again. We were buying so many cucumbers, It was almost like a cucumber storage room in our office.
Mark Ward:And at one point, we were dressing up in these weird clothes running around Melbourne and Sydney just with pocket full of cucumbers, walking into bars and just giving them to people in the bar. They'd be like, what the fuck? But that was it. Then you Let tell. And that's what Steve Grasse is so good at.
Mark Ward:The mysticism of what the fuck? Why have I just been given a cucumber? And then you see a drink go across the room with that green thing, and you're like, I don't know what the liquid is, but it's got something green. Oh, it's a cucumber. Cucumbers are available everywhere.
Mark Ward:Kind of like Aperol, The orange. You see the orange? You know what it is. We did some research a couple of years ago with an agency on colours, and they were like, yellow is gonna be actually, I've have only just connected with Bativo the minute I said yellow, but they were like, yellow is gonna be the thing. Let's go with yellow when we don't have a yellow liquid, and there's not a natural yellow mixer without it being artificial and horrible.
Mark Ward:And they're like, great. Go yellow. When I still haven't helped me with this. Anyway, you know, that was the conversation. And and obviously now you see Otevo really driving the yellowness.
Mark Ward:And I think they've done an incredible job, and they do an incredible job. So hats off to them.
Chris Maffeo:Of a teaser of the second that I recorded with with Stephen Grass that we're talking about having a non alc brand that is actually a brand first, and then it happens to be non alk, you know, which is what he does with Pathfinder, Tivo as, you know, that you don't you don't you don't have if you if you're drinking those brands, you don't think of them, I'm not gonna drink tonight. You know? You are going to order them. And then by the way, people
Mark Ward:So I think Pathfinder have done that really well. And I met Chris. I knew Guy from the Still Ventures Day, but met Chris with Guy when they were thinking about coming into The UK. But you can see that coming to life more now because, obviously, they're bigger and they've got more countries, and they are leading with the brand. And maybe that's what we've got wrong.
Mark Ward:We live with the liquid. We've done more work on our liquid communication than we have on building the brand, probably.
Chris Maffeo:It could be. It could be. And then you you're gonna listen to his episode. There's there's a lot of gold nuggets in there.
Mark Ward:I'm not sure I can do another fifteen years, though. Just someone else take it along with it and be like, what? Imagine fifteen years, I come back and you're like, so tell us. How's it been now on year thirty? I'll be spending the same shit.
Mark Ward:Put them up. Just put them up top down.
Chris Maffeo:Let's go back to what you were saying about the moment the brand is not yours anymore, and I loved it when you said it in, in our previous conversation. It's a great thing, you know, because at some point, you you're building something and you know what you're building because you have a vision, but it's really true. It's that presence when you're not in the room. You were saying that I'm stealing your words.
Mark Ward:The invisible reputation is what it's is the record. And it could be the brand or it could be me. Right? And I'm sure at some point in my life I've had a terribly invisible reputation. So someone buys Regal Rogue and they're at a party and they're serving it and having the conversations with their friends that in many ways I would be doing exactly the same way.
Mark Ward:And that's the invisible reputation, invisible communication, the invisible whatever it is, it's like, your brand stand up on its own when you're not in the room? Going back to the point about when you launch it, it's not yours anymore. It isn't, because everything to that day was your idea. This is what I think it's going to be. This is how I think it's going to behave.
Mark Ward:And if you hold them to that, and it's not aligned with what bartenders or consumers are doing with your product, it's a battle until you let go of it and go let's just go with what's happening. And then you get those insights and snippets and go oh, that's what it is. Know, I mean, full transparency, we've had conversations internally about scrapping all of our products but the gold red. It's like Antica Formula is a one brand business. You know, why try and chase all these other opportunities, when actually the world has always been our number one product.
Mark Ward:People get it, they now really get the alternative to sweet red vermouth as a dry and organic style, and it's actually might be a bit easier just having one product anyway. I mean, we're not going to do that, but you kind of go, well, maybe that would be easier. Maybe that would give us all the energy and focus on one thing rather than four. Do you know what things would evolve in our business this year, know, because they have to. You know you can't be around for that long.
Mark Ward:Mean look at Ford's standard with four products, 86 company Ford's is the last one standing, the others got killed off, That was a part of the deal of moving into Brown Forman or even before that. That wasn't Simon's vision and hit the team when they started, it's just what it became. It is where Seedlip is now, what Ben thought, maybe, maybe not. It's Compass Box, what John thought when he started it, maybe, maybe not. You know, it just naturally evolves, I think when you've got that many voices, that many people kind of having input, the best place for you to be is to stand back, I think.
Mark Ward:Right? And the voices of consumers, bartenders, it's like, you know what? Just stand back and pilot, co pilot what's going on rather than go, no. No. That's not how I want you to drink it.
Mark Ward:That's not what it's for. Mean, I say all of that. I had a debate with one of our I'm definitely not gonna say which market or who, but there's an ongoing debate because we want the Daring Dry to be all about wet martinis. There's no wood in the wine, no wood in the aging, it's a really clean liquid, and it's better in a wet martini. Wet martinis are definitely coming back, low ABV, because there's more vermouth than spirit, there's you know, Corksmore have got their martini bar, they've definitely got some wet style martinis there.
Mark Ward:There's all sorts of bars and I actually think wet martinis are connected with vinyl. The resurgence of vinyl is bringing back that kind of era of craft, of debonair sophistication, of standing here being super fucking cool listening to my vinyl. The only drink I should have in my hand is probably a bourbon sour or a martini, Right? Or maybe an old fashioned as well. But either way, I'm like, they're coming back.
Mark Ward:And this market is like, no. We disagree. We're not doing the program. We don't sign up to it. You're like
Chris Maffeo:I know. Eventually, they will be on board at some point. Isn't it also about, you know, this overcomplicating things sometimes? But, you know, simply simplifying the message because part of I mean, I guess 95% of well, I like Pareto, let's say 80. You know, 80% of what, you know, people say when you're not in the room, it's because you had it simple enough so that they can remember it.
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. You know? The unusual gene for Hendrix, the Aperol Spritz, whatever. They have no idea what the three to one is. Fuck it.
Chris Maffeo:You know, just to put they just remember Aperol, then some people forget the Prosecco. It's kinda like the minimum common denominator that someone will remember of your brand.
Mark Ward:Totally. And I think that's what we identify with those serves. Right? It's like the Negroni's going nuts, and there's so many different variations. Can have but one of our favorite Negronis is with a restaurant in Brighton, Chin Chin, Italian restaurant.
Mark Ward:It's an old family friend that opened it, and he said, can you work with me on the menu fifteen years ago now? And so instead of doing a red vermouth, we did the rose with Maffeo, the orange Maffeo, and Campari and some rhubarb bitters. And everyone absolutely loves that twist because it's not a heavenly bitter one, not too sweet. It's quite fresh and light, and he can't change it because he's like, we're now known for that twist on the necrotomy. But it just works, and you don't really need to explain it.
Mark Ward:So I don't need to be in the room. He's bottled it. People are buying it in the bottles and taking it home because they're like, oh, it's so much fresher. That's a really good example of the invisible reputation, the invisible representation without you being in the room.
Chris Maffeo:Often, is, too much focus on I mean, if you take, like, global teams on now now I don't wanna pick on global teams on big companies, but, you know, there is this top down thinking, and this is what I'm against. No? It doesn't mean that you shouldn't have boundaries because otherwise every market would do what the hell they want with your brand and it would be a mess. Yeah.
Mark Ward:So that
Chris Maffeo:you need some guardrails, but you shouldn't be so picky. And I've been the picky guy. You know? I've been in European headquarters being the, don't do that, you know, with my brand. I've learned from that experience now and saying, like, fuck it.
Chris Maffeo:I mean, if they want to do that, and then at some point, that's how it would happen. You mentioned Jagermeister before. You know, the ice cold came from Sydney, Frank in The US. You know, it was nothing created in Germany, which was the whole market. And now old old markets are talking about ice cold shots.
Chris Maffeo:You know, it was a bottom up creation of an intuition of Sydney Frank distributing the brand in US, seeing how people were drinking in a bar, and then it became a sex swear. You know? But maybe you cannot do it in
Mark Ward:I think brand communication, you know, signature serves, activations within reason, they should always be consistent. Right? So if you look at Hendrix, I definitely don't want to spend the whole session talking about Steve Grass's celebratory work, although I do love the guy, he's a genius. But if you look at Hendrix, there's so many cocktails with Hendrix around the world, but what you see from them is the gin and tonic and probably a couple of serves, but the behaviour of Hendrix is always consistent. Ace Hotel we worked at Ace Hotel in the past.
Mark Ward:The atelier who manages Ace Hotel out of New York made sure back in the day, I don't really know where Ace is at now, but they used to make sure that everything about Ace as a brand came out of New York and was consistent with their playbook. But what people were doing in the hotels, what the food and beverage outlets were doing were definitely different between. And I think you've got to have that freedom, otherwise it's too rigid. And also you don't get those snippets, those insights of someone's doing something over there, and you know, there's a tried and tested belief that where the brand's created should always be your biggest most dominant market. Right, so we're an Australian brand.
Mark Ward:Australia is not our most dominant market right now, The UK is. You look at Jagermeister, the biggest market's not Germany. You look at Grey Goose, France isn't the biggest consumer of Grey Goose. I mean, I don't know whether champagne limestone's still involved in Grey Goose these days, but you know what I mean? It's just Fosters is the best example of an Australian brand that I don't there's probably a single hand of venues in Australia that serve Fosters on tap.
Mark Ward:Oh, yeah. Big time. But huge in The UK still.
Chris Maffeo:I mean, is Cheress. Cheres, it's a Danish beer that doesn't exist in Denmark, and it's one of the biggest brands in Italy.
Mark Ward:Right? There's no paper anymore.
Chris Maffeo:But at the same time, you know, all these brands were born in the, you know, I'm gonna say like the, you know, the prehistory kind of, you know, you know, try to do it now, you know, and and this is one of my kinda like things that I love about what that I'm talking about is that you have to win your home turf. Yep. You cannot create an Italian gin that nobody knows in Italy. You simply cannot do it anymore.
Mark Ward:Now think I mean, they know about it now. He was born outside.
Chris Maffeo:I mean, like, you you you know, there are some accepts again, but it it's very small. I mean, tell me another one. I mean, take take Regal Rogue. It's made with Australian wine, so you must have a presence there. Now regardless that is not the biggest market, but you are present Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:In Australia. You know? And then Yeah. Maybe opportunities brought you elsewhere. But if you're talking about Australian wine, Australians must know about it.
Chris Maffeo:That's what I mean.
Mark Ward:Yeah. Yeah. Get it. Totally on board with that. And I think also, like, if we hang on to the idea of let's say I'm starting a brand today.
Mark Ward:Right? I'm having a chat with you, I'm gonna go and speak to this Chris guy because he speaks to everybody. If I'm gonna start a brand, wanna speak to him. I think it's more have an open, it's more about your behavior in your business rather than the expectation that it has to happen in that market. That behaviour is create the brand wherever you want to create it.
Mark Ward:Let the consumers tell you what they're going to do with it and how that behaviour is. If you have that open mind, you'll probably see over three or four or five years your brand's going to go left not right. I had a chat with someone the other day who wants to create their own English vermouth, and she's in journalism. Doesn't come from a vermouth background or even a liquid background. I said, it will take you a minimum of ten years to get this where you want to get it.
Mark Ward:She went, ten years? What are you talking about? I said, yeah. She went, are you sure? I went, like, 120% sure.
Mark Ward:So there's a tiny bit of doubt because usually I'm 200% sure, but, yeah, it's gonna take you about ten years. She went, oh, but how would I make that work for ten years? I went, I don't know. That's the challenge you've got. But it's just that, you know, I'm having a distillery in Scotland at the moment, and the plan is let's make this bulletproof for ten years, and if you can beat it, you can beat it.
Mark Ward:But either way, plan for ten years and you'll be on the right side of it. It takes that long to get out there and see and hear and watch people do different things and go, that's what they're gonna do. Their belief is actually France might be a really good market or The USA. I'm like, put The USA, like, for year twenty. Let someone who's gonna buy the distillery deal with it.
Mark Ward:You know? Like, The USA is carnage. It's just expensive. It's complicated. Don't worry about it.
Mark Ward:India. India is a good market for Scotch whiskey at the moment. And, actually, you'll probably get more support from the Indian business community to come in because they want to welcome people in.
Chris Maffeo:Now let's pause for a second because what you were saying about, you know, the mindset is is what I mean. Now so what I mean about winning the home turf, I don't mean being the biggest brand in your home country. I mean, not discarding not not discarding it and building a presence. Now the home turf could be your neighborhood. It could be your city.
Chris Maffeo:It could be your region, your province, your county, whatever it is. But what I mean is that it must be to a level in which the invisible conversations that happen are
Mark Ward:Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:There. When you're not in the room, you know, if you're talking to an Australian and you're gonna say, you know, Regal Rogue, they cannot say never heard of the brand.
Mark Ward:100%.
Chris Maffeo:It doesn't matter if it's the 1,000 most influential Australians that that are drinking it, and that's it. You know? But at least you have a presence. You have a stronghold there. Now, again, if you never mention that the wine is Australian, doesn't have to be Australian.
Chris Maffeo:You know? It it it depends on what you're doing with the brand. You know, if if it's all built about Tuscany or the Dolomites or whatever, and then I go to the Dolomites and I've never seen the brand, then then it's a gimmick, you know? But but if it can be an Italian brand that it's made in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere that and I never talk about Italy, and I'm just happened to be Italian, and I've built this brand in Italy. And it's an international brand.
Chris Maffeo:And then it's never it's never sold in Italy. Nobody cares. You know? So it's Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Maffeo:Again, like, people try to put it in boxes, and then they say, it has to be like this. It has to be like that. But in The US example, another example, you know, whenever I see it now finally available in The US, I'm like, fuck. You know?
Mark Ward:I think Luckin' Saint is a really good example of a brand that I've seen in recent years that went against the grain of the textbook. Because you know, when we were kind of coming through in the last ten years, you were probably told, and we were definitely told in Distill Ventures, you grow a brand in the on premise. So you get out there, nurture relationships with bartenders, you get your maybe your top 50 accounts and you just bartenders will build your brand and it's not the case anymore, because if your brand is not a bartender brand, then that's the wrong channel for you. Right? And Lucky Saint was a non out beer, beautifully done, but essentially, they said, you know, grocery wouldn't touch them to begin with, and they said, well, we're gonna set up d to c then.
Mark Ward:We'll do our own website. And they did it. And then, you know, they built it through consumer channel and engagement, and then the bars and restaurants and whatever, and grocery are actually, we wanna stock you. Then they bought their own pub and then they put it on tap and it was just one of the things that probably if you looked at the textbook it wasn't the way to do it and they went well we're going to do it our way. I actually wonder whether I mean after x many years in the industry, I've got lovely friendships in the bar trade around the world, but actually Regal Rogue might be a consumer brand over a bartender's brand.
Mark Ward:You know, it's cleaner, It's just a fresh take on vermouth. And bartenders generally love complicated weird liquids. I mean, if I'd made the bold red taste like a leathery shoe, it probably would have more traction with bartenders.
Chris Maffeo:I never talk about anymore about on and off trade, but I always talk bottom up versus top down trade. So what the examples you made, you know, the d two c, having your own pub, you know, gross you know, small niche grocery shop, bottle shops, and so on. They are all examples of bottom up trade for me because on trade, you know, if you take a pub in the middle of the you know, it's not really brand building anyway. But a Waitrose in Mayfair, it's much more brand building.
Mark Ward:Depends what the pub slash in Midlands. If they're buying rhino and they were really cool, you're like, this is brand building.
Chris Maffeo:My bad. I I was generalizing. I agree with you. I agree with you. That's the misconception.
Chris Maffeo:You know? The on trade was working because a certain positioning of a certain type of brands were working there. You know? Not anymore. Another example we were talking about in a previous episode about Bailey's.
Chris Maffeo:Bailey's was born and grew in supermarkets. I mean, in it is it a pub thing, Bailey's? Have you ever seen anybody ordering a Bailey's in a in a bar?
Mark Ward:Very good point. Yeah. Very good point. Probably not right. Restaurants and.
Chris Maffeo:Going back to the example about a brand that has a single-minded serve. Again, my wife, when she's ironing watching Netflix, she has a glass of Baileys on ice.
Mark Ward:I love that. Good on her.
Chris Maffeo:For her, it's this kinda, like, decompression moment at the end of the day.
Mark Ward:Yeah. Yeah. Glass of Ailey's over ice. When they launched Ailey When they launched Bailey's Dark Chocolate, apparently year one, and most of Bailey's sales happens in December, November December, right? Because Christmas.
Mark Ward:But the year one of Bailey's Dark Chocolate, they did 500,009 litres. I mean, if you put generalized formulas against that, that would basically make the brand worth about a billion dollars, euros, pounds, whatever, because usually it's about one and a half, £1,500 per nine litre or $1,500 per nine litre gives you a rough guide on the market valuation. Year one! So year one they just filled that pipe, but the really interesting thing on what you've said there, I don't know how many pubs serve Baileys. I don't recognize ever seen anyone drink Baileys in a pub.
Mark Ward:And that's realization. Right? But and I'm a pet. I'm definitely more of a pub guy. And then but, you know, so it's grocery and probably the odd restaurant.
Mark Ward:Now my mom doesn't drink. She's never been a drinker. And in the last few years, she's been a little bit sick in various different ways. Christmas day, we went to a restaurant instead of cooking. She sat down and, you know, I'll have a beer, my dad will have a beer, whatever, whoever else is there.
Mark Ward:Mom's like, I'd like a Baileys on ice. And the home table looks and they're like what the fuck's going on here? And her palettes changed and she said I like the idea of it and I'd like one. And you're like but you know that occasion, so again going back to Regal Rogue, maybe we haven't found our occasion. Maybe we haven't found our channel.
Mark Ward:The thing that's going to really unlock that growth, because I don't believe you can get to 15 years old and keep moving without something good supporting the business. If it was doing a thousand nine liter cases and that was it, you'd like let's just shut the doors, this doesn't work. But we keep getting demand in different ways, but maybe we just haven't found that one channel, that one occasion, whatever it is, and go now we can build on it. Because Bailey's knows what theirs is. Guinness.
Mark Ward:Different reference, but split the g. How many bloody pints of Guinness have been sold based on people just wanting to try and split the g? It's just those little nuances, right, that you just need to pay attention to because something in there, a channel, an occasion, a moment, a serve is your thing. And if you see it and spot it and go, let's test it, double down on it.
Chris Maffeo:Fantastic, Mark. Thank thanks a lot. And we we must we must meet in some pubs. We will do. And we'll have a a Guinness.
Mark Ward:A Guinness
Chris Maffeo:upside down. And some Baileys. And a Guinness. Some Baileys.
Mark Ward:Bayley Gillies, but the the super sized version.
Chris Maffeo:Exactly. Thanks a lot, Mark. I appreciate it.