Everything is an Occasion Now

Dear Client: Your editors have been on the road for much of the summer, summing up fast-changing trends for wholesalers around the country. One throughline keeps surfacing, and it isn't going anywhere: the industry's hyperfocus on occasions. Remember 10 years ago, when craft ruled the industry so thoroughly that Constellation paid around $1 billion for Ballast Point, and Heineken's Lagunitas purchase was (roughly) similarly valued? The buzzword back then was "authenticity," and you couldn't sit through an earnings call without