Holiday

Contact: Kiernan Heine, CEO
Address: 731 Austin Lane, Winston-Salem, NC 27106
Phone: (336) 406-0399
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.drinkholiday.com

Management

Co-Founder & CEO: Kiernan Heine

2x founder
10+ years of experience in strategy, ops, sales, and product at VC-backed startups
Studied entrepreneurship at UNC

Co-Founder & CMO: McCabe Galloway

Brand Strategist
10+ years of global marketing experience working with beverage brands Heineken, Bud Light, Pepsi

Studied business at UVA

Key Advisors/Board Members

Lee Woodard
Lizzie Ward Roediger

Industry

Beverage Manufacturing and Distribution

Year Founded

2022

Number of Employees

PT: 2 (Co-Founders)
Contractors: Product Consultant & Designer

Bank

Truist

Law Firm

Allen Stahl + Kilbourne

Current Investors

Self-funded

Monthly Burn Rate

N/A

Financing Sought

Not actively seeking financing

Use of Funds

N/A

Business Description

Holiday is a collection of fizzy wines blended with fresh pressed fruit juice and whole, natural ingredients like herbs, spices, and honey.

Company Background

While living in Amsterdam and ‘going on holiday’ in the Mediterranean, we fell in love with aperitivo hour – a cultural tradition where friends and strangers come together to unwind, enjoy bubbly drinks, and savor life’s simple pleasures. We set out to bottle up the magic of aperitivo hour and bring it home. The result is Holiday – a line of premium sparkling wine cocktails.

Opportunity

Category Insight: The ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverage industry is going up market and interest in sparkling wine & sparkling wine-based cocktails is booming.

Cultural Insight: People are seeking relief in escapism. The Mediterranean lifestyle of embracing simple pleasures is particularly alluring in an age of turmoil. People are dreaming of a reassuring world, made of simple and nostalgic sensations of childhood and sea life.

The ‘AHA!’: We are the craft pioneers of premium RTD. Large scale beverage manufacturers are not set up to develop the premium, craft RTDs that consumers want. These are the same market conditions that led to the launch of the craft beer industry. Like the early craft beer folks, we will disrupt the market by doing it better and doing it ourselves.

Products

We blend sustainable sauvignon blanc (from the Columbia Valley in Washington) with fresh pressed fruit juice and whole, natural ingredients like herbs, spices, and honey. We bottle in 750ml Champagne-style bottles and are also planning to roll out a keg program for on-premise consumption in Q1 2024. Each Holiday is an invitation to take a blissful escape, indulge in the pleasure of leisure, and savor good times with great people.

Differentiation

Holiday is differentiated in the market through its branding, proprietary recipes, production methods, and use of only the highest quality ingredients.

Markets

Target Customers: “Creative Explorers”. Our bullseye target is high-earning (income 100k+) women in their 30s. They are creative, passionate, and proud to be unique. They over-index for having a career in art, design, entertainment, or media. They primarily live in major U.S. markets.

Opportunity Size: We see an opportunity to create a $20MM business in 5 years by growing Holiday as a lifestyle brand and entering all U.S. markets where our target audience lives and travels.

Competition

Beverage is a fragmented category with many options for consumers. Our primary competition are wine and seltzer brands, as well as make-your-own wine-based cocktails like mimosas. Holiday is first to market with a ready-to-drink sparkling wine cocktail of our quality and product format.

Business Model and Distribution Channels

Holiday soft-launched in Winston-Salem, NC in November 2023. We are currently in six local retailers and finished 2023 selling an average of 18 bottles per retailer per week. We are self-distributing our products but will begin working with an NC distributor in Q1 before expanding into Charleston,SC, Nashville,TN, Washington DC, Austin, TX, and Chicago, IL in Q2/Q3 2024 as part of a growth plan targeting key markets for our target audience. We plan to work exclusively with independent distributors with pre-established retailer networks where our audience shops. We expect to maintain 60-70% margins as we grow.