Kevin Fennessey spent four decades in the alcohol industry, from Seagram’s to Pernod Ricard to Southern Glazer’s. When craft beer and spirits began their meteoric rise, a wave of new brands flooded the market, many led by founders from outside the industry who had little familiarity with the three-tier distribution system. Large distributors, built for scale and legacy portfolios, were not equipped to shepherd this influx of scrappy startups.

Fennessey spotted the opportunity to fill the gap and launched Craft, Art Wine & Spirits (CAWS). What began as a solution for craft brands navigating an unfamiliar system soon proved equally well-suited for another emerging category: hemp beverages looking to build distribution and scale within the same complex framework.

Breaking into distribution is expensive, and for most emerging brands, it’s prohibitively so. “It’s very difficult to understand how some of these distributors work, or even to get a meeting at this point, given the state of the alcohol industry,” he said. Affording a dedicated salesperson in a single market, let alone multiple markets with full marketing support, is out of reach for most early-stage brands. Many have tried and burned through cash before gaining any real traction.

CAWS offers a different model. By supporting multiple brands simultaneously with a shared operations, finance, and general management team, the firm spreads those fixed costs across its portfolio. “So, not only is it experience and relationships with the distributors,” Fennessey noted, “but we’re able to reduce operating costs,” giving emerging brands a fighting chance without the overhead that typically comes with going it alone.

How Brand Recognition Drives Sales in the Hemp Beverage Market

The hemp beverage market is getting crowded, making it harder to differentiate your brand from other distillate-flavored seltzers. Fennessey doesn’t see the barrier and draws a parallel to the vodka category. Differentiating within vodka was never easy either, he notes, yet the industry found its footholds through subtle but meaningful distinctions: ingredients, packaging, provenance, and production method. Bourbon offers another example, where the mash bill, barrel selection, and even the climate of where a spirit is aged can become compelling stories to help a brand stand out.

He sees the same opportunity unfolding in the hemp beverage market. Brands are already beginning to differentiate at the milligram level, with unique ingredients and formats. The distinctions may be nuanced, but Fennessey believes that is not a barrier. “Once the consumer is educated on those nuances, it enables us to really communicate what makes each brand different,” he said. Tastings, festivals, and targeted advertising all play a role, and CAWS works closely with its brand partners to identify and amplify what sets them apart. “They may look very, very much the same, but each one I’ve seen has enough differentiation where, if we get the message across to the consumer, I think they’re going to embrace them.”

Woodstock is the first hemp-infused brand in the CAWS portfolio. Fennessey said the first thing that stood out about the brand was its name because everyone knows it. It’s instant brand awareness, carrying built-in cultural imagery that most startups spend years and millions trying to build. “We felt it had unlimited potential and ability to break through and was very well positioned,” he said. Beyond the name, product quality and the ability to maintain consistency at scale are equally important factors in any partnership decision.

When it comes to 750ml infused spirit formats, Fennessey sees a similar advantage in flavor familiarity. A product that tastes like gin benefits from a consumer’s pre-existing sense of what to expect, creating an immediate point of entry without extensive education. He also noted that the occasions for hemp beverages are evolving and expanding. Whether in a restaurant, winding down at home, or out for the evening, consumers are finding new contexts for these products and broadening the market for brands that can clearly articulate their difference.

How to Navigate the Three-Tier Distribution System

Navigating the three-tier distribution system has never been simple, and the landscape has grown more complex in recent years. Major consolidation among beer, wine, and spirits distributors, driven by declining industry-wide sales, has significantly narrowed the field.

Fennessey believes the shakeout is still underway. “This category is going to be embraced by large distributors eventually, but there are also several small distributors. We will have to see how it plays out.”

Fennessey and his team take a well-planned approach to distribution that many small brands overlook. Brands most likely to succeed are those that enter the market with a disciplined, long-term strategy, not just a rush to get product on shelves. Many new entrepreneurs, he notes, lack the capacity or experience to build a comprehensive go-to-market plan, often skipping past the five-year outlook entirely.

Fennessey views CAWS’s approach as partnership over transaction. They work closely with their brand partners to develop a shared long-term vision that maps out target markets, marketing support, distributor networks, and growth milestones. “Planning clarifies what our understanding of the goal is on the brand and what we need to do,” Fennessey explained, “but it also helps the suppliers think on a longer-term horizon than they may be thinking.”

How to Get a Distributor Meeting and Win the Deal

Planning is also how you get in the room. Distributors have formalized their new item processes and know exactly what they want to see. Fennessey, who has spent time on both sides of that table, is clear about what moves the needle: lead with how you are going to reach the consumer, what you will do with their sales force, why your brand is differentiated, and, critically, how you will support their team in the field. “They’re not always used to seeing a well-laid-out plan of what the brand is going to do: how many markets, where can we grow together,” he said.

Field support has become close to a requirement. Somebody needs to be in market, and that is often out of reach for emerging brands, where putting an effective person in market costs north of six figures. For brands without a sales history to point to, the plan has to work even harder because there is no revenue track record to fall back on. CAWS addresses this by bringing a portfolio of differentiated brands and dedicated in-market personnel who can sell, support sampling events, and fill gaps when distributor reps are stretched thin. “They have so many brands,” Fennessey noted, “and it’s difficult for them to support small and emerging brands on their own.”

Why Retail Sell-Through Matters More Than Distribution

“More important than distribution is velocity,” he said. Getting product on shelves is only half the battle, and if you can’t achieve sell-through, good luck scheduling a meeting with that buyer again. Retail support, programming, sampling, and in-market activation that drive consumer trial and repeat purchase are where many brands fall short. Once

Fennessey believes going deep in fewer markets, rather than spreading thin across many, is the smarter path to building the velocity and consumer awareness a brand needs to gain real traction. That awareness can be built through multiple channels: sampling events, social media, and increasingly, the e-commerce platforms that distributors themselves now offer, which give brands a powerful vehicle for getting their story in front of consumers.

The Smart Way to Expand Into New Markets

Getting into a market is not the same as building a market. Fennessey’s approach is what he describes as building in concentric circles. Rather than launching in California and hoping for statewide traction, the better play is to plant a flag in a specific pocket, say La Jolla or Orange County, build real velocity there, and expand outward from a position of strength. The same logic applies at a hyper-local level: start in Brooklyn, build the business in Brooklyn, then move into southern Manhattan or Hoboken. Growth follows density, not breadth.

Central to this strategy is identifying the right accounts to be in from the start. You may not need to be in every store. Many brands find that 80% of their sales come from 20% of their stores.

But getting into the right accounts is only the beginning. Once a brand is on the shelf, the real work begins: proper shelf placement, signage, and well-staffed, well-executed sampling programs. Because the firm works across multiple spirit and hemp beverage brands, it has been able to negotiate strong agreements with sampling companies. “We make sure we touch all the points to give that brand the best opportunity to really sell within the store,” he said.

Without that follow-through, a brand can find itself on the bottom shelf at the wrong price point with a single facing. Selling in is the start of the work, not the end of it.

Convenience, Liquor Stores, or On-Premise

The retail channel landscape for hemp beverages is still taking shape, and Fennessey, who led national accounts at Southern Glazer’s, calling on convenience chains, Target, Walmart, and Total Wine, is watching it closely. Convenience is a natural fit given its dominance in the beer business, and independent liquor stores see hemp as a meaningful growth opportunity. Total Wine has already taken a visible position in the category and has been vocal about its commitment to it. Mass retailers like Target are just beginning to step in.

On-premise is a different story. Until regulations are clearer and insurance questions are resolved, most restaurants and bars are likely to stay cautious. Fennessey sees that changing once the framework is in place. In spirits, on-premise has long been where emerging brands get discovered, through a cocktail on a menu or a single pour that sends a consumer home to buy a bottle. He expects hemp beverages to follow a similar path once the regulatory environment catches up. For now, the off-premise channel is doing the heavy lifting, and that is where CAWS is focused.

Passion Is Part of the Plan

There is a reason the word “Art” sits in the middle of Craft, Art Wine & Spirits. When Fennessey first began working with craft spirit founders, what struck him most was not their business acumen but their conviction. These were artists, people who had poured their hearts and souls into a product and could talk about it with depth and sincerity that no marketing brief could manufacture.

For a brand to succeed in the three-tier system, that enthusiasm has to travel: from founder to distributor partner, from distributor rep to retail buyer, from retailer to consumer. CAWS sees itself as the conduit for that transfer. “I really inherit that passion, and I get excited about the brand, and that’s what we need,” says Fennessey.

His closing advice to founders is to bring both a plan and passion. Know your numbers, know your markets, know your five-year horizon. And then be able to stand in front of a distributor or a consumer and explain, with genuine conviction, why your brand is better. “Distributors will sense it,” he said. “Customers will sense it.” In a crowded market where so many products look and taste similar, an authentic belief in your brand may be the best differentiator of all.