Liquid gold: Why alcohol is the Aussie celebrity investment du jour
From Mick Fanning, to Rufus Du Sol and Margot Robbie, if it seems like every Aussie celebrity has launched their own line of booze, that’s because they have. There’s a few million reasons why Lime Cordiale have joined them.
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Familiar faces such as Mark Wahlberg, Kendall Jenner and Ryan Reynolds are behind some of the world’s most popular liquor brands.
In the US, demand for high-end spirits is booming. Here in Australia, the humble beer is the multimillion-dollar meal ticket.
From movie stars to athletes, models and musicians, celebrities of all types are aligning themselves with breweries.
Surfing legend Mick Fanning told The Daily Telegraph last year that his investment in Australian craft brewing company Balter made up the bulk of his estimated $20 million fortune.
Fanning made $2.76 million in prize money in his surfing career, but sold Balter in 2019 for somewhere between $150 million and $200 million, making the three-time world champion one of the most successful post-retirement business athletes in Australia.
Meanwhile, TV and radio personality Abbie Chatfield released Spill Lager last November, with a zesty campaign that washed down well with female beer drinkers.
The tradies-turned-social media stars Jack Steele and Matt Ford launched the zero-carb beer in 2021, and it’s been prominent in Dan Murphy’s stores owned by Endeavour Group since.
Aussie pop rock group Lime Cordiale are the latest to hop on the lucrative bandwagon, today announcing their carbon-neutral beer Largo with the same group.
“When the opportunity arises to create your own beer, you bloody well go for it,” Oli and Louis Leimbach said.
“Largo has been in the works for two years and has become a baby in the same way that creating an album does. We collaborated with Pinnacle Drinks who really gave us the reins to run with our vision, from the type and taste to the artwork and image.”
The musical pair said they were drinking a beer as they spoke to this column, on a little break between shows in Europe.
“It’s a scorching hot afternoon in Lisbon and we’re feeling pretty lazy with a few local Portuguese beers. We’ve always got beers backstage and over time it’s really easy to get sick of the fruity, potent ones. We wanted to create a crisp lager that we can keep drinking across months of shows and still enjoy on our days off,” they said.
Lime Cordiale’s range is one of the first beers in Australia to be certified Carbon Neutral by independent accreditor Climate Active, one of the most rigorous certification authorities in the world.
To achieve this, Largo Brewing had to off-set its greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn will go on to support the regeneration of the Darling River Basin area.
While Aussies are known throughout the world for our love of an icy-cold beer after a hard day’s yakka, the nation’s tastebuds are evolving.
Premium brands are in, but so are low sugar, low calorie, low carbohydrate, and yes, climate-conscious options.
Drinks market analysis by IWSR predicts our seltzer market will grow 24% by 2025, driven by consumer demand for flavourful drinks with those “better-for-you” attributes.
Case in point: International star DJ Paul Fisher sold 100,000 FIZZ seltzer cans on his Australian tour in April.
Fisher and more than 40 others privately raised $4 million to launch the brand in 2020. Another $1.5 million was raised privately in June this year and now the brand has 48 investors, who have a social media reach of nine million.
The brand, with a little help from these founders and ambassadors, has quickly become the third-biggest seller in seltzers after majors including White Claw and Smirnoff.
Although the celebrity booze market is undoubtedly saturated, there’s little question as to why.
Pop Princess Kylie Minogue launched her own wine brand in 2020.
In less than three years, it expanded from one to nine wines, which are distributed in more than 10 countries. While Minogue earned $1.2m from touring last year, she raked in $13.5 million in wine sales.
And despite Margot Robbie cutting the biggest pay cheque of her career from Barbie (US$50 million), the actor also launched premium, Byron Bay made gin Papa Salt in May.
Asked about booze becoming the new celebrity perfume, Lime Cordiale said: “We’ve never been one to just slap our name on a product … It’s important to us that a brand has certain core values.
“There’s so much junk out there and we’re not interested in selling a whole lot of crap. Hopefully that translates and we have the support to keep creating something that’s genuine with attention to detail.”
Originally published as Liquid gold: Why alcohol is the Aussie celebrity investment du jour
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