A Question of Drinks

Is the current wisdom about moderation actually true? That’s what Lulie wondered as she watched two couples at a sporting match set out to get wasted with four bottles of wine and a set of pint glasses. How does that stack up against the two-thirds of drinkers who claim to be moderating?

And Felicity has been buried in public health research and discovered a very unusual trend emerging — for a growing number of Gen Z, saying “no” to alcohol isn’t the sacrifice. It’s the pleasure. From young Australians who think that sobriety equals authenticity, to Swedish Gen Zs who create occasions for moderation, the evidence is building that control is something young people want for its own sake.

But here’s the paradox — rates of binge drinking are rising. How can all of this be reconciled?

Lulie and Felicity unpack the research and ask whether a new, more extreme style of drinking is emerging. It’s all or nothing — which is bad news for the middle.

Plus, the emergence of orderly pub queues, the strange death of the round, and a look at Diageo’s 20% ABV gamble.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

(00:00:04) - Introduction and Catching Up
(00:00:53) - Rethinking Moderation and Control as Pleasure
(00:03:42) - Moderation Data: Gen Z, Millennials and Boomers
(00:05:14) - The Twickenham Bottomless Brunch Story
(00:09:13) - The Paradox: Control vs Intoxication
(00:10:31) - Research on Light/Non-Drinking Young People
(00:13:38) - Why Control Feels Good: Mastery and Self
(00:14:37) - Five Shifts Framework: Why Attitudes Are Changing
(00:17:30) - Cultural Differences in Drinking Norms
(00:18:57) - Pub Culture Changes: Queues and Solo Drinks
(00:21:56) - Building the Five Shifts Framework
(00:23:39) - Why People Still Get Drunk: Group Dynamics
(00:27:20) - Anthropology of Group Drinking and Ancient Rituals
(00:30:32) - Calculated Hedonism and Controlled Loss of Control
(00:33:24) - Communal Drinking Occasions: Races, Oktoberfest, Carnival
(00:34:07) - Polarization Hypothesis: All or Nothing Drinking
(00:34:53) - Examining Gen Z Data Contradictions (IWSR vs Public Health)
(00:41:35) - The Disappearing Middle of Habitual Drinking
(00:47:17) - Rethinking Consumer Segmentation and Identity
(00:49:19) - Occasions Over Consumers: Home Drinking and Socializing
(00:52:16) - Commercial Winners: Which Drinks Earn Their Place
(00:56:24) - Diageo's Mid-Strength Bet and the Disappearing Middle
(00:58:58) - Wine's Opportunity and Challenge in New Occasions
(01:02:43) - Summary and Sign-off

Like it or not, AI is now the gatekeeper between your wine or spirits brand and your consumer. So how do you ensure that when consumers go looking for a product, that you come up in the recommendations?

Felicity and Lulie do a deep dive into the evidence and surface with the answer as to why AI recommends some products and not others. And the news is good for small brands — structure your data properly, and AI might recommend you over big brands with huge digital footprints.

But should brands be using AI to create their marketing in the first place? Felicity and Lulie debate when AI works, when it produces obvious slop, and why AI can make consumers so angry that they start vandalising public advertising. Plus, Coca-Cola’s controversial AI Christmas ads, the possible return of the wine critic, Felicity’s war on German flies, and the critical question of whether being polite to your AI will save you when the robots rebel.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

(00:00:04) - Introduction: AI Nicknames and Today's Question
(00:02:10) - AI Extinction Risk and Perspective
(00:03:33) - How We Use AI Personally
(00:09:40) - Testing AI: Whiskey Recommendations
(00:12:51) - Testing AI: Wine Recommendations and the Tesco Effect
(00:15:11) - The Incumbency Problem and John Lewis Case Study
(00:17:56) - AI vs Traditional SEO
(00:24:35) - How the Drinks Trade Is Using AI
(00:29:36) - Trust Gaps and AI Policy in Wine Businesses
(00:31:21) - Debating AI Writing Quality
(00:36:42) - Consumer Backlash Against AI Marketing
(00:41:11) - Coca-Cola AI Ad Case Study
(00:44:37) - When AI Marketing Works: The Sibling Ads Study
(00:46:34) - Practical Tips: Getting Your Brand Surfaced in AI
(00:53:38) - Third-Party Endorsements and Testing Your AI Visibility
(00:57:13) - Final Thoughts: Democratization vs Incumbency
(00:59:38) - Closing and Sign-off

Why do cool drinks feel so refreshing? And how did coldness become an essential selling point for drinks?

The link between chilled drinks and refreshment is so common today that it feels natural — but it took 2,000 years of innovation to get there.

In this entertaining, Freakonomics-style episode, hosts Felicity and Lulie trace how drinks went from being served at room temperature, to being so cold it’s hard to distinguish the flavours. Their story takes in snow-cooled water, a Bostonian entrepreneur who built a global trade empire from pond ice, and an Australian printer who noticed that typeface became cooler after he cleaned it.

Along the way they race how Champagne ended up in silver ice buckets and how Coca-Cola’s decision to sell branded $12 coolers to store owners changed the world of drinks forever — and what this means for refreshment in a heating world.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

(00:00:04) - A Question of Drinks
(00:00:30) - A Question of Drinks
(00:01:53) - Cold Drinks
(00:03:36) - Why Does a Cold Drink Feel Remarkably Good?
(00:06:39) - Wine transport in the 1980s
(00:07:49) - Cold Drinks
(00:10:05) - Seneca on Cold Drinks
(00:14:58) - Cold Drinks in the Habsburg Empire
(00:15:58) - The Ice King
(00:20:32) - Refrigeration
(00:25:34) - How did pasteurization intersect with refrigeration?
(00:26:02) - Wine and the changing tastes
(00:27:25) - Ranting in the World of Wine...
(00:28:12) - Chilled Off: The Science of Wine
(00:28:48) - Coca Cola: Cold Drinks
(00:34:50) - What is the appeal of Extra Cold?
(00:37:28) - Temperature and refreshment
(00:41:46) - What do we lose with the ritual in drinking wine?
(00:43:28) - A Question of Drinks

How did the spritz take over every pub, bar and supermarket this summer? Is it a fad — or is it the result of clever marketing?

While Aperol dates back to 1919, the seeds of its success were planted in 2003, when Campari bought the brand and introduced the aperitivo moment to Germany. But, luckily for them, their bright orange drink coincided with the expanding of Prosecco production.

While the timing couldn’t have been more serendipitous, the Aperol spritz became a victim of its own success. Campari hadn’t just built a brand — they’re introduced a whole new drinking occasion to the market, and competitors soon moved in. Today, drinkers can choose between the Aperol spritz, the Hugo, the limoncello spritz, and even the tequila spritz.

But how that happened is a highly entertaining story, involving a millionaire enclave in Germany, a bored bar tender in northern Italy, and an Australian winemaker who had a run in with the Australian Taxation Office.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

(00:00:04) - A Question of Drinks
(00:00:30) - A Question of Drinks
(00:02:51) - The Spritz
(00:05:05) - Search for Hugo Spritz Up 694% in a Week
(00:07:04) - M&S Spritz
(00:08:16) - The Rise of the Spritz
(00:09:32) - Spritz
(00:10:30) - Campari's Aperol and the Prosecco Sp
(00:15:43) - The Hugo Spritz
(00:17:27) - Saint Germain and the elderflower liqueur
(00:18:47) - Aperol Spritz: The
(00:24:25) - The Sparklit
(00:25:07) - Spritz and the future of alcohol
(00:26:36) - Campari's Aperol Spritz: Moderation and Low
(00:30:40) - Aperol's 'panic' over packaging
(00:34:36) - What Did You Do During Lockdown?
(00:35:34) - Family themed nights during the pandemic
(00:36:40) - The Australian Tax Office
(00:41:07) - Campari vs Bacardi: The Spritz
(00:46:43) - Aperol Spritz
(00:51:30) - How Germans make their spritz
(00:52:36) - The Limoncello Spritz
(00:57:09) - Gentian Rudolph on Quality and Drinking
(00:59:07) - Aperol and Campari: The
(01:00:51) - What occasion should we own as a podcast?
(01:01:30) - A Question of Drinks

Felicity has just returned from a conference in Dublin devoted to drinking studies, an academic field that examines alcohol's role in history and culture from angles the wine world rarely considers. This prompts Lulie to reveal the ordeal she suffered at a recent tasting, where the audience had to wait for 42 agonising minutes before tasting a single wine. That's the signal for Lulie and Felicity to start arguing about whether wine is boring. Does one bad presenter indict a whole industry? Is reverence for fine wine earned or performed? And who is the star of a wine tasting — the wine or the consumer? 

Along the way they cover the Robert Hodgson wine judging experiment, Orley Ashenfelter's rainfall-based vintage predictions and the fury it once provoked, the 1976 Judgment of Paris and what it did and didn't prove about prestige, and a run of case studies from La Vieille Ferme's accidental rebrand as "chicken wine" to Archer Roos and emotion-first advertising. Who is right in the end? And what's your own opinion? There's a lot to unpack.

Meet Your Hosts:

Lulie Halstead founded and led international consumer research and strategy consultancy Wine Intelligence, and led it to a successful PE exit. Today she is a renowned global beverage alcohol and wine sector specialist, focused on consumer behaviour, strategy, retail and hospitality. An accomplished keynote speaker, she has spoken at more than 70 international events over the past 20 years.

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly. Her Drinks Insider podcast won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award for Audio.

Chapters

(00:00:04) - A Question of Drinks
(00:00:30) - A Question of Drinks
(00:02:12) - How to make wine more interesting
(00:03:25) - The 42 Minute Winemaker
(00:04:11) - The joy of a wine tasting
(00:06:47) - The Bad Presentation
(00:10:38) - Richard Rantler on
(00:13:16) - The Future of Wine Tasting
(00:16:39) - The Problem with Presentations
(00:17:34) - Wine as a condiment
(00:19:33) - Wine as an Identity
(00:22:35) - The New World of Wine
(00:23:38) - Luxury and the Veblen Effect
(00:26:33) - The Judgment of Paris
(00:27:08) - The Judgment of Paris
(00:32:38) - The Importance of Respect for Wine
(00:35:55) - Do Cheesecake Judges Are Frauds?
(00:38:30) - Don't Trust the Experts in Wine
(00:42:24) - Bringing more joy, happiness into wine
(00:42:53) - The French wine called Chicken Wine
(00:45:04) - Vineland
(00:46:48) - The Presentation Problem
(00:48:39) - Wine Experts and the Question of Treasured Objects
(00:53:26) - The role of humor in wine
(00:55:07) - Advertising effectiveness and the wine
(00:56:33) - Archer Ruse Canned Wine Promo
(00:57:09) - Wine Advertising
(00:59:05) - How to separate trade communication from consumer communication
(01:00:47) - "Build the Wine Round"
(01:01:47) - Are We Now Revealing That You're Not Normal?
(01:03:08) - Wine Presentations: Better Presentations
(01:05:04) - Selling Your Own Wine
(01:06:17) - Questions of Drinks