Dive Brief:
- Rappers and businessmen Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre are expanding their respective consumer products empires with a foray into the spirits space — a ready-to-drink canned offering, Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop.
- The gin-based drinks will be available in four flavors: Apricot, Citrus, Melon and Passionfruit and will roll out nationwide through early spring. It will be distributed by Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits.
- The RTD beverages space is brimming with celebrity-backed offerings that can also be a boon for the brands.
Dive Insight:
Thirty years after their hit collaboration “Gin & Juice” from Snoop Dogg’s 1994 album Doggystyle, the rapper and his producer Dr. Dre are teaming up to capitalize on the growing demand for canned alcoholic beverages as consumers move away from traditional wine and beer offerings.
Dr. Dre’s experience in creating consumer goods is mainly associated with headphones producer Beats Electronics, which he co-founded in 2006 and was acquired for $3 billion by Apple in 2014. Gin & Juice marks Dre’s first product launch in the food and beverage space.
Meanwhile, Snoop Dogg has become a maven of the CPG space, with a variety of food and drink products he has either endorsed or founded, particularly in recent years. Notably, he has brought his famous passion for cannabis into the food and beverage space. In December, he announced a hemp delta 9-infused beverage line, Do It Fluid, that is set to debut later this year in collaboration with Hill Beverage Co. This follows his THC-infused onion ring-style snack brand Snazzle Os, which he launched with Tsumo Snacks in 2022.
His food venture Broadus Foods, which produces Snoop Cereal, came to public attention this month after Snoop Dogg and co-founder Master P alleged in a lawsuit that distributor Post Holdings and Walmart intentionally colluded to harm the brand by hiding boxes of the cereal by hiding it in stockrooms.
Other rapper entrepreneurs have entered the alcohol space in recent years. In 2020, Travis Scott collaborated with AB InBev on an agave-based RTD hard seltzer brand Cacti, which was discontinued by the beverage giant in late 2021 following the tragedy at Scott’s Astroworld concert.
As the alcohol category evolves, experts believe Gen Z are more open to experimenting with new brands than previous generations.
