In 2018, British entrepreneurs Rob Wallis and Sam Hunt each put £10,000 on the line and borrowed an additional £40,000 to chase their vision of ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails in a can, eventually leading to the creation of MOTH Cocktails. The road to success was littered with minor disasters, including an incident where an Espresso Martini experiment went awry, leaving the walls and ceiling drenched in coffee.
Nonetheless, within two years, under the provocative brand name BUVEUR (which translates to ‘Drinker’), their canned cocktails had secured shelf space in the upscale British retail chains of Selfridges and Harrods, as well as the prestigious Ritz Hotel. By 2020, they were boasting a turnover close to £90,000—then COVID-19 struck, and overnight they were back to square one.
Unfazed, Wallis and Hunt rebranded to the less abrasive MOTH (an acronym for ‘Mix of Total Happiness’) and managed to gather an additional £400,000 from investors. They hit the market with a range that included margarita, espresso martini, negroni, and old fashioned. The first 30,000 cans, destined for Waitrose, were packed and labeled by hand by the founders themselves. Today, their easily opened cocktails can be found in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, on British Airways European flights, and across 2,700 additional stores.
Their journey is a testament to the RTD cocktail industry’s potential and the perseverance of innovative bartenders, proving that convenience doesn’t have to sacrifice quality.
