Two women launch the first regenerative organic gin and vodka

Maddy Rotman and Taylor Lanzet are college friends turned co-founders of a regenerative organic alcohol brand, sourcing their ingredients from ROC-certified farms here in the US.

“We met on Maddy’s first day of college in an environment class,” says Lanzet. “We bonded over our love of cooking, farming and dive bars.”

They continued to be roommates in New York while working at brands such as Imperfect Foods, Daily Harvest, Chipotle and Everytable.

During this time they turned their kitchen into a makeshift distillery in an attempt to make Campari. Did not work. So they turned: putting herbs and herbs in fruit juices. This led them to ask the question: how can farmers become more connected to the cocktail business?

Last year they made their debut Anytime Spritz, a canned spritz company. But there was one difference from other brands on the market: They sourced their ingredients from organic farms in the Hudson Valley and disclosed the ingredients on their cans (something alcohol rarely does, Rotman says).

Now, they’re debuting a certified ROC gin and vodka, the first of its kind, he adds, made with ROC wheat. One of their key suppliers was Breathe Deep Farm in New York, which wanted to build a “grain regeneration corridor”. Since 2018, Chris Cashen, an organic vegetable grower, has been leading this effort: working with their neighbors, over 735 acres are now grown with regeneration.

In 2019, they started the transition, he says. “Because of our participation in ROC, we had an incentive to double our crop and make sure the ground is covered year-round on almost 100% of our acreage.”

This is believed to improve soil health. “Since becoming an ROC, we have also increased our annual planting of small grains by more than 2x, adding critical diversity to our agricultural landscape and expanding our crop rotation.”

Although the soil health data is not yet publicly available, he notes that the farm is collecting soil samples and monitoring its changes. This year, Breathe Deep plans to participate in a long-term study of carbon fluxes in the Hudson Valley. All this data will hopefully produce a clearer picture in the years to come of how regenerative agriculture affects the local ecology.

For Rotman and Lanzet, this is a key part of the work they do with Anytime Spritz. “To this day, still only 1% of US farmland is certified organic. We know there is a demand for organic products and only 1% of alcohol is certified organic. And so if organics is growing year after year, let’s kind of leave that last part of the value chain that people really want to go after, which is regenerative,” says Rotman.

“You know, we’ve talked to some people in larger beverage groups and they’re struggling to meet the demand for their organic beers. They can’t find enough supply to meet the demand for organic beer. So there is a demand in this space. And I think there hasn’t been a brand that’s kind of resonated with what the customer wants, which is an authentic value-driven brand that nailed the taste and the flavor.”

Their products are currently available in New York and California, with the goal of expanding this core retailer base across the US. But the world of alcohol distribution is more “complex,” they note. It is not as simple as selling other food products. First, they are required to sell through a distributor and this will vary from region to region. However, they hope that their experience working in fast-growing food companies will help them grow Anytime Spritz and meet the challenges.

However, are customers looking for an organic drink and would they be willing to pay more for it? That’s the question framing their company, says Lanzet.

“So when you look at alcohol, there are so few options that tell you what’s in it and use organic or regenerative organic ingredients. The closest option is something with perhaps great millennial branding or supporting a women’s distillery. But there are very few value-based options in this category. And so for us, our experience has been creating those links, creating that messy medium between what consumers want and what farmers are innovating, and connecting the two.”

So could this be a new trend pushing their competitors to also think about transparency and a farm-to-bottle approach (or maybe) that existed in wine but not so deeply in spirits? They certainly hope it inspires others to follow suit.

“We’re not just waking up cocktails; we’re waking up an entire industry,” says Rotman.