The YouTube channel “Cold Ones” follows two Australian creators — Chad Roberts and Max Stanley — trying all sorts of beverages, from the cheapest alcohol in the world to the world’s strongest beer. The channel has more than 3 million subscribers.

In late 2022, the pair founded Grog. The low sugar, low calorie beverage is an alcoholic twist on chuhai, an alcoholic drink from Japan.

The co-founders brought on Ed Holland to serve as general manager.

“They had been toying with the idea of making a beverage for a few years, but hadn’t committed due to potential partners being too strict, the large start-up costs and they didn’t feel anyone could do the Cold Ones/Grog brand justice,” Holland shares.

Holland says the YouTubers brought him on to run the operations side of things. The process took more than a year, with more than 10 can designs and 200-plus drink formulation taste-tests.

“The original intention was to make something Cold Ones could drink heavily on the show, as they couldn’t do that with many other RTDs [ready-to-drink],” Holland states. “We prioritized full fruity flavor, lower calorie, sessionable and high ABV [alcohol-by-volume] to distinguish us from the slim can, ‘hard seltzer’ style RTDs.”

The flavor inspiration came from ‘90s Japanese sodas and chuhai, which are a favorite of the YouTubers, he adds. Grape and peach happened to be their favorite flavors out of all the samples the brand initially tried, so those are the current flavor offerings for the 6% ABV beverage. Grog is available in an eight-pack variety pack, with four 12-ounce cans of the two flavors.

“We’ve since evolved our NPD process with juice suppliers and international flavor houses,” Holland says. “This has led us to develop flavors like mandarin and nashi pear.”

When describing the brand, Holland simply states that Grog “isn’t serious.” The brand focuses on the basics, like cool, bright-but-clean branding and delivering on flavor and customer experience, he notes.

“A hard Japanese soda, to us, is a hard seltzer with double the flavor,” Holland says. “The ‘Japanese’ piece comes from the flavor choice, intensity and make-up of the drink. We drew inspiration from the Japanese chuhai (cocktail in a can), which are high ABV, full of flavor and delicious.”

Cold Ones loved chuhai on their Japan trips.

In the United States, Holland observes that consumers are slowly shifting toward the hard soda market as opposed to the hard seltzer market.

“The ‘hard soda’ category is broad, but there are more and more full-flavor, low-cal, high ABV drinks launching every day — all with different attributes, whether they are FMB [flavored malt beverages], wine-base, tequila, etc.,” he says. “I’m excited to see this shift happening, as it grows the category and gives hard sodas some reputational weight with retailers.”

Grog is “early-ish” to the hard soda trend, Holland shares, especially regarding the hard Japanese soda category.

“There are some larger conglomerates investing heavily in hard sodas and we are hoping to ride the wave with them,” he says.

However, Holland feels that Grog is disrupting the market by evolving hard seltzers.

“We are still high ABV, yet are nicer to drink and appeal to a wider audience given the pack sizes, can shape and flavor profiles,” he explains. “We’ve also brought a unique brand to the shelf and can speak to an audience no other brand or retailer can speak to.”

In the United States, Grog first launched in California. After a successful launch in the Golden State, it recently expanded to five new states: Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Florida. And that expansion has been an instant success for the brand.

“We can’t keep product on shelves at the moment, it is absolutely flying,” he says.

The new state launches were a natural progression for Grog. The strong launch in California gave the brand enough sales data to take retailers and distributors in the new states, Holland notes.

“The choice of states was based on Cold Ones’ demographics and which states harassed us most in Instagram comment sections,” he says. “We didn’t expect the new launches to go as well as they have.”

Now, the brand is heavily focused on building out lasting distribution in its current states. There are three or four more states in the pipeline, Holland adds, which should launch by the end of the summer.

“We’re also in conversation with most major chain stores across the country, so keep your eyes peeled for Grog in a mega-chain over summer,” he says.

As for what is next for Grog, which is available in the flavors Peach and Grape, Holland hints at two citrus flavors “releasing very soon” and a U.S.-exclusive flavor in partnership with another creator by the end of the year.