It's Our 5th Anniversary at Everday Drinking!
Perhaps it's time to talk about the industry's role in drinks media's demise?
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Everyday Drinking. How time flies! Hard to believe that I’ve been publishing here for five years!
The traditional fifth anniversary gift is wood, representing strength and growth, which I guess makes sense when you think about wood barrels in the making of fine drinks. Five years isn’t a very long time in the world of wine and spirits, where things can age for decades. But it’s long enough to reflect on publishing this newsletter, and the challenges we all still face in the drinks industry.
When I started this in the spring of 2021, still in the thick of the pandemic, the media world was in a bad place. At the time, I felt like I was taking a big risk in going it alone. Media was certainly crumbling all around us. But who knew what this thing called Substack would become? Who knew that newsletters might be the way forward?
Well, as it turns out, the media world in 2026 is an even worse place! Quite honestly, who knows what the way forward might be? So many of the publications we all love have either shuttered, or are a shell of their former selves through layoffs, neglect, mismanagement, or clueless editorial direction.
But media isn’t the only thing in crisis. As we all know, it’s a time of crisis and reckoning for the wine and spirits industry. Big drinks companies have been slow to realize that people don’t want to buy what they’re selling any longer. The industry has been slow to embrace the idea that younger generations are drinking less, but better quality and at higher price points. At this point, one might think that drinks media and the drinks industry would have a common problem (and opportunity) to work together on.
But a curious thing that nobody talks about is the key role that the industry and its public-relations apparatus has played in the demise of wine and spirits media. I hear endless grumbling from industry people about messaging and media, about reaching new audiences, about the lack of new ideas and strategies. And yet, they continue to fund and support the same old, broken model. They gripe about critics, yet still advertise with and pay expensive “industry/pro subscriptions” for better placement in the same old legacy publications. I see companies trying to sell artisan, premium wines who spend their marketing dollars on wine media that’s mostly funded by mass-market brands. Make it make sense.
Every day, I get dozens of emails from PR and brand people, pitching me on “new” products and services that feel like the same old thing, notifying me of the same old tastings to attend, inviting me on old-fashioned group press trips. These PR and brand people, presumably, are emailing in hopes that I will write about their products, services, tastings, and places.
Honestly, it amazes me that the world’s appellations, drinks companies, entrepreneurs, and trade groups still keep pouring cash into this old, broken PR and branding model. What a waste of money! I cannot imagine that 90 percent (or more) of what clients spend on this old PR model nets any results.
Some days, as I am deleting these PR emails en masse, I wonder: For whom or for what, exactly, do these people hope that I am writing about their pitches? Seriously, like who? Given how much of drinks media has gone out of business or downsized. And for what? Given that anyone who works for what’s left of drinks knows even the legacy publications pay peanuts for content.
To which some of you may, reasonably, ask: Why don’t you write about these things for your own newsletter? It’s a great question! By now, Everyday Drinking has one of the biggest wine and spirits readerships in America. But you would be so surprised how disappointed that most of these PR and brand people are when—once in a blue moon—I reach out for more information…only to tell them that I will be writing this for my own humble newsletter. If you want to make a PR person cry, tell them you’re going to write about their client…but only for your Substack newsletter rather than pitching Wine Enthusiast!
The irony of this, of course, is how many of these people read every issue of this newsletter. Most of them without paying. (If this is you, I invite you to upgrade at my current deep discounted rate.)
All of which is to say: Everyday Drinking is entering its fifth year with its independence intact. Like everyone else in media and content creation, I’ve certainly had conversations with brands and regions and companies about sponsorships and partnerships and collaborations. But over and over, I encounter the same old way of thinking—thinking that completely misses the current reality of where both drinks and media stand. Therefore, I am pleased to say that we are still independent and ad free.
Which is why I am asking, once again, for your support to keep Everyday Drinking going. I am very grateful to loyal readers like you, who read what I write each and every week. It’s you who’ve made Everyday Drinking one of the top drinks publications in the U.S.
If you’ve been enjoying my work for free, please consider upgrading to paid. Your subscription helps keep Everyday Drinking independent and ad free, and allows me to continue my work as a voice and advocate within the wine and spirits industry.
If you still haven’t yet made the leap to paid subscriber, that’s okay and easily changed. Today, I’m offering you my deepest discount, 40 percent off an annual subscription. By upgrading, you’ll be supporting the work I’m doing with this newsletter, the work that you continue to enjoy.
Cheers to (hopefully) five more years. Thank you!
