How Enthuse Marketing Built ANA Category Credibility Through Tastemaker Education About Seedlip

When Seedlip launched in the U.S. in 2015, adult non-alcoholic spirits faced a dual challenge. First, they needed to overcome the “fancy juice” perception of adult non-alcoholic spirits. Second, they needed bartenders – professionals who make their living serving alcohol – to champion these new types of products.

Chelsey Burger, Regional Brand Ambassador for Seedlip with Enthuse Marketing Group, told me they solved both challenges with one strategic approach: target the industry’s most influential tastemakers at Michelin-starred restaurants and 50 Best bars, then equip those bartenders with hands-on education and inclusive positioning that made ANA spirits feel like natural additions to their programs rather than replacements.

Targeting Tastemakers to Build Category Credibility

“I think what Ben Branson and the Seedlip team did really well is prioritize the importance of tastemakers in their ability to introduce new consumers to an idea that they’re not familiar with,” Burger told me. “So they focused on people who were innovators and created really unique cocktails and programs, in Michelin-star restaurants, in sort of 50 best bars, these sorts of high-level creators to be creative with something new.”

When the adult non-alcoholic category began in the U.S., consumers viewed these products as juices and Shirley Temples – unsophisticated options that couldn’t hold their own in a serious beverage program. Seedlip recognized that changing that perception required validation from the bartenders and venues that defined cocktail culture.

The strategy wasn’t to go broad with mass-market distribution. It was to go deep with influential creators who could demonstrate what these spirits were capable of in the hands of skilled professionals. These tastemakers worked in venues where guests expected innovation, complexity, and sophistication – exactly the attributes the ANA category needed to establish.

By Burger and Enthuse securing placement in these high-profile programs, Seedlip created proof points that rippled through the industry. When bartenders at respected venues began creating milk punches and martinis with ANA spirits, it signaled to the broader hospitality community that these products deserved serious attention.

Working Arm-in-Arm With Alcohol, Not Against It

But getting placement in elite venues was only half the equation. The execution method that made the tastemaker strategy work required a fundamental positioning decision: position ANA spirits as collaborative options within existing beverage programs, not as replacements for alcohol.

“We wanted to work arm-in-arm with liquor brands and not demonize alcohol,” Burger explained during our conversation. “We wanted everyone in the same room enjoying this time together, and I think coming at it from that angle really helped me find leverage in these spaces, because the idea of drinking or not drinking can be so polarizing, and anything extreme can be isolating.”

This inclusive positioning was critical for winning over bartenders. These are professionals whose careers depend on serving alcohol. Approaching them with messaging that demonized their livelihood would have created immediate resistance.

Instead, Enthuse positioned Seedlip as another option for existing beverage programs. The message wasn’t “stop serving alcohol.” It was “here’s another option for your program that makes everyone’s experience better.” That framing – positioning ANA as an additive benefit rather than a replacement – opened doors that a more polarizing approach would have closed.

“Approaching the category from this lens of, I have an understanding of what you do, I have an understanding of the category as a whole, and we want to fit within your program to make this easier for everyone in your space to have a really complex, sophisticated experience,” Burger told me. “So that’s kind of how I approached it.”

Equipping Staff Through Pre-Shift Education

The second critical execution method was hands-on staff education that equipped bartenders and servers to confidently recommend ANA spirits to guests.

“I did a lot of pre-shift staff educations in bars and restaurants, where I made sure to take the time before service, before people went on the floor, to sell these cocktails to guests,” Burger explained. “Give them a brand history, let them understand, ask them questions, and help debunk the suspicions that people have around non-alcoholic beverages in general, in terms of pricing, in terms of flavor development, in terms of all the thought and intention that is here in the category.”

These pre-shift sessions served multiple functions. They provided product knowledge – how to use the spirits, what flavor profiles to expect, how to build cocktails specifically for this medium. But they also addressed the mindset barriers that prevented staff from championing ANA options.

Many bartenders had preconceptions about non-alcoholic products based on limited past experiences with juice-based mocktails. The education sessions helped them understand that ANA spirits required different techniques and offered different possibilities. “Seedlip is alcohol- and sugar-free (two main carriers of flavor for traditional spirits), which creates new opportunities to experiment with the spirit,” Burger noted.

The hands-on approach also built relationships. Burger described her role as “the corporate liaison between the brand team and the hospitality universe” – someone who understood both worlds and could translate between them. “As a brand ambassador, I always kind of describe my job as that sort of anger translator that Obama has on the Key & Peele show,” she told me.

That hospitality background gave her credibility. She’d worked in New York cocktail bars for ten years before joining Enthuse. She understood service flow, the pressures bartenders faced, and how to make product recommendations that actually worked in their programs.

Creating Category Understanding Through Ongoing Education

The education didn’t stop after initial staff training. Burger emphasized the importance of continuing to inspire bartenders to evolve their ANA offerings alongside their alcoholic programs.

“You want their non-alg menus to change as often as their cocktail menus,” she told me. “You don’t want someone to just make a good drink and keep it on the menu forever. You want them to continue to want to play with these liquids, to continue to evolve the category.”

She traveled to different markets demonstrating how to use ANA spirits “in non-traditional ways beyond a one-on-one, thinking about things like milk punches and martinis and high-level serves.” These demonstrations showed bartenders the full potential of the category, not just basic serves.

This ongoing education approach recognized that building a category requires sustained engagement, not just one-time training. “Education is so important because we are creating a category,” Burger explained. “We’re not inventing tequila. Tequila’s been invented, and people have a general understanding of how it works. But we have this unique opportunity to create something where we can shape the future of it.”

The education also extended to practical considerations that many bartenders hadn’t encountered. “The fact that they have a shelf life and they expire is astounding to some people,” Burger noted. “This isn’t liquor, there’s no preservatives in there like that, so it’s a really important piece of the conversation.”

“Getting people excited about having fun with these products is a huge piece of the puzzle,” Burger told me. “Because the more opportunities for one brand, the more for everyone to try more and more options within this universe.”

Building Advocates, Not Just Placement

The combination of tastemaker targeting, inclusive positioning, and hands-on education didn’t just secure product placement – it transformed bartenders from skeptics into advocates. These weren’t staff members grudgingly offering ANA options because management required it – they were professionals who genuinely believed in the category’s value.

“The main takeaway that people had with me about my work with Seedlip was that they really valued that I approached this as any other alcoholic ambassador would, that I didn’t treat it as a completely separate universe,” Burger reflected. “We’re consuming these things in the same spaces, and they’re being made by the same people. So it’s important to understand that piece of the puzzle, whether or not you are personally drinking or not.”

That approach – treating ANA spirits with the same seriousness and sophistication as their alcoholic counterparts – elevated how the entire industry viewed the category. It moved beyond “here’s an option for non-drinkers” to “here’s a category that expands what’s possible in cocktail programs.”

The tastemaker focus, inclusive positioning, and comprehensive education created a foundation for category credibility that benefits all ANA brands. When influential bartenders champion the category, it creates permission for the broader industry to take it seriously.

“That’s a really important responsibility,” Burger told me about category building. “And we can get kind of stuck in our bubbles, but when I first started with Seedlip, even in New York, there were people that had no idea how to use any of these things.”

By systematically addressing both the strategic challenge (building credibility) and the tactical challenges (equipping staff, avoiding polarization), Enthuse Marketing Group’s approach demonstrated how industry infrastructure can accelerate category growth in ways that individual brands can’t achieve alone.