Tier 1 Media

The drinks trade has strong verticals. It also has a ceiling. A brand — or an accelerator — that only ever shows up in Drinks Business or The Spirits Business isn't reaching the consumer who buys the product, the retailer who stocks it, or the co-investor who could write the next cheque.

Tier-1 press — the New York Times, the Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist, Bon Appétit, Vogue, Axios — is where the category conversations actually travel. Getting DV and its portfolio into those pages, repeatedly and on the terms we'd chosen, was the nine-year project. Not me being profiled. The fund and the founders being profiled, because I'd spent years building the relationships that made the story worth writing.

Tier-1 press isn't a publicist's to-do list. It's a relationship game played over years. The work was learning who covers drinks and consumer categories with real depth, what they care about, what they're sick of being pitched, and how to land a story in their inbox that's actually worth their time.

In-person briefings, not press releases. Data first. The Non-Alc white paper, New World Whiskey research, category trend reports. Founder access when the founder was the story. Exclusives timed to the moments that mattered to the business, not the news cycle.