The New Age of Guerilla Tastings
A house party in Austin, TX with a local whiskey group
There was a time when the most important thing an emerging wine or spirits brand could do was partner with a local retailer, sell tickets in collaboration with a nearby bar or restaurant, and create a dining experience that would educate, enlighten, and drive sales based on the enthusiasm from everyone in attendance.
That was then, and then was a very different market than now.
Not that it doesn’t happen now. You just need a few thousand bucks to throw at each event, multiplied by the amount of cities you plan to visit, coupled with airfare, logistical costs, and hotel rates. If you’re sitting on $50,000 to $100,000 annual marketing budget for consumer events, then experiences like the aforementioned dinners are a great opportunity to meet customers and build relationships.
Unfortunately, most of my clients don’t have that kind of cash to casually blow on a single event, let alone multiple. In addition, many of the customers they’re hoping to reach don’t have $150-$200 to spend on a lavish tasting experience, likely taking place on a Tuesday night downtown after work (when most restaurants have extra space for stuff like this).
A private party in a hidden clubhouse near North Hollywood
That’s why guerilla tasting events have been popping up all over the country, across all genres, spawned by the social necessities of COVID, with seemingly no limit in demand or scale. This past January, I traveled to Austin to work with a new distributor on behalf of Leopold Bros. We hit the bars and restaurants during the afternoon, but as soon as the sun went down we journeyed to a private residence where 50 dudes with empty glasses, a dozen pizzas, and inquisitive minds were waiting to taste the latest bottles in my bag.
The same thing happened in San Diego soon after. I was invited to join a local whiskey group’s monthly meeting of 40 people in a beautiful backyard, accompanied by some local Mexican takeout. But instead of spending $2000 on this event, I spent $200. I’ve done similar events across Colorado as well, all of them similar in format to the tasting I hosted last last night in North Hollywood: a vertical of single vineyard Liquid Farm Chardonnays alongside single orchard Tequilas from Fuenteseca, showcasing how terroir affects both wine and agave spirits.
If you’ve done an in-store tasting (or participated in one) over the last few years, then you’ll understand the reality of walk-in, retail foot traffic in 2026. You could sit at Total Wine for three hours and only speak to six or seven customers, all of whom did not come there to taste your products, who smile politely before getting back to what they originally came in for. That’s three hours of your time—gone. Last night, I reached seventeen people over the course of two hours, all of whom were there specifically to learn about Fuenteseca’s unique single agave orchard blanco Tequilas, and they were 100% engaged the entire time.
Speaking to a private social group in Las Vegas
It used to be that a brand ambassador for a major drinks company needed two deep contact lists to be successful: the names and numbers of every major retail buyer in America, and the same for every important bar manager. Today, however, I would argue that a list of the main contacts for private barrel clubs, whiskey societies, and other regional enthusiasts is just as, if not more, important than either of the previous ones.
In the Apple TV show Shrinking, the main protagonist—one of three therapists in a private Pasadena practice—creates a contraversal new type of intensive. hands-on therapy that extends outside of the office and into the personal life of his patients. He calls it “Jimmying,” after his own first name, much to the chagrin and disapproval of his colleagues who feel that therapy should remain within the boundaries of the workspace.
I have a feeling a number of my industry colleagues feel the same way about private, guerilla tastings as Jimmy’s colleagues feel about “Jimmying,” but once again: if you’re not connecting with people where they’re willing to meet you, you’re missing a major opportunity. The best events I’ve been to over the last few years were not in public spaces, let alone the best bars. But we’ll touch more on that tomorrow.
-David Driscoll