Celebrity Spirits Surge, Blue Bottle Resets, CPK Gets Reimagined

Dos Hombres Raises $15m, Celebrity Spirits Aren’t Slowing Down

After the $1B Casamigos exit, investor appetite for celebrity-backed alcohol is still alive, and the latest to raise is Dos Hombres, the mezcal brand from Breaking Bad co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul.

What started as a passion project in Oaxaca, meeting a third-generation mezcalero and partnering with his family palenque, is now a $30m–40m revenue brand with national distribution (Whole Foods, Total Wine, major on-premise).

The $15M raise fuels:

• Long-cycle agave procurement (a real working-capital moat)

• New expressions (tobalá, ensamble, pechuga)

• International expansion

Zooming out: we’re witnessing the second wave of celebrity spirits:

• Casamigos → Diageo ($1B+)

• Aviation Gin → Diageo ($610M)

• Teremana → $3B valuation

• Cîroc → 9-figure economics

• 818 Tequila → $300M valuation

Mezcal’s double-digit growth puts Dos Hombres in position to be the next scaled celebrity spirits story, if supply, brand heat, and distribution continue compounding in sync.

Nestlé Is Exploring a Sale of Blue Bottle, And It Will Likely Be at a Discount

Nestlé is reportedly shopping its stake in Blue Bottle, the OG “third-wave coffee” darling it acquired at a ~$700M valuation in 2017.

At the time, Blue Bottle was the premium café acquisition target; craft provenance, VC-backed momentum, cult cafés, and early subscription coffee.

Today, the story looks different.

Why the likely valuation reset?

• Café economics weakened post-COVID (labor, rents, remote work)

• RTD cold brew shelves are brutally competitive

• Growth slowed (est. ~$110M revenue today)

• Nestlé is prioritizing global platforms like Nespresso and Nescafé

Who might buy it?

• Japanese conglomerates (UCC, Suntory), Japan remains Blue Bottle’s crown jewel

• Experiential F&B roll-ups

• A CPG player wanting premium café adjacency

Whatever the outcome, this will reset the benchmark for valuing experiential, operations-heavy coffee brands in a market that no longer pays 2015–2017 multiples.

California Pizza Kitchen Sells for ~$300M, And It’s All About the Brand

California Pizza Kitchen is being acquired for ~$300M, but the shock isn’t the price. It’s the buyer.

Consortium Brand Partners, better known for acquiring lifestyle and apparel IP (Outdoor Voices, Draper James, Jonathan Adler), is buying CPK.
Eldridge/Convive Brands will run restaurant operations.

Why is an apparel/lifestyle investor buying a pizza chain?

Because the restaurant isn’t the asset.

The brand is.

• CPK-branded frozen pizzas (manufactured by Nestlé)

• CPK salad dressings (Litehouse)

• National grocery distribution

• International licensing

This is ABG-style brand arbitrage: buy undervalued consumer IP → scale licensing → outsource ops → expand high-margin CPG lines.

Expect:

• More CPK-branded grocery products

• Global brand licensing

• Modernized, rationalized restaurant footprint

• A shift from “restaurant chain” → “lifestyle + grocery brand with restaurant touchpoints”

The trendline is clear: brand accelerators are expanding beyond apparel into any distressed category where the brand is worth more than the underlying business.

🎙 Podcast Highlight: David Gaylord on Building Bushbalm into a Category Leader

From Shopify employee to founder of one of the fastest-growing skincare brands in North America, David Gaylord’s story is the rare blend of:

disciplined execution × consumer insight × operational maturity.

In this week’s episode, David breaks down:

• How Bushbalm identified a “taboo” whitespace no one else was addressing

• Real margin math in creams, serums, and body care

• Why contribution margin, not channel, steers their roadmap

• How they sequenced DTC → retail → pro

• The operational decisions that improved EBITDA the fastest

• The Shopify DNA that shaped their brand-building philosophy

This episode is deeply tactical; a real operator’s masterclass in building a brand that scales without burning itself alive.

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify.

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Deal Alert: A profitable consumer electronics brand is coming to market.

A non-core divestiture opportunity:

• ~$5M TTM revenue

• ~$800K TTM EBITDA

• Strong brand equity (brand bigger than business).

OOS issues (~90%) due to tariff-driven supply-chain shift has created some YoY revenue decline. New supplier already lined up, buyer simply needs to fund tooling + inventory restart.

Seller wants a clean, quick process and is open to favorable terms for the right buyer.
Perfect “soft landing” acquisition for operators who know how to relaunch supply chains or bolt on a premium tech-accessory brand.

Email: fan [at] thehedgehogcompany.com

That’s it for this week.
If you liked this issue, forward to a friend who obsesses over brand strategy, capital flows, or exit timing.

In the Money – following the flow of capital in consumer

P.S. We love talking to brands interested in exiting in the next 3-18 months. If you know of any brands interested in exiting, or any firms trying to help port cos manage turnarounds, we'd love to share a POV.

fan [at] thehedgehogcompany.com