Marketing Happy Hour - How to Create a Bold, Distinct Brand Identity and Social Media Presence | Alice Carroll of Foxes Bow Whiskey

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

What happens when you take a centuries-old, traditional industry and inject it with vibrant color? This week, Cassie sits down with Alice Carroll, Co-Founder of Foxes Bow Irish Whiskey, to discuss the art of strategic disruption. Alice breaks down her journey from "stealthily stealing secrets" at major whiskey multinationals to launching an independent brand that refuses to play by the rules. We explore how being the "only woman at the table" became her greatest creative advantage, the tactical data she used to get retailers to say "yes" to a non-traditional design, and why she believes distinctiveness is more valuable than differentiation in 2026. Whether you're an entrepreneur in a "stiff" industry or a marketer struggling to find your authentic voice on camera, Alice’s "warts-and-all" approach to brand building is the shot of inspiration you need.Key Takeaways:// Why looking at adjacent industries (and what your target audience follows on Instagram) is more effective than looking at your direct competitors when designing a brand.// How Alice leveraged her perspective as an "outsider" in a male-dominated category to spot the massive white space that legacy brands were too risk-averse to touch.// How to use consumer research and "hard facts" about audience pain points to convince conservative stakeholders to approve bold, eclectic designs.// The secret to building a brand that is instantly recognizable on any shelf or social feed, regardless of the context.// Why Alice is betting on a 2026 trend toward vibrancy, color, and "social middle-ground" wellness over the beige, minimalist extremes of recent years.// Why "boring" behind-the-scenes failures (like 20 misprinted billboards) often drive more engagement and trust than polished, high-production brand content.// Advice for the "camera-shy" on how to park your ego and let your audience’s engagement dictate your content strategy.Connect with Alice: InstagramLearn More About Foxes Bow: Website____Join the MHH Collective! The MHH Collective is a community for marketers and business owners to connect, ask real questions, and grow their careers together. Join for access to live Q&As with industry experts, a private Slack community, and ongoing resources: https://www.marketinghappyhr.com/mhh-collectiveSay hi! DM us on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - We can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join the MHH Collective: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest marketing trends, open jobs and MHH updates, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

One secret that we've learned for sure is prioritizing a distinctiveness over differentiation. How can you create a brand that every time someone sees it, they're like, oh, that's, that's Fox's as well. If it's on social, if it's in real life, it's on shelf, it's in a bar. How can we make it so distinctive that there's no mistaking that that's another brand? Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour, a weekly podcast helping marketing professionals and entrepreneurs build better strategies and hit career goals. I'm Cassie and I'm Allie.

We're marketers and your host through these unfiltered convos with your peers and experts in the space. Let's dive in. Grab your favorite drink and let's get to this week's episode. Today I am joined by Alice Carroll, a co-founder of Fox's Bow, Irish Whiskey. I started my career in the food and beverage space and so always just love hearing from founders of different brands popping up and just the creative process behind launching and kind of the story and the why behind it. So Alice, welcome to the show. I'm so stoked to have you. Thank you very much. So excited to be here. Yes, absolutely. Well, we're going to dive into everything about your story and just strategies that you've learned along the

way. But first, I'm going to kind of reframe the typical marketing happy hour question that we asked, which is what's in your glass? And I would just love for you during that segment, if you don't mind. Tell us a little bit about the brand. Absolutely. Well, what is always in my glass is Fox's boat. So we are an Irish whiskey. We're still pretty new. We only launched in the US about two years ago, but we are very much kind of focused on, I suppose,

contemporising a very traditional category and a category that plays into exclusivity and who it's fur and who it's not for and all of these perceived rules that are so outdated and so nonsense. And so for us, we really believe that whiskey should be for whoever and wherever people want to drink it. So, yeah, that is why we can't

started Fox's Bow and you'll see even from an aesthetic perspective it's very vibrant very contemporary very modern very not in keeping with the kind of sea of black and green traditional bottles that exist and that's on purpose and that comes through and everything that we do even in terms of the whiskey that we've released so our kind of hero skew is aged in bourbon barrels so we are pleasantly surprised I suppose whenever bourbon drinkers tell us that they don't regard at whiskey, the dry foxes bow and their minds are changed. And then we have a lot of fun too with kind of the different finishes that we use to really create something that's very accessible from a flavor perspective. But as I said, like very modern, contemporary and for today as

drinkers. Yeah, I love it. You know, for someone who I lived in Kentucky for a little bit, so of course, that is the bourbon and whiskey space here in the US. And just, your brand pop up digitally, you do see that difference, right? And so I'm excited just to talk through, even just from a branding perspective, you know, how you came up with that angle for the business. But it's very exciting to see, you know, that differentiation piece, not only visually, but also taste-wise, right? And so very awesome to see how you guys have carved that space out in the market for yourselves. Yeah. Well, with that, too, I would love to learn more about your story as well. So how did you get into this space? How did you end up just being a part of Fox's

Bo? You know, what's your journey like so far? Yeah. So I was one of the people that I talk about when I talk about who whiskey is for and who it's not for because when I was like in high school and in college, I definitely thought whiskey was not for me. It was like my dad's drink or my granddad's drink. It was it was strong. It was a guy's drink, an older guy, whatever. Um, like my, drinks of choice were probably like, you know, vodka soda or gin and tonic or whatever, like tequila soda, whatever. But when I was in college, I was doing marketing. I was doing business, but I was kind of majoring in marketing. And the graduate program that you wanted to get in Ireland when you were doing that course was the Jameson graduate program because it was

a marketing kind of graduate placement somewhere else in the world. And, you know, it's, you know, just seemed so fun, such a mix of kind of what you would learn on the graduate program and things like that. So I went for the program having maybe like tried whiskey a handful of times and deciding it wasn't for me, but I was like, I really want this job. So started on the Jameson Graduate program did like really amazing kind of training with them for a couple of weeks in the distillery in their head office in Dublin and started to grow such an appreciation for the category that I was like, hold on a second. Like I've totally. wrote off this whole category of alcohol, even like subcategories, like the bourbon and the

scotch and the Irish, I have just said, that's not for me. Why have I done that? Like, that has been like a subconscious thing that I have done, which makes absolutely no sense. And the more that I kind of immersed myself in the world of whiskey, the more I was like, actually, this should be one of the most versatile spirits in the world because there's so many different styles and flavor profiles and everything. So it's like a social thing that we think that it's only for a certain type of person. And that message has definitely been perpetuated by different brands and things like that. But it really kind of sparked my interest in the category. And the more I was introduced to different styles of whiskey and also different ways of drinking it, including in

cocktails or mixed or whatever, the more I was like, oh, like, this is really interesting that I felt this way and it's been changed so quickly. So there's like a bigger issue at hand here and there's a bigger opportunity because whiskey is so versatile. So I worked with Jameson in France for a little while and then I moved with the company over to Toronto in Canada and I was there for about six years and moved on from Jameson always kind of worked in whiskey in different kind of capacities. I was on Scotch. I was on Canadian whiskey, dipped in and out of Irish whiskey.

I did a stint on tequila and rum as well, which was really interesting and brought me to hotter places for a change, which was nice. But always found my way back to whiskey. And I suppose working across such amazing household brands, I

knew that I was so passionate about the category, but I also knew that I was so passionate about opening up the category beyond the limitations that were created and kind of that some of the brands I was working on were like leaning into that I really didn't agree with. So, you know, tried to bring forward suggestions about how to open up whiskey to new drinkers, to women, to younger consumers, things like that. But I suppose because I was working on such established brands, their

tolerance for risk was a lot lower. And for me, it doesn't feel like a risk trying to open up the category to women or trying to open up the category to younger consumers. But I guess for them, they felt that could alienate existing drinkers. They're like their older demographic and things like that. So I kind of just got to the point where I was like, no, you know what? There is a gap here. Like there is a white space. There is a missing. There's an opportunity here that the big multinational brands are not taking seriously. And the fact that I felt that myself as a consumer, is really important because I think that for any category, like alcohol or beyond, that is the true indicator of a true white space is if you as a consumer feel like there's something missing

for you. So I guess with Fox's Bow, the timing was weirdly serendipitous because I was kind of getting frustrated with this dynamic in the multinationals and my co-founder who I grew up across the road with at home in Limerick in Ireland. He rang me. He was working for Google in Silicon Valley in the US. And he was like, look, I have this idea to open this distillery, but like, what do you think? And I was like, the funny you should mention that. So like the timing we always say was so weird. Like he was ringing me because he knew I worked in alcohol and he had no idea. He just had this idea, but he had no idea how to bring it to life. And I was like, well, actually, there's a bigger opportunity than that around like creating a brand that is really accessible and like allows people

into this really like closed off category. And so yeah, that's that's how we got up today. Oh my goodness. So many things were coming to mind as you were sharing. You know, one of the things is finding that white space and that that need that you as the consumer have that you can fulfill. Chances are if you have the need, other people have the need or if they don't know they have the need yet once they notice that there's an opportunity for a new product. You know, for example, they come on your pages and they see you sharing about it. You know, other women or are people who are interested in the space, but not really sure where to start.

They can hear you sharing on it and creates that connection and that it piques that interest to dive into it more. So I love that. And that's why that humanization of the brand also comes into play, right? Because it's, you're allowed to build trust with the consumer or the potential consumer can it open the door for them to to learn more, which we'll talk about that more in a little bit. But I love, I just love the idea of seeing a need and just speaking to that need immediately and also just creating something that's a little bit different in the marketplace.

So yeah. Yeah. Very excellent. Well, speaking of that, you know, as you mentioned at the top of the episode, you're in a very traditional industry, right? A lot of the brands feel the same. They feel like they're for one specific person. So, you know, even just from a design standpoint, again, highly recommend if you're listening, go jump on Fox's Boat, Instagram, and you kind of just see firsthand what we're talking about here. But how do you, when you were kind of coming up with this concept for something different, how did you, and how do you recommend getting stakeholders to say yes to a design or identity that looks nothing like what is typically in your industry? That's such a good question. And it is a challenge.

because obviously you can't point to someone who's doing something similar and say like, look, they're having success with this. You know, if we follow the same route, we're going to have success with it too because that brand doesn't exist. We're essentially bringing something completely new to the category. So for us, I think it's really the articulation around the fixation with the consumer as opposed to the fixation with the category. So, you know, if we're laser focused on who this is for and we start thinking about, right, like, what are there, not just alcohol, like some alcohol, some beer, some, you know, adjacent spirits, wine, whatever, but also beyond that, what are these consumers buying and why? And also, like, what are they consuming? Like, what's their source of information? What media do they follow? Who do they follow on Instagram? You know, all of these questions where, similar to kind of, I guess, the Amazon model, you're fixating with the consumer. And I think if you're able to demonstrate a true consumer pain point or want or need and how other brands are fulfilling that in different ways outside of alcohol, but that that pain point still isn't being

fulfilled within kind of your category, in our case, alcohol, I think that's the way to get stakeholders on board because that's fact. Like, that's, that's, not your hypothesis, it's fact. How you position your brand to take advantage of that is hypothesis because it's how you think that will work. But they're like hard, cold facts and that's the best thing that you can possibly do to bring to your, you know, stakeholders is like as much fact as you possibly can. You get that by looking at adjacent brands that are doing well to fulfill that want or need. And so I think that that's probably the best approach. Yeah. And, And then I'm just curious, too, with that, was there, you know, consumer surveys that you guys did just to even further validate your concept or research?

Or I would love to hear more on that because I think a lot of times, too, we see a concept at hand and we think it's going to be an incredible idea, but even coming back with more research and more testing can help push it forward even more. So just curious if there was any level of that done as well in that process. It was. Yeah. And that's such a good point, Cassie. because I think like especially for an independent brand, you obviously don't have, you know, infinite resources, including time. So we tend to just run at something, which you should do.

Like, don't get me wrong. You shouldn't get tied up in delays. You know, those two things, I suppose, kind of run in tandem, like you moving at pace, but also you testing in real time. So specifically for us, one of those kind of key stakeholders, I suppose, was retailers. and because we couldn't point at another brand that was doing it well that we were mimicking and that had success, we had to have some type of data point to be able to say, look, consumers actually want this.

So as we were kind of running with the design concept and even the like formula creation and things like that, we underwent consumer research studies with opinions, consumer research agency where we were testing things like the, product proposition, the flavor profile, it wasn't people actually trying it in real life. It was their openness to a product like this. So we were showing it relative to our competitive set, you know, shelf standout likelihood of you purchasing something like this, your interest in hearing more about a brand like this, those kind of things to demonstrate that this brand had at least, I suppose, appeal and stickiness and piqued interest with our target demographic.

So we were able to bring that information to our retailers and say, listen, 93% of whiskey drinkers that we asked are really interested in a proposition like this. They feel like it has standout on shelf. Even from a pricing perspective when we were able to say, you know, this is the product proposition, this is the size, this is the flavor profile. What would you expect to pay for a bottle like that? So it even helped with our pricing strategy and things like that. So we ran all of that in tandem and kind of as we were getting the information, we were sharing

that with stakeholders so that we could keep moving forward and get those listings before we had any type of proof of sales data, let's say. So yeah, anything that you can do like that is so valuable. Before we get back to the episode, we wanted to take a moment to tell you about our latest offering for marketing professionals. We get asked all the time where marketers can actually connect outside the podcast. So we built it, the MHH collective. Monthly wife sessions with us and industry experts, real career conversations in a Slack space that's actually helpful and not noisy. If you want to learn with people, not just listen, we'd love to have you. If you want to join us, you can find the link in the show notes below.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for speaking to that. And, you know, I'm just, I'm curious from a founder perspective and even just being in a space that is very male-dominated. In general, how has being kind of the quote-only one, for example, served as a fantastic, creative advantage for you when building the brand or even just from a getting your foot in the door standpoint or bringing a different perspective to a space just would love to hear more on that too. Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think like the simple answer is diversity of thought

and diversity of perspective. Like the more, the more diverse the people at the table, the more kind of diverse the experience that they've had. And the, more diverse the conversation becomes, I think, like, that's kind of the, the short answer, but I suppose like a bit of a longer answer is, there's a fantastic book, David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. And the whole point of the book is basically that perceived disadvantages can be advantages and perceived advantages can be disadvantages. And one of the kind of parallels that I think is really relevant for this conversation is they basically talk about people with dyslexia and actually a disproportionate amount of entrepreneurs have dyslexia. And when they kind of dug into why that is,

it's because when kids are in school and they're not learning in a linear way because they have dyslexia, you know, as school is kind of taught in a very particular way, they have to find a way to get to the same end point as another kid, but they can't do it in that linear way. So their mind, is trained from a young age to like find the way, even if it's not the most obvious, even if it's not the most linear. And that makes so much sense then when you think about those people are so primed to be an entrepreneur because to be an entrepreneur, it's not the linear way. You have to find whatever route it takes to get to that final destination and you have to get

creative. And I think the same applies or similar applies in this instance because, you know, I wasn't given a seat at the table when it was all kind of men dominating the conversation or I wasn't giving credibility in those initial conversations. My co-founder is male. He doesn't come from the whiskey world, but every question relative to the whiskey was always kind of thrown his way by default as opposed to asking me. So there's kind of a lot of that that you're up against from day dot. And because of that, it makes you be creative and how you kind of assert authority in the whiskey space or even how you come at it

because you can't come at it in the traditional way because the traditional way is dominated by men. So it forces you to come at it from a more creative and a different way. And actually I think that that's such an advantage when it comes to kind of these conversations because it creates something completely different when it comes to kind of the narrative around whiskey

around Irish whiskey because it's not that linear traditional direction that you can take, you know. So I think even though it's definitely challenging, it's still challenging, I still get asked, do I actually drink whiskey, even though I have my own whiskey brand, things like that that are frustrating. But I actually perceive it to be much more of an advantage because it's made me remove, not even remove myself from the traditional, I was never part of that conversation. It's made me come at, you know, whiskey and conversations and making sure I'm getting a seat at the table from such a different starting point.

than it would, I suppose, a male counterpart. Yeah. And I guess that's also just the power of being so strong and bullish in your idea or what you're passionate about, right, too, because it can be hard, you know, going into an industry where you're maybe not typically the ICP of whoever's building, whatever that brand or product is. And so just knowing that no matter what doubts come your way,

being so excited and so passionate about what you're creating and confident in that idea. I know for at least me, that's been helpful. But yeah, that's such a good reminder. And don't ever think that just because you don't see someone that looks like you in a specific space does not mean you don't have the opportunity to get there and just keep going. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I love that. So we've already talked about this a little bit, but you are very much a face on the brand's social channels. And so we talk a lot about this. this, you know, human first approach in marketing or just putting a face to the brand and the power of that connection, right? So I'm curious from your perspective in building Foxes Bow, what has been the impact of that human first approach for you guys and how has you being able to connect directly with the consumer just helped shape not only the brand itself, but just the way that you get the

word out about the business too? Yeah, it's such a good question. I think initially, Like to us as consumers, it seems very obvious that people buy from people, like any of the kind of brands that I follow or, you know, people that I follow the journey or anything like that, I love hearing firsthand from whether it's a founder or someone on the journey about that journey and about that product and kind of the behind the scenes, warts and all, that makes me more bought in for a product than the generic brand content.

And we kind of did a mix of every type of content at the start. to kind of see what was resonating and things like that. And we definitely found that any of the content that we were releasing, that was myself or my co-founder Tony talking, whether it was polished content or whether it was a bit more raw and gritty, that was the content that performed best, much more so than, you know, brand-focused content, even cocktail-focused content, anything like that.

And I think fundamentally, whether we like it or not, that is what resonates with people. So it's so important to be. the one telling the story. And I think as well, no one is ever going to care as much about your brand or your product or be as kind of energetic and enthusiastic as you are. Like, we have the best team in the world, but we could never expect anyone to speak about our baby the way we speak about our baby because it's our baby. So I think that that's so important because especially like nowadays, you're bombarded by so much brand of content and somebody ads all day, every day.

day that we kind of have a bullshit filter now where we are able to kind of switch that off. So if you can authentically connect with your audience or connect with your target audience, you should be very much trying to do that. And I think the most credible way and authentic way to do that is through kind of founder content and human-led content. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And for some brands and founders, they say, yes, I know that is a great idea and thing

that I want to do. I'm Camashire, I don't have much to share. What am I going to say about my brand, for example? So I guess I would just love to hear your advice to brand leaders, founders, whoever, for finding their voice and representing a brand authentically without it maybe feeling a little bit too salesy or pushy. How do you find that balance personally? So it has taken me such a long time. Like now I'm able to just do it. But for so long, I'd be like, cringing at myself. I'd literally record the thing 500 times and like mess up in the last second. Like I would get so frustrated. I would hate the sound of my own voice. It would be like,

you know, nails on a talk board where I was like, no one is going to want to listen to this. Like, this is horrendous. And I think the biggest thing that you have to do for your brand is just like get over the ego. Like just park it. And in terms of like finding your voice and finding, you know, what you should be talking about or what's relevant or whatever. Let your audience tell you that. So like put up as much information as you possibly can. Like the behind the scenes, the journey, the product attributes, why you chose something, you know, and why you didn't choose something else.

And very quickly your audience or your target audience will tell you what they're interested in by engaging and, you know, you'll be able to create more of that content. And I think we sometimes think, you know, certain things. things are boring because we're in and out of it every day and we're like, this isn't the sexy stuff. This isn't what people want to hear about. But that is what people want to hear about. Like, they want to hear about, you know, one time I ordered 20 billboards for a campaign that we were running around South by Southwest in Austin. And the billboards were printed. They were about to be applied. And I basically was informed that like one little thing I had put on

it was noncompliant. So we had to pull the 20 billboards. the 20 billboards got delivered to my apartment. Like I was living in a one bedroom apartment at the time. So we just had stacks of billboards everywhere. And I just was like, this is such an epic fail. Like I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe this happened. You know, like I'm such a rookie.

This is such amateur hour. And I was like, oh, fuck it. Like, I'm just going to post about this because like I just, if you don't laugh, you're going to cry. So I just like to like hear how ridiculous this is. People loved it because they don't. want to see like the perfectly shiny journey to the top they want to see like the graft and like you fall back a bit and then you move forward and people then like get in your corner because they're like

oh my god that's so it's so human it's so like normal it's a shitty thing that happened but like you're laughing at it and you're laughing with me so like yeah I think we think things are boring but actually people are interested in that and like I'm interested in that like I love seeing you know the behind the scenes journey and like different aspects. of people's businesses like that is the interesting part yep and everyone's been there right like every founder has had if it's not a billboard it's something else right and so i think just destigmatizing those kind of challenges and it it makes other people feel seen too i think um by sharing that so it's so powerful and there's a lot of lessons to learn through that and so it's just value for your audience as

well yeah 100%. yeah so one of the things that you've mentioned before is this idea of, quote, stealing secrets from other top brands or just sparking inspiration from other brands that you've worked with in the past. I guess my question to you is if you could give our listeners one secret to building a brand that actually stands out, what would it be? I definitely say stealing secrets ingest, but I think one secret that we've learned for sure is prioritizing distinctiveness over differentiation. And what I mean by that is like, instead of looking at your category and being like, right, do you know what's missing here is this?

I actually think it's kind of going back to that point that we were chatting about earlier. It's like obsessing with your consumer and being like, right, what, like, what do they care about? And like, from an aesthetic perspective, what are they buying elsewhere? Like, what does that look like? What are the themes? you know, what are they drawn to? And I think that that helps you create a really distinctive brand

because you can then borrow from those themes and create something for your category instead of being limited by the kind of perceived rules or like the standard kind of playbook of your category. So for us, yeah, like a big secret or not so secret secret is like forget about differentiation, think about distinctiveness. like how can you create a brand that every time someone sees it, they're like, oh, that's, that's Fox's Boe.

No matter where it is sitting, you know, what asset it is, if it's on social, if it's in real life, it's on shelf, it's in a bar. How can we make it so distinctive that like there's no mistaking that that's another brand. It's clearly Foxes as well. Yeah, absolutely. And then with that too, you know, you've already mentioned a few that you would stand by. But if there was one marketing or creative hill, quote, quote that you would die on in 2026, what would it be, or just something, a principle or

trend or foundation that you say this is my thing that I'm going to prioritize going into the rest of this year. What would it be? I think the hill that I would die on is that, so I'm going to do aesthetics first, clean girl aesthetic is going to be out. I am so ready for it to be out. There was a fantastic an fantastic article in the New York Times recently and it was about a guy he was talking about how he's taking up drinking again and he had given it up it was like such an extreme which I feel has just been like the modus the apparati of our generation for the last like maybe three years where everything went clean like it was all about the like getting up first thing on a Saturday morning and doing the Pilates and even the raves of the coffee shops first thing

in the morning and everything was about clean girl aesthetic. and everyone was wearing the same clothes and they were all beige and they were all like soft green and you know it was all about kind of this extreme toward wellness and everything like that whereas his whole point was like I am missing out this like core community and social get together that is like having a few drinks and it's not going absolutely wild and but it's like that like we're all social beings so like we crave that connection that like really only that kind of third space bar or drinks with friends at a house or over dinner or whatever it kind of fulfills. So I think the pendulum probably swung way this way toward like

clean girl aesthetic and wellness and everything like that. And now it's like slowly finding that like middle balance where you're like, do you know what? Like we can do a little bit of everything. Like, you know, there's there's pleasures in life that we shouldn't be totally writing off because they do scratch an it for us and they fulfill something for us personally. So I think, yeah, clean grill aesthetic, that like extreme way of living I think is out

in 2026 and we're going to find a little bit more of a balance and I think that that's going to come through in kind of product and creative projects as well where we're going to see a little bit more originality and color and vibrancy kind of injected back into

everything like from the brands that are coming to market and even activations and things like that. just going to be a little bit more fun, vibrant, creative, and less uniform, which I'm excited about. Yeah, I love that. It's kind of this lesson too. And, you know, yes, pay attention to the trends and what's going on. And you can implement some of those strategies that align with that. But at the end of the day, if you're not owning who you are as a brand, there's that disconnect in the long run, right? So that balance especially is really important. And I think to your point, and kind of the whole concept of this conversation is this idea of standing out and you stand out

by being different, even though Trend says one thing doesn't mean you can't do the other, right? So I just, I love that reminder. So thanks for sharing. Of course. Yeah. Well, this has been fantastic, Alice. Thank you so much for just joining and sharing just your personal story as well as the story of the brand.

But as we would close out here, I would love to just know where can we learn more about Fox's Bo? where can we connect with you online? Tell us all the places to follow along with you. Yeah, absolutely. So we're on all social platforms at Foxesville Whiskey. And then I personally am on all social platforms as well at Whiskey Alice. And if you want to try some of our whiskey, which is absolutely delicious, we actually just launched our little Foxville Whiskey Pouches, which are 100 milliliters, So like two whiskey serves, and these are available on our website, foxesbow whisky.com. But again, really kind of demonstrating what I was saying in terms of like being hyper consumer

focused. We were thinking about all of the places that people drink nowadays. And a lot of those aren't glass friendly and definitely aren't large format friendly. So, you know, we're thinking backyard barbecues, going to a festival, going to a game. And we were like, how do we create something that fulfills those moments for consumers too? So we created these first world pouches. So these are available on our website as well for people to try. But yeah.

Amazing. Well, we'll have all the links below as well. So please go check out Alice's channels as well as Fox's Bow. But Alice, thank you again so much for being here. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing everything with us. Thank you so much, Cassie. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Marketing Happy Hour. If you enjoyed it, make sure you're subscribed to the show and sign up for a weekly newsletter with insights and marketing resources.

We also invite you to check out the MHH collective, our community for marketers looking to connect, grow, and learn together. Check out the links in the show notes. We'll see you next time.