Episode Details

Beverage Chronicles New Beverage Launches, a Fresh Contributor, and Wine Made for Real Palates with Erin Redden Title: New Products, New Voices and Wine Made Welcoming We discuss a range of recent nonalcoholic launches, from hydration and sports-drink innovations to energy mocktails, protein shakes, craft sodas, cold brew and better-for-you beverage options. Contributor Jessica Gonzalez interviews ECR Vintners founder Erin Carroll Reddan about her small-batch California wines, approachable wine education and hospitality-focused tasting events. The program closes with a community-minded announcement: Denny’s Heroes is seeking nominations for local educators, caregivers, first responders, volunteers and other hometown difference-makers.. Gary Monterosso runs down a wave of new beverage launches and welcomes new contributor Jessica Gonzalez, who sits down with Erin Redden, founder and CEO of ECR Vintners, to talk small-batch California wine, wine hospitality, and shedding wine intimidation. New Beverage Launches Fill The Aisles Gary Monterosso opens Beverage Chronicles with a rapid tour of new products reaching store shelves, noting upfront that the show has no ties to any brand mentioned. He highlights Yesly's new dragon fruit flavor for its vitamin- and electrolyte-infused still water line, arriving alongside a new 12-ounce slim can, and Rockstar's cocktail-inspired Mocktail energy drink, offering mojito, piña colada, and berry spritz flavors with 100 milligrams of caffeine, no sugar, and 46 calories per can. He moves through Silk's first ready-to-drink protein shake, Jones Soda's nostalgic return with Crayola for a Crayola-colors six-pack, and Slice's new pineapple dirty soda. Monterosso also mentions Michigan-based Paramount Coffee's first cold brew line, Joe Knows Coffee, sold in four flavors. He rounds out the segment noting each product's website, keeping the pace brisk and treating the roundup as a snapshot of where beverage innovation stands heading into the fall shopping season. Sports Drinks And Hydration Get A Refresh Monterosso shifts to the sports and hydration category, noting BodyArmor's new Flash I.V. Caffeine Zero Sugar line, launching nationwide in pineapple passion fruit and watermelon punch flavors. Propel, fresh off twelve consecutive years of growth, introduces Propel Clear Protein, a ready-to-mix powder combining protein, fiber, and hydration, sold through major retailers and TikTok Shop. Gatorade, owned by PepsiCo, is overhauling its packaging and stepping away from its long-standing focus on professional athletes, organizing its lineup under a new Gatorade Advanced Hydration System built around specific use occasions. Monterosso closes the roundup with Plezi Nutrition, the public-benefit company co-founded by former First Lady Michelle Obama, which has relaunched Plezi Hydration as a next-generation sports drink made with real fruit juice and no added sugar, artificial colors, or what the company calls junk ingredients. He notes the product was developed in collaboration with Steph and Ayesha Curry, closing out the new-products segment before introducing the show's new contributor. A New Contributor Joins Beverage Chronicles Monterosso welcomes Jessica Gonzalez as the show's newest contributor, a New York City-based creative marketer and storyteller with a background in psychology and public relations who founded Jessica of All Trades. Gonzalez opens her first feature by introducing Erin Redden, CEO and founder of ECR Vintners, whose wines Gonzalez says she has tried and can personally vouch for. Redden explains that ECR Vintners is a small-batch California wine and hospitality company built around the palates of women, an idea born from years spent in the wine industry and drinking with friends in New York City. She recalls hearing millennial women repeatedly say they avoided California wine, expecting overly oaked whites and bold reds shaped by cheaper bottles common on the East Coast in their twenties