Bai Founder Launches Hard Soda Brand Crooked Pop: What the Celebrity-Backed Hard Soda Trend Means for Your Cooler Set
By Intentionally Creative11 min read
Listen to this article14:04
Every few years, a product lands that forces you to rethink a section of your cooler. Not because the marketing is loud — because the fundamentals are sound. Crooked Pop hard soda is shaping up to be that product for 2025. It's organic, zero-sugar, gluten-free, vegan, and built by someone who already turned a beverage startup into a billion-dollar exit. If you sell RTDs, this one deserves your attention.
The hard soda category is heating up fast, and it's attracting everyone from A-list celebrities to legacy beer companies looking for their next growth lever. That means more noise than ever competing for your limited shelf space. So the question isn't whether hard soda belongs in your store — it does. The question is which hard sodas will actually move, and which ones will sit there gathering dust until you mark them down.
This post breaks down everything you need to know: who's behind Crooked Pop, what makes it different from the pack, where the hard soda trend is heading, and — most importantly — how to make a smart stocking decision you won't regret in six months. Let's get into it.
The Billion-Dollar Beverage Brain Behind Crooked Pop
Who Is Ben Weiss (and Why Should You Care)?
Let's cut to it: Crooked Pop isn't another celebrity-backed hard soda riding a trend. It's the latest launch from Ben Weiss — the founder of Bai Brands, who built that company from scratch into a category-disrupting powerhouse in enhanced water, then sold it to Dr Pepper Snapple Group for $1.7 billion in 2017.
That's not a lucky exit. That's someone who understands how to identify white space in a crowded beverage market, build a brand consumers actually want, and scale it to national distribution.
If you're an independent retailer, that track record matters more than any influencer endorsement ever could.
From Bai to Bev-Alc: Why the Track Record Matters
Here's what makes Crooked Pop especially interesting for your 2025 cooler set: this isn't a cold start in alcohol.
Weiss already operates Crook & Marker, a zero-sugar organic alcohol line that quietly built distribution and brand equity in the better-for-you bev-alc space. Crooked Pop is an expansion of that established portfolio — not a gamble from someone learning the three-tier system for the first time.
The timing is telling, too. Crooked Pop arrives roughly nine years after Bai disrupted non-alcoholic enhanced water, which suggests Weiss sees a similar white-space opportunity in hard soda. The product checks four major "free-from" boxes: zero-sugar, USDA-certified organic, gluten-free, and vegan.
That's not a vanity project. That's a calculated bet from a founder with a proven playbook.
A strong founder story is one thing. But you can't sell a résumé — you sell what's in the can. So let's look at what actually makes this product different from everything else fighting for cooler space.
What Makes Crooked Pop Different from Every Other Hard Soda on the Shelf
The hard soda landscape in 2025 is getting crowded. So why should you care about another new entrant? Because Crooked Pop hard soda isn't just stacking flavors — it's stacking claims that no other hard soda on the market can match right now.
A Clean Label That Actually Means Something
Here's the short list: USDA-certified organic, zero-sugar, gluten-free, and vegan. Most competing hard sodas hit one, maybe two of those. Not Your Father's Root Beer? Malt-based, loaded with sugar. The typical flavored malt beverage in your cooler? Gluten is baked into the process.
Why does this matter to you as a retailer? Because younger legal-drinking-age consumers — particularly the 21-to-34 demographic — read labels before they buy. They're comparison shopping in your cooler the same way they comparison shop on Amazon. When one product checks every box, it wins the pickup. These aren't vanity claims. They're purchase drivers.
What Is Organic Super Dry Alcohol (OSA)?
This is where things get technical, so let's keep it simple. OSA — Organic Super Dry Alcohol — is Crooked Pop's proprietary alcohol base. It's not malt-based (like most hard seltzers and flavored malt beverages) and it's not distilled-spirit-based (which creates distribution headaches in many states). Think of it as a clean fermented base designed to carry flavor without residual sugar or gluten.
Expect a sessionable ABV — likely in the 5% range, right in the sweet spot next to your hard seltzers. That means no planogram disruption. It slides into existing cooler sets without requiring a new category conversation.
In a market flooded with celebrity names on cans, Crooked Pop is betting that substance sells the second can. For the retailer who watched Weiss turn Bai into a household name, that bet deserves cooler space.
Product differentiation only matters if the category itself has legs. So before you make room in the cooler, let's zoom out and look at where the broader RTD market is heading — and why hard soda is more than a passing fad.