Abita Brewing and Canteen Spirits Team Up With Jason Aldean on New Teabird Hard Tea

March 30, 2024 – Country music singer Jason Aldean appears to be entering the emerging hard tea space with a new brand called Teabird. The beverage appears to a project of Canteen Spirits, and will be brewed out of Abita Brewery in Louisiana.

Neither Aldean or Canteen has publicly commented on the new beverage yet, but filings posted with the federal government this week show plans for two styles: Original, made with “real black tea and cane sugar,” and Half and Half, blended with lemonade. Both come in at 5% and will be available in 19.2 oz cans.

“When our Austin-based crew dreamed up the idea of crafting an all-American hard sweet tea, we knew it had to be as bold and soulful as a country ballad,” claims the company’s website, “Enter Jason Aldean, the Nashville legend whose tunes are as steeped in American as our tea is in its brew.”

That “Austin-based crew” is Canteen Spirits, which was founded in 2020 by Brandon Cason, co-founder and CMO of Waterloo Sparkling Water and Deep Eddy Vodka, along with Daniel Barnes and Caroline Fabacher. The company also has a line of vodka-based ready-to-drink cocktails by the same name.

It’s not clear what ownership stake, if any, Aldean has in the enterprise.

The registration on Teabird, however, is linked to Abita, and will be brewed out of its Abita Springs, Louisiana facility. The brewery was started by Jim Patton and Rush Cumming in 1986, and was sold to beverage startup Enjoy Beer in 2015. That firm was founded by former Mass. Bay Brewing owner Rich Doyle and private equity firm Friedman, Fleisher, and Lowe (though FFL has since left the partnership).

The malt beverages appears to have distribution in at least Tennessee, Georgia, and New Jersey, and will enter the ever-crowding Hard Tea category. The leader in that space, Boston Beer Company‘s Twisted Tea, has seen strong growth in the last two years, leading to challenges from several other players in the industry, including Arnold Palmer Spiked by Molson Coors and Voyage Hard Iced Tea by Great Frontier Holdings.