Building Functional Beverage Brands Through Creative Partnerships

About this episode

This episode explores the innovative collaboration behind Coco Flow, a functional beverage, and the strategies for building beverage brands through creative partnerships.

What happens when a craft beer veteran brings creative collaboration into the functional beverage space? In this episode of Free Spirits , Lars Miller and David Gonzalez sit down with Spencer Ploessl, an independent creative consultant and advisor at CannaConnect, to talk about the origin and future of Coco Flow—a coconut water-based functional beverage born from a unique collaboration between CannaConnect and Back Channel Brewing. Spencer’s background spans two decades in craft beverage branding, sales, and distribution. Drawing on lessons from the beer industry—grain-to-glass education, collaboration brews, and taproom innovation—he now helps brands reimagine what’s possible in the adult beverage space. This episode dives into: How Coco Flow blends multiple functional ingredients like coconut water, pineapple, lemongrass, and sea salt for hydration and recovery The strategy behind building a beverage brand through grassroots marketing and collaboration, not paid media What it takes to align creative direction, formulation, and business operations across multiple partners How product launches in the functional drinks space differ from traditional beverage business models Why…

People in this episode

Hosts: Lars Miller, David Gonzalez

Guest: Spencer Ploessl

Topics covered

• functional beverages
• creative partnerships
• beverage branding
• grassroots marketing
• product launches
• consumer education

Keywords

• functional ingredients
• hydration
• collaboration
• limited-edition drops
• flavor development
• adult beverages

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CannaConnect, Back Channel Brewing

Products: Coco Flow

More episodes of Free Spirits: Insights on Functional Beverages

• Inside the Growth Strategy of a Premium Functional Beverage Brand · January 5, 2026 · 32 min
• Building a Functional Beverage Brand with Retail Strategy and Plant-Based Innovation | Peter Olander · December 4, 2025 · 24 min
• Emergency Podcast: What the Federal Crackdown Means for Functional Beverages · November 13, 2025 · 23 min
• Real-World Data and the Future of Functional Beverages · October 17, 2025 · 41 min
• Scaling a Multi-Brand Functional Beverage Platform with Evan Eneman of Iconic Tonics · October 3, 2025 · 43 min
• Inside Boston Beer’s THC Beverage Play: Innovation, Operations, and the Future of Adult Drinks · September 16, 2025 · 37 min