Dan Abrams is taking a deeper gulp of liquor media.
The media entrepreneur, who has built businesses such as the TV-news-obsessed Mediaite and the Law & Crime network, which was recently sold to the creator-fueled media company Jellysmack, is acquiring two specialized event businesses tied to liquor tasting in a bid to grow Bottle Raiders, a collection of sites that offer reviews of whiskey, tequila, gin and rum.
After recently selling Law & Crime “for a nice exit,” says Abrams, “I am looking to try to build now in the fine-liquor space.”
Abrams launched Whiskey Raiders, a site that reviews whiskeys and bourbons, in 2020, and has gradually added to it with new efforts targeted at other liquors. The sites aggregate individualized reviews from various publications — including its own — into one centralized location and assigns one average score
Now he is buying Whiskey Washback and Arte Agave, two event brands that hold eleven tasting events each year in New York City, Chicago, Austin, Miami, Houston, Dallas and Atlanta, with more than four hundred attendees at each. Many tasting events are either too formal or simply too big, says Abrams, who feels there is room in the space for a new model. His plan is to expand the number of events and locations, as well as offer similar experiences to companies and organizations.
The purchase, from founders Walter and Emily Easterbrook, is said to be in the seven figures. The duo and their team will become part of Bottle Raiders. “They have terrific relationships with a lot of the liquor brands and the people who work with them, and we think that can be very helpful to us in all of the other aspects of what we are doing,” says Abrams.
Bottle Raiders plans to launch a new app in June, says Abrams, : which will allow users to scan bar codes and tap into the site’s content. There are also ongoing efforts to build out a presence on YouTube, tapping the expertise of various liquor influencers and experts. “With this acquisition, we are sort of bringing everything together, which is events, video, an app and the web,” and scaling up a bigger presence in the category.
Law & Crime, which Abrams bootstrapped in similar fashion, sold to Jellysmack in October of last year for approximately $125 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Abrams declined to comment on the terms of that deal.