Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, August 4th. Today on Forbes, how Surfside became the

fastest growing alcohol brand in America. The backstory of Surfside, this summer's most popular

ready-to-drink spirits beverage, starts with trash, and particularly what vodka entrepreneur Matt Quigley noticed on the streets

of Philadelphia. A lot of discarded bottles of iced tea. Quigley, the 41-year-old president of

Pennsylvania-based stateside brands, says, quote, people just don't naturally digest their

surroundings enough. If you look at what is smashed on the curve and the street,

I'll tell you a lot about what the people of your city are actually drinking.

And in Philadelphia, that means it's a ridiculous amount of iced tea.

You'll find twisted tea, yes, but you'll also find snapples and a lot of other brands.

Quigley brought the idea to his business partner Clement Pappas,

stateside's 51-year-old CEO, and they set out to produce alcoholic iced teas and lemonade

to compete with hard celtzers and other canned drinks, as better few versions of the classic

twisted tea or Mike's Hard Lemonade. And now with Surfside in its third summer on the market,

customers are crushing Surfside after Surfside,

especially along the beaches of the Northeast Coast.

So far this summer, Surfside cans were the fastest growing of any beer

or ready to drink cocktail, or RTD cocktail,

with an increase of $70 million

in retail sales year to date.

In July, Surfside hit the milestone of topping 5 million cases sold in 2025, besting

what sold for all of last year.

Pappas tells Forbes, quote, I've been on a flat-out sprint for three plus years now, trying to keep pace with it.

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