We recently connected with Maria Littlefield and have shared our conversation below.

Maria , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

We’ve actually won over 20 tasting awards since launch, and are nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in food and beverage this spring. When we started Owl’s Brew, we were shocked by what our competitors were using to make their products and committed to always using the best in class ingredients to make our boozy beverages. We make each flavor with an enormous amount of thought, craft and care. Jennie (my co-founder) still develops all the flavors in her kitchen.

However, this was not the simple path – and over and over we have been advised
to create our products the “easy” way, like everyone else. Most canned seltzers and cocktails are made in labs and at flavor houses, using chemical concoctions that are designed to mimic the taste of raspberries or mangos or pineapples and sugar substitutes
that give the impression of something sweet with bad after tastes..

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Jennie (my co-founder) and I met when we were working at a boutique marketing agency. It was during our time there that we started to wonder why we always felt so horrible after a drink or two… and why did everything taste so fake? We were shocked to learn that all these canned cocktails and hard seltzers were made with chemicals,
fake sugars and additives. This started us on our journey to founding Owl’s Brew. We believed that there was a better way to drink. Jennie was a certified tea sommelier and we started making cocktails (in buckets!) with tea and botanicals for friends after
work. They were light, refreshing and delicious, without any of that weird chemical after taste. We launched our canned version of our cocktails, Boozy Tea, in 2020.

A little bit about me! I’m originally from Martha’s Vineyard. I went to
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, and currently live in NYC. I have two young boys ages 2 and 5 months.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

What an interesting question! I have learned a tremendous amount over the last few years, but I think what I’ve had to unlearn is my attention to detail and my desire for perfection. While sometimes useful of course, you have to provide your team the freedom and autonomy to accomplish their goals. You will be surprised how
much more you will all achieve when you let go a bit.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

think about the word resilience a lot being a founder, because I think it’s one of the most important things that you need to develop. We launched our line of Boozy Teas at the top of 2020, and the entire industry and world changed just a few months later. It would have been very easy for us to just give up then. Our belief
in what we are doing and what we are building kept us going, but it hasn’t been a straight path. It’s required us to pivot multiple times and only now does it seem like we’ve begun to normalize a bit – or return back to a state of what we all consider “normal”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theowlsbrew.com/store-finder
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theowlsbrew?igsh=ZDE1MWVjZGVmZQ==