A liquor retailer proprietor can now run checkout, supply apps and distributor invoices from a single AI-driven system. A wine drinker can scan a label and see how different drinkers rated it. The cocktail bar, the place a bartender builds the drink in entrance of you, has seen far much less of that remedy, and a Dutch vodka model is attempting to vary that.
Enterprise Cash Is Transferring Behind the Liquor Retailer Counter
On October 6, 2026, New York start-up Santé introduced a $15 million Collection A led by FINTOP. CEO Darren Fike took a part-time job at a TriBeCa wine retailer to study the commerce, and he instructed AlleyWatch he observed that his favourite New York wine retailers ran on legacy methods that held them again. The corporate sells wine and liquor retailers an working system that covers receiving and ordering, e-commerce, supply app administration and advertising, with AI brokers that learn distributor invoices and worth slow-moving stock. Santé says practically 1,000 impartial retail areas use the platform, collectively processing greater than $2 billion in annual gross merchandise quantity, and that its enterprise grew 500% prior to now yr. These figures come from the corporate.
Denver-based Scotch assaults the identical market from the {hardware} aspect. Crunchbase Information reported in June 2026 that Scotch raised a $20 million Collection A led by VMG Companions. Its product combines point-of-sale {hardware}, fee processing and a back-office suite that handles state-by-state regulatory compliance. Scotch studies greater than $1 billion in processed fee quantity and progress above 500% yr over yr. The corporate was integrated in January 2024 and employs about 45 folks. Its CTO, Dan Chen, beforehand served as chief architect at Drizly.
Retailers purchase from distributors, and that step has its personal software program. In 2022, Provi and SevenFifty started combining their knowledge right into a single B2B market for beverage alcohol, itemizing greater than 1,200 distributor portfolios and over 700,000 merchandise with pricing, Bar & Restaurant reported.
Drizly provides the backstory for Scotch’s CTO. Uber paid $1.1 billion for the alcohol supply app in 2021, then introduced in January 2024 that it will shut the enterprise in March, saying it wished to concentrate on Uber Eats. Two funding rounds don’t make a market, however collectively they recommend traders now favor the software program that shops run on over the apps that sit between a purchaser and a bottle.
Discovery Apps Turned Drinkers Into Knowledge
Vivino and Untappd took the buyer aspect first. Vivino, which dates to 2010, studies greater than 70 million customers and a database of greater than 19 million wines. Untappd, owned by software program developer Subsequent Glass, widened its scope in November 2025 from beer to spirits, wine, canned cocktails, THC-infused drinks, espresso and gentle drinks, in accordance with The Drinks Enterprise. The app has logged greater than 1.5 billion beer check-ins since 2010, at greater than 1,000,000 bars, eating places, breweries and shops, and its drink classes have grown from 450 to greater than 900.
Each apps heart on the product within the glass. A score tells a model or a retailer what folks appreciated. It says a lot much less about whether or not the one that poured the drink knew what they have been doing, and venue-level scoring fills that area.
A Vodka Model Builds a Scorecard for Bars
Vodka Polar Bear comes on the knowledge query from the venue aspect. The model, primarily based in Hilversum within the Netherlands, sells a grain vodka that its manufacturing notes describe as distilled 5 occasions, filtered slowly close to freezing and bottled at 37.5% ABV in Schiedam, the normal Dutch distilling metropolis. It ships in 70 cl and 1 liter bottles, in instances of six, to liquor shops and the hospitality commerce, and it dates its historical past to 1985. On VodkaPolarBear.com, the corporate additionally runs Vodka Lab, a searchable data hub, subsequent to a library of twenty-two cocktail recipes.
The Cocktail Index web page states its goal in plain phrases. Translated from Dutch, it says you don’t drink a cocktail every single day, so while you deal with your self, it is best to do it correctly. In late September 2026, the model printed the tactic behind the index and its companion Mocktail Index. Every venue receives a rating from 0 to 100, constructed from 4 elements: providing (30 factors), craftsmanship (25), visitor experiences (35) and consistency (10). A rating requires a confirmed menu or different proof of the providing, plus impartial, drink-focused visitor experiences. The index additionally labels how robust the obtainable proof is: robust, enough or restricted. When info runs skinny, the rating stays clean. The index treats a clean as unknown slightly than zero.
The primary printed scores present the tactic at work. Tremendous Lyan, the bar on the Kimpton De Witt resort in Amsterdam, earned 92 out of 100: 29 of 30 for providing, 24 of 25 for craftsmanship, 31 of 35 for experiences and eight of 10 for consistency. Rosalia’s Menagerie Cocktailbar, additionally in Amsterdam, scored 82. Tremendous Lyan’s profile additionally reveals the blank-score rule in follow. A customer praised its mocktails, however the index says it doesn’t but have sufficient separate experiences to attain them.
The index is constructed for venues within the Netherlands and different European nations. Quantity one lists 21 Dutch addresses, most of them inside inns, and two carry scores up to now. The opposite 19 present the label “rating volgt,” or rating to observe. The venue profiles and the complete methodology are public at VodkaPolarBear.com.
Why a Printed Technique Issues
The weights carry a view of what makes an excellent night time out. Visitor experiences maintain the biggest share at 35 factors, forward of the providing at 30, so a robust menu can not carry a rating alone. Proof labels add a second sign: the index charges the proof behind Tremendous Lyan’s cocktail rating as robust and the proof behind Rosalia’s as enough.
The implication is that the label might matter as a lot because the quantity. A rating with a acknowledged confidence stage tells readers how far to belief it, which a naked determine can not do. Operators can learn the 4 parts as a guidelines of their very own: providing, craftsmanship, visitor experiences and consistency.
The Mocktail Index additionally sits in a class with actual cash behind it. Crunchbase Information reported in June 2025 that Athletic Brewing had raised near $250 million in fairness, and that world gross sales of non-alcoholic beer rose 9% by quantity in 2024, per IWSR.
Credibility stays the open query for any new index. Quantity one holds two scores, and the methodology article doesn’t but say how usually scores refresh or how venues are chosen. These particulars will matter because the record grows, as a result of readers belief a broadcast methodology most after they can watch it utilized persistently throughout many venues.
The Subsequent Check for Drinks Tech
Wine and beer have already got apps that inform drinkers what to anticipate from a bottle or a pint. The Cocktail Index applies the identical logic to the bar and reveals its working whereas it does. If Vodka Polar Bear retains including scored venues, the query for the remainder of drinks tech turns into who else will publish a way this brazenly.
A liquor retailer proprietor can now run checkout, supply apps and distributor invoices from a single AI-driven system. A wine drinker can scan a label and see how different drinkers rated it. The cocktail bar, the place a bartender builds the drink in entrance of you, has seen far much less of that remedy, and a Dutch vodka model is attempting to vary that.
Enterprise Cash Is Transferring Behind the Liquor Retailer Counter
On October 6, 2026, New York start-up Santé introduced a $15 million Collection A led by FINTOP. CEO Darren Fike took a part-time job at a TriBeCa wine retailer to study the commerce, and he instructed AlleyWatch he observed that his favourite New York wine retailers ran on legacy methods that held them again. The corporate sells wine and liquor retailers an working system that covers receiving and ordering, e-commerce, supply app administration and advertising, with AI brokers that learn distributor invoices and worth slow-moving stock. Santé says practically 1,000 impartial retail areas use the platform, collectively processing greater than $2 billion in annual gross merchandise quantity, and that its enterprise grew 500% prior to now yr. These figures come from the corporate.
Denver-based Scotch assaults the identical market from the {hardware} aspect. Crunchbase Information reported in June 2026 that Scotch raised a $20 million Collection A led by VMG Companions. Its product combines point-of-sale {hardware}, fee processing and a back-office suite that handles state-by-state regulatory compliance. Scotch studies greater than $1 billion in processed fee quantity and progress above 500% yr over yr. The corporate was integrated in January 2024 and employs about 45 folks. Its CTO, Dan Chen, beforehand served as chief architect at Drizly.
Retailers purchase from distributors, and that step has its personal software program. In 2022, Provi and SevenFifty started combining their knowledge right into a single B2B market for beverage alcohol, itemizing greater than 1,200 distributor portfolios and over 700,000 merchandise with pricing, Bar & Restaurant reported.
Drizly provides the backstory for Scotch’s CTO. Uber paid $1.1 billion for the alcohol supply app in 2021, then introduced in January 2024 that it will shut the enterprise in March, saying it wished to concentrate on Uber Eats. Two funding rounds don’t make a market, however collectively they recommend traders now favor the software program that shops run on over the apps that sit between a purchaser and a bottle.
Discovery Apps Turned Drinkers Into Knowledge
Vivino and Untappd took the buyer aspect first. Vivino, which dates to 2010, studies greater than 70 million customers and a database of greater than 19 million wines. Untappd, owned by software program developer Subsequent Glass, widened its scope in November 2025 from beer to spirits, wine, canned cocktails, THC-infused drinks, espresso and gentle drinks, in accordance with The Drinks Enterprise. The app has logged greater than 1.5 billion beer check-ins since 2010, at greater than 1,000,000 bars, eating places, breweries and shops, and its drink classes have grown from 450 to greater than 900.
Each apps heart on the product within the glass. A score tells a model or a retailer what folks appreciated. It says a lot much less about whether or not the one that poured the drink knew what they have been doing, and venue-level scoring fills that area.
A Vodka Model Builds a Scorecard for Bars
Vodka Polar Bear comes on the knowledge query from the venue aspect. The model, primarily based in Hilversum within the Netherlands, sells a grain vodka that its manufacturing notes describe as distilled 5 occasions, filtered slowly close to freezing and bottled at 37.5% ABV in Schiedam, the normal Dutch distilling metropolis. It ships in 70 cl and 1 liter bottles, in instances of six, to liquor shops and the hospitality commerce, and it dates its historical past to 1985. On VodkaPolarBear.com, the corporate additionally runs Vodka Lab, a searchable data hub, subsequent to a library of twenty-two cocktail recipes.
The Cocktail Index web page states its goal in plain phrases. Translated from Dutch, it says you don’t drink a cocktail every single day, so while you deal with your self, it is best to do it correctly. In late September 2026, the model printed the tactic behind the index and its companion Mocktail Index. Every venue receives a rating from 0 to 100, constructed from 4 elements: providing (30 factors), craftsmanship (25), visitor experiences (35) and consistency (10). A rating requires a confirmed menu or different proof of the providing, plus impartial, drink-focused visitor experiences. The index additionally labels how robust the obtainable proof is: robust, enough or restricted. When info runs skinny, the rating stays clean. The index treats a clean as unknown slightly than zero.
The primary printed scores present the tactic at work. Tremendous Lyan, the bar on the Kimpton De Witt resort in Amsterdam, earned 92 out of 100: 29 of 30 for providing, 24 of 25 for craftsmanship, 31 of 35 for experiences and eight of 10 for consistency. Rosalia’s Menagerie Cocktailbar, additionally in Amsterdam, scored 82. Tremendous Lyan’s profile additionally reveals the blank-score rule in follow. A customer praised its mocktails, however the index says it doesn’t but have sufficient separate experiences to attain them.
The index is constructed for venues within the Netherlands and different European nations. Quantity one lists 21 Dutch addresses, most of them inside inns, and two carry scores up to now. The opposite 19 present the label “rating volgt,” or rating to observe. The venue profiles and the complete methodology are public at VodkaPolarBear.com.
Why a Printed Technique Issues
The weights carry a view of what makes an excellent night time out. Visitor experiences maintain the biggest share at 35 factors, forward of the providing at 30, so a robust menu can not carry a rating alone. Proof labels add a second sign: the index charges the proof behind Tremendous Lyan’s cocktail rating as robust and the proof behind Rosalia’s as enough.
The implication is that the label might matter as a lot because the quantity. A rating with a acknowledged confidence stage tells readers how far to belief it, which a naked determine can not do. Operators can learn the 4 parts as a guidelines of their very own: providing, craftsmanship, visitor experiences and consistency.
The Mocktail Index additionally sits in a class with actual cash behind it. Crunchbase Information reported in June 2025 that Athletic Brewing had raised near $250 million in fairness, and that world gross sales of non-alcoholic beer rose 9% by quantity in 2024, per IWSR.
Credibility stays the open query for any new index. Quantity one holds two scores, and the methodology article doesn’t but say how usually scores refresh or how venues are chosen. These particulars will matter because the record grows, as a result of readers belief a broadcast methodology most after they can watch it utilized persistently throughout many venues.
The Subsequent Check for Drinks Tech
Wine and beer have already got apps that inform drinkers what to anticipate from a bottle or a pint. The Cocktail Index applies the identical logic to the bar and reveals its working whereas it does. If Vodka Polar Bear retains including scored venues, the query for the remainder of drinks tech turns into who else will publish a way this brazenly.
