Above: The Dewey Crush is now available in more than a half dozen states with plans to expand to 15-16 states by next year.
By Kevin Noonan
Photos courtesy Dewey Crush
It started out as a good idea and quickly became a great idea.
That light-bulb moment happened in 2020, when Andrew Rigney was driving across country with his wife and doing what he does best — thinking.
Not Einstein-like thinking. It was more Shark Tank thinking.
Rigney, you see, is a self-proclaimed entrepreneur who specializes in the food and beverage industries, and he used that extended drive time to come up with his latest, and perhaps best, idea yet.
Dewey Crush.
Dewey Crush creator Andrew Rigney (l) convinced Starboard owner Steve “Monty” Montgomery (r) to let him put the Starboard logo on Crush cans.
Dewey Crush has become a popular canned cocktail, and that popularity came about quickly. That’s because Rigney is not just an entrepreneur; he’s also a marketeer. And he came up with the perfect way to give his drink a unique identity by linking it with the place that made it famous — The Starboard.
“I’ve been in the food and beverage industry my entire life,” says Rigney, who went to St. Elizabeth High and graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in food science. “My career has been half research and development and half in sales. So, I’m always aware of what the trends are and, looking at the market, I saw that seltzers were really exploding on the marketplace. From there, the next natural transition was to canned cocktails.
“So, I started to think ‘What the hell could we put into cans that would make sense?’ I didn’t want to make rum and coke or a whiskey sour. I wanted to have something that was a little more relevant and personal to me. And that’s when the idea of Dewey Crush came up.”
So, Rigney contacted Jarret Stopforth, a long-time friend and fellow thinker. The two have exchanged suggestions and proposals for many years and Stopforth, a native South African who lives in Seattle, admits he was skeptical when Rigney first outlined his newest big idea.
“I’ve been in a start-up space for a long time, building innovative food and beverage products,” Stopforth says. “I worked with Andrew Rigney about 15 years ago and we’ve remained friends. And he would always run ideas by me that he wanted to start, and I would shoot them down for years.
“Then a few years ago he called me about an idea. He said ‘Hey, you’ve got to come here. I’ve been thinking that with the advent of seltzers and canned beverages other than beer, we’ve got this local crush here in Dewey Beach. This is really the home of the crush, this amazing drink, and nobody has canned it. What do you think? Is it something we should look at?’”
Dewey Does It
Stopforth agreed it had the potential to be a winner and the two began the long process of developing the drink, producing it, distributing it, marketing it, and the million and one other things necessary for a start-up business.
And Rigney said from the beginning that Dewey Beach had to be a part of that process. That’s because the orange crush cocktail — a mixture of premium vodka, triple-sec, fruit juice and a splash of lemon-lime soda — made Rigney think about his younger days partying in Dewey Beach and, specifically, The Starboard.
That’s when the marketing half of his brain took over. Rigney, now 50, decided that if Dewey Crush made him think of The Starboard, then it might have the same effect on other people who have spent (or misspent) summer hours at the iconic venue owned by Steve Montgomery.
Paul Bauer and Andrew Rigney at The Starboard.
“From a marketing standpoint, how do you make your product stand out over everyone else’s?” Rigney says. “So, I ended up talking to Monty and said, ‘Hey, it would be great if we can use your logo on the cans, it would really help us.’
“And he agreed. We had a nonreciprocal marketing agreement with him and he didn’t get anything for it, other that the publicity and advertising. That really helped us sell out that first year quickly.”
Montgomery was happy to lend The Starboard name free of charge, since he knows the value of good publicity.
“I agreed to allow our logo on the can,” Montgomery says, “as any and all promotion of Dewey Beach is great for all of us.”
Rigney also credits David Stober for much of Dewey Crush’s success, as the Seattle-based COO of Dewey Beverage, Inc. brought experience and expertise to the marketing and distribution of Dewey Crush. That’s a major reason they went from selling 10,000 cases in their first year to selling more than 22,000 cases in 2023. And Stopforth said he expects that total to double in 2024.
A New Direction
Much has changed with Dewey Crush since Rigney’s initial brainstorm in 2020. For one thing, the man who started the company is no longer affiliated with it. When Dewey Crush’s parent company, Dewey Beverage, Inc., reached an agreement with US Beverage to market and expand the brand — Dewey Crush is US Beverage’s first spirits-based partner — Rigney knew it was time to move on. It was an amicable divorce and Rigney still owns a piece of the company.
“I was doing a lot of sales and stuff, and with [US Beverage] coming on with a guy who is an alcohol industry expert, it just allowed me to step away,” Rigney says. “I’m an entrepreneur and I want to get into other things. I love starting things. That’s the most fun for me. So, when we brought US Beverage on, it didn’t make sense for me to stay there.”
With the partnership with US Beverage established, Dewey Crush now wants to expand its market. And that means the iconic The Starboard logo has been removed from the Dewey Crush cans.
“The new firm that’s promoting them explained the confusion of trying to take it national with a small, local business on the can,” Montgomery says. “Instead, much of their marketing and social media will all promote how this started at The Starboard, and how this is where the Crush is famous from.
“We hope it continues to build the brand of The Starboard on a national level,” Montgomery adds. “And, in turn, getting that many more people to come visit us in Dewey.”
A Rush for More Crush
As for the Orange Crush itself, Montgomery says it’s gotten better and more popular, along with its citrus cousin, Lemon Crush.
“The canned cocktails are a hit, and this latest version of Dewey Crush, I think, is much better,” he says. “They’ve taken out some of the juice, so it’s all-around better tasting than ever.”
And even though Montgomery is no longer even unofficially associated with Dewey Crush, he’s still willing to have his empire be associated with the drink.
“We make great drinks here at The Starboard, so selling canned cocktails isn’t really our thing,” Montgomery says. “But anything to promote the town is why I’m on board to help out in this small way.”
As for the future of Dewey Crush, Stopforth says Dewey Beverage, Inc. has big plans, mainly because of its partnership with US Beverage, Inc. and the clout it brings in marketing and distribution.
“We want it to go beyond being just a seasonal drink,” Stopforth says. “We’re in 8-10 states this year and should grow to 15-16 states next year. The Northeast and the warm-weather states are our main focus right now.
“But we also want to hold onto what got us started and what made us successful, and that’s our association with Dewey Beach and The Starboard. No matter how much we expand, that will always be at the heart of what we do.”
