Kendall Jenner Bets Against Hangovers
Drinks Business / Analysis
Kendall Jenner Sells Tequila. Now She’s Betting on Drinks That Calm You Down
The 818 Tequila founder has taken an equity stake in TRIP, a London brand selling magnesium-and-botanical fizzy drinks that promise to take the edge off, and which says it will hit $200 million in revenue this year. One famous name now owns both ends of the evening: the drink that starts it and the drink that says you didn’t need it.
By Vim, Editor of 12×75
In brief
- On 8 September 2026 Kendall Jenner became a global ambassador and minority equity shareholder in TRIP, a London-based calming-drinks brand; terms were not disclosed.
- TRIP forecasts about $200 million in revenue in 2026, up from around $100 million in 2025, and raised $40 million at a valuation above $300 million in November 2025.
- TRIP launched in 2019 as a CBD brand; CBD is now under 3% of sales. Its drinks are non-alcoholic, built on magnesium and botanicals such as ashwagandha and L-theanine.
- Jenner still owns 818 Tequila, which she founded in 2021 and in which Sazerac invested earlier in 2026, so she now has stakes in both an alcohol brand and a brand positioned as its alternative.
Here is a neat piece of portfolio construction. Kendall Jenner sells 818, a tequila I have blind-tasted against every other celebrity bottle and which is, by the standards of that crowded field, competent. On Monday she took a stake in TRIP, a British drinks company whose entire proposition is that you can feel relaxed, social and slightly better than baseline without any alcohol at all. She will front its next global campaign, for a wild strawberry flavour, and she has bought an undisclosed minority of the business.
So the same person now has money in the drink that gets a night going and the drink that quietly suggests you skip it. Cynics will call that hedging. I think it is something more interesting, and more revealing about where drinks are heading: the arrival of the outcome drink, sold not on what it tastes of or where it comes from but on what it does to you. It is the same shift that has put alcohol-free cocktails in every British pub, the same instinct behind the rise of the pre-measured can, and the reason the six-pint night is dying. Tequila is an outcome drink too, of course. It is just less coy about the outcome.
FoundedLondon, 2019, by Olivia Ferdi and Daniel Khoury
SellsSparkling “calming” drinks with magnesium, ashwagandha, L-theanine and lion’s mane; also supplements
Started asA CBD drinks brand. CBD is now under 3% of sales
Revenue, 2025About $100 million
Revenue forecast, 2026About $200 million
UK net revenue, year to Feb 2026£50.9 million, up 132%
Last funding round$40 million, November 2025, at a valuation above $300 million
Distribution70,000 shops globally, 25,000 in the US, including Target, Walmart, Costco and Whole Foods
Jenner’s roleGlobal ambassador and minority equity shareholder; terms undisclosed
Sources: TRIP; WWD; Inc.; Just Drinks; Business Matters.
What TRIP actually is
If you have not seen it, TRIP is the pastel can that has colonised the chiller in your local Tesco and, over the past eighteen months, an alarming share of American ones. It is a lightly sparkling soft drink with a low calorie count, a wellness aesthetic and a short list of functional ingredients, chiefly magnesium, plus adaptogens such as ashwagandha, L-theanine and lion’s mane, that the brand positions as helping you “take the edge off.” The founders, a married couple who launched it in 2019, originally built it on cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive cannabis compound that was briefly going to be in everything. That did not last, and CBD is now less than 3% of what TRIP sells. The pivot to magnesium and mood is the whole story of the company, and of the category: the feeling the product promises stayed the same, only the ingredient doing the promising changed.
The commercial numbers are the reason a Jenner is involved. Inc. reports revenue doubling from around $100 million last year to a forecast $200 million this year, on the back of a $40 million round led by Coefficient Capital that valued the company above $300 million. UK net revenue for the year to February came in at £50.9 million, up 132%, and TRIP says only Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Monster gained UK shelf space faster over the past year. It has 25,000 US stockists including Target, Walmart and Costco, claims more than a billion social impressions in a year, and repeatedly tops TikTok Shop’s food and drink rankings. Co-founder Olivia Ferdi says the aim is to double again in 2027. The celebrity roster was already deep before this week: Joe Jonas, Paul Wesley, Alessandra Ambrosio, Ashley Graham, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley through her investment firm. Jenner is the biggest name and, per the company, a genuine customer first.
“I’ve been obsessed with TRIP for a while. It’s my favourite way to stay grounded and present in my daily routine; it tastes great and makes me feel amazing.”
Two drinks, one person, opposite promises
Put her two businesses side by side and the logic becomes obvious.
818 Tequila
- Launched 2021
- Sold on celebration, occasion, the night out
- Sazerac invested earlier this year
- A category that grew for a decade and is now shrinking
- Outcome: fun, and possibly a hangover
TRIP
- Launched 2019, US push from 2024
- Sold on calm, balance, the everyday
- $40m round at a $300m+ valuation
- A category doubling year on year
- Outcome: less edge, no hangover
This is not a contradiction; it is a spread bet on the same customer. The people buying 818 on a Friday are, by TRIP’s own data, the people buying TRIP on a Tuesday: young, image-conscious, prepared to pay for a can that says something about who they are. Jenner is not choosing between the two evenings. She is now paid whichever one you pick. And if you want to understand how a drinks portfolio gets built in 2026, that is the shape of it: alcohol for the occasion, functional for the routine, and a famous face on both.
The outcome drink
Step back and TRIP is the cleanest example yet of a shift I have been tracking all year. Drinks used to be sold on provenance and taste: a region, a grape, a distillery, a flavour. Increasingly they are sold on effect. Energy drinks did it first. Protein shakes did it. Prebiotic sodas did it. Now “calm” has a can, and the language on it, grounded, present, balanced, is the language of a supplement rather than a soft drink. The buyer is not asking what it tastes like. They are asking what it will do.
That reframing is exactly what has been eating alcohol’s lunch. The six-pint night is dying not because Britain stopped wanting to feel something at the end of the day, but because the feeling on offer got better-targeted: alcohol-free cocktails for the social occasion without the cost, the RTD can for the measured dose, and now a functional fizzy drink that promises the wind-down without any of the drink. The younger drinkers the alcohol industry keeps failing to reach are not abstaining so much as shopping for outcomes, and a brand that sells calm in a pretty can is competing directly with the glass of wine that used to do that job.
Why now, and why her
Timing matters. Tequila, Jenner’s first bet, is having its worst year in a decade: Brown-Forman’s tequila fell 12% last quarter, the premium end is deflating, and the celebrity tequila gold rush has run out of celebrities. 818 has done fine, reported at around $25 million in sales this year with Sazerac taking a stake, but the category it lives in has stopped growing. Functional drinks, meanwhile, are the fastest-growing thing on the shelf. A celebrity who built her drinks reputation on the way up in tequila is now diversifying into the category eating it. That is not sentiment. It is reading the same numbers I read.
Why TRIP wanted her is simpler. The brand’s growth engine is social: a billion impressions, TikTok Shop dominance, a product that photographs well. Jenner is one of the most-followed people on earth and, unusually for these deals, an actual fan on the record before the cheque. Ferdi told WWD the whole thing “started organically,” which is the phrase every celebrity partnership uses and which, for once, appears to be true. Her role is the US: TRIP is a British company whose future is the American market it has been building for two years, and there is no faster route into American culture than the family that invented being famous for it.
What it means for the rest of us
Three things. First, expect the celebrity money to follow her. Alcohol was the obvious celebrity play for a decade; the smart money is now looking at the sober-curious shelf, and Jenner has just made it respectable in the way her tequila made agave respectable to people who had never heard of Jalisco. Second, expect “functional” to become the next battleground for the big drinks companies, exactly as RTDs and no-alcohol were. If TRIP is doing $200 million as an independent, Coca-Cola, Diageo and Pernod will have noticed, and a well-priced acquisition of a calm brand is a matter of when. Third, and more mundanely: if you are the kind of drinker who is cutting back, and looking for something other than lime and soda, this is the product category that has finally worked out how to make that feel like a choice rather than a punishment. Whether a can of magnesium really does the job of a gin and tonic is a question you can only answer yourself. It certainly costs about the same.
Quick answers
What is Kendall Jenner’s stake in TRIP?
An undisclosed minority equity stake, announced 8 September 2026, alongside a role as global ambassador and the face of TRIP’s wild strawberry campaign. Financial terms were not disclosed.
What is TRIP?
A London-based functional drinks brand founded in 2019 by Olivia Ferdi and Daniel Khoury, selling lightly sparkling low-calorie drinks with magnesium and botanicals such as ashwagandha, L-theanine and lion’s mane, positioned as calming. It began as a CBD brand; CBD is now under 3% of sales.
How much is TRIP worth?
Its November 2025 funding round of $40 million valued the company above $300 million. It reported around $100 million in revenue in 2025 and forecasts $200 million in 2026.
Is TRIP alcoholic?
No. TRIP drinks contain no alcohol. They are soft drinks with added functional ingredients, and are sold in mainstream grocery and convenience chains rather than the alcohol aisle.
Does Kendall Jenner still own 818 Tequila?
Yes. She founded 818 in 2021 and remains its founder; Sazerac took a stake in the business earlier in 2026.
Do calming drinks like TRIP actually work?
Magnesium, L-theanine and ashwagandha each have some supporting research, mostly at doses and durations different from a single can, and evidence that a sparkling drink measurably reduces stress is limited. TRIP is best understood as a low-calorie functional soft drink rather than a treatment.
The last word
There is a version of this story that is just a famous person adding a line to a portfolio, and that version is fine. The one I find more interesting is the shape of the portfolio. For a hundred years the drinks industry sold one outcome, and it came in a bottle. In 2026 the outcome has been unbundled: fun in a tequila, calm in a can, energy in another can, and a single celebrity holding shares in the beginning and the end of the same evening. Jenner has not switched sides. She has noticed there are no longer sides, only feelings, and a can for each of them.
Tequila is an outcome drink too. It is just less coy about the outcome.
