When Ryan Reynolds sampled Aviation Gin for the first time in 2017, an idea took flight.
“I kept ordering this same Negroni again and again, and I didn’t know why it was so good,” the Deadpool star told reporters in August 2018, months after buying a stake in the Portland, Ore.-based small batch label owned by Davos Brands. “It was because of the gin, Aviation Gin. I realized I didn’t need the Negroni. I just needed the gin.”
And he took that shot, he explained, because “we’re at the beginning of what feels like a modern day gin craze. Millennials are drinking it. Young people are drinking it. Not toddlers, but young people.”
Moreover, Reynolds quipped, “Like a lot of people, I’m inspired by George Clooney.”
As was Diageo, which also snatched up Aviation Gin and several other Davos Brands labels in a deal worth $610 million in 2020.
A hefty sum but peanuts compared to the deal worth up to $1.35 billion that T-Mobile signed in 2023 to acquire Mint Mobile, which to this day runs ads featuring Reynolds—a minority stakeholder—stumping for no hidden fees and customer-friendly pricing.
But the actor himself says he’s “no wizard” when it comes to investing, maintaining that his job is storytelling.
“If you look at a gin company, a wireless company and a Welsh football club,” he said on CNBC’s Squawk Box in 2023, “those things don’t really go together if you think about it, but they all have strong brand foundations.”
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