Anheuser-Busch is putting $1.5 million into the San Diego production facility of Cutwater Spirits to expand capacity for cream-based ready-to-drink canned cocktails. This is a spirits RTD investment, not a beer-brewing expansion. An official Anheuser-Busch newsroom page for the announcement is age-gated, so the details below are drawn from accounts published Nov. 13 by Shanken News Daily, Just Drinks, and Drinks Intel.
What the Cutwater Spirits San Diego project covers
Shanken describes the San Diego campus as the headquarters and flagship facility for Cutwater Spirits, with a hospitality component on site. Drinks Intel calls it a headquarters, production hub, and innovation centre, and sizes the campus at 50,000 square feet. Just Drinks reports that the facility employs more than 200 people and is the sole production location for the brand’s cream-based cocktail range. Anheuser-Busch said the project would add jobs but did not disclose how many.
The $1.5 million comes as part of more than $5 million in spending on Cutwater production across a broader manufacturing network, including recent investments that enhanced facilities in Los Angeles and Baldwinsville, N.Y., according to Shanken, Just Drinks, and Drinks Intel. Jake Kirsch, Anheuser-Busch’s president of Beyond Beer, said the investment in Cutwater Spirits would help meet rapidly growing demand. Drinks Intel quotes him: “This investment allows us to expand production to help meet rapidly growing demand for the number-one spirits-based cocktail brand in the US while also creating new manufacturing opportunities in Southern California.” Just Drinks also reports Anheuser-Busch calling Cutwater “the number-one spirits-based cocktail brand in the US.”
The same coverage names new and seasonal offerings around the spend: a limited-edition Gingerbread White Russian, plus Tiki Nog and a Martini Variety Pack, per Shanken. Shanken also says Cutwater Spirits is slated to receive a Super Bowl ad in early 2027.
The RTD numbers behind the Cutwater Spirits spend
The figures attached to this announcement come from different sources and time windows, so they are worth taking one at a time. Shanken, citing Impact Databank, reports that the U.S. spirits RTD space is now an 80-million-case category. The same Shanken item, again citing Impact Databank, says Cutwater expanded nearly eightfold from 840,000 9-liter cases in the U.S. in 2020 to 6.4 million cases in 2025, ranking sixth among all spirits brands nationally and third in the spirits RTD segment after High Noon and Surfside. Impact Databank, as cited by Shanken, projects the brand to grow 50% in 2026 to just under 10 million cases in the U.S.
Shanken, citing NIQ, says that in the four weeks through Oct. 31, Cutwater grew 13% in dollar terms in NIQ channels. Just Drinks, citing Circana data via the company, reports that Cutwater accounts for about 75% of the dollar-sales growth seen in the category. Just Drinks, citing Anheuser-Busch’s third-quarter results last month, says Cutwater revenue increased “in the high thirties” during the three-month period, and that in a July first-half earnings call, CEO Michel Doukeris said Cutwater revenue grew at a “triple-digit” rate in the second quarter. Drinks Intel reports that Anheuser-Busch says Cutwater is “more than 4.5 times larger than its nearest competitor.” Shanken, citing Anheuser-Busch, also says the San Diego Tasting Room & Kitchen has seen foot traffic rise 29% and net revenue increase 36% in 2026 compared with the prior year.
Just Drinks and Drinks Intel, though not the Shanken item, place the brand’s founding in San Diego in 2016, with Anheuser-Busch acquiring Cutwater Spirits three years later, in 2019. We have covered the San Diego distillery and RTD brand before, including its Open the Bar campaign and visual refresh, its IWSC 2022 mezcal medals, and a much earlier Council Brewing barrel-aged Pirate’s Breakfast 4-pack that used Cutwater barrels. For a recent look at the parent company, see our report on Brendan Whitworth’s departure from Anheuser-Busch.
The through-line is straightforward. Anheuser-Busch is spending to make more cream-based canned cocktails at the Cutwater Spirits flagship in San Diego, not to brew more beer there, and the trade coverage is what we have until the newsroom page itself is readable.
BEERALIEN.COM | Reporting on Earth’s finest craft beers from a galaxy far, far away.
