We built Barrel because we needed it.
In 2021, our co-founder Maren launched a wine brand called Hollow Pines. She had a great recipe, a great name, and $180k in seed money from friends and family. It still took her 14 months to get the first case onto a shelf.
14 months of cold-emailing co-packers who never replied. 14 months of quotes that came back in three different formats. 14 months of legal bills, TTB rejections, label reprints, and distributor ghosts. By the time the wine was in stores, half the runway was gone.
The infrastructure to launch a SaaS company — Stripe, Vercel, Linear — has collapsed startup costs by 100×. The infrastructure to launch an alcohol brand looks roughly the same as it did in 1985.
Barrel is the operating system that should have existed. One platform that turns an idea into a real product on real shelves — recipe, packaging, manufacturer, compliance, distribution.
We're a team of founders, operators, and compliance lawyers who've worked inside this industry. Every line of code we ship is informed by something that broke for us, our friends, or our customers.
Previously founded Hollow Pines (acquired by Constellation, 2022). Spent two years cold-emailing co-packers so you don't have to.
Built the marketplace infrastructure at Faire. Earlier: Stripe Atlas, Square Capital. ETH alum.
12 years at Southern Glazer's, then at Boisson. Knows every distributor in the country by their kid's name.
Former TTB attorney. The reason your COLA doesn't get rejected the third time.
We're hiring.
Engineers, partner ops, compliance leads. If you've lived inside the drinks industry and hated the tools, come build the new ones.
careers@barrel.co