About the desk · Staten Island, NY
That’s the whole job. Kettle & Lantern is a media-relations desk that only works with independent breweries, distilleries and cideries — here’s why we stay in one lane, the rules we keep, and what’s actually on the desk while your campaign runs.
Why we exist
Big drinks brands land press because somebody’s paid to make it happen every single month. Independent brewhouses, still houses and cider barns land press when a writer happens to wander in. We’re the bit in between: a desk that pitches only craft beverage, billed one launch at a time.
The name is the job description. The kettle is where your thing gets made — mash tun, pot still, cider press. The lantern is us, holding it up high enough that the right writer can spot it in an inbox with four hundred unread pitches.
We picked one category on purpose. Pitching only beer, spirits and cider means our media list isn’t rented from a database; it’s kept by hand and re-checked every campaign — who covers lagers, who’s gone all-in on non-alc, which regional food desk still runs a weekly drinks column, who left their outlet last month.
It also means you don’t spend the brief call translating. Decoction mash, solera, keeving, a rye that spent its second winter in a wine cask — we already know why that’s the story, and we know which writer will think so too.
We work from Staten Island, NY, but the list follows your distribution. If your cans sit in Philly and your bottles ship to Vermont, that’s where your pitches go. Local press when it matters, trade titles when the buyers need to hear it, national outlets when the release earns it.
If a writer has to email you twice for a hi-res photo, the pitch already lost.
House rules
Most of what makes small-brand PR feel like a bad deal is stuff agencies do out of habit. We struck these off the menu so you know exactly what you’re paying for — and what you’re not.
InsteadGuaranteed work: a release you approved, a named list sized to your campaign, and a coverage log with every link and reply.
InsteadOne invoice per campaign — $450, $865 or $1,400 — and it ends when the coverage log closes. No quiet months you’re still paying for.
InsteadEvery pitch is written to one named writer, with an angle built for what they actually cover. Their reply comes to you the same day.
InsteadWe taste it before we pitch it. If we can’t describe what’s in the glass in our own words, we’re not sending it to a writer.
InsteadBreweries, distilleries, cideries. That’s the roster. A writer who hears from us knows the pitch is about something you can pour.
Desk anatomy
Four things live next to the keyboard for every launch. None of them are glamorous. All of them are why writers keep opening our emails.
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Every release gets a page before it gets a pitch: aroma, finish, and the thing your head brewer said off-hand on the brief call that’s better than anything on the tech sheet.
We pitch from the glass, not the sell sheet. If it’s a hazy, we want to know if it’s juicy or dank. If it’s a barrel-aged rye, which barrel and for how long.
Everything runs on Eastern time. Lift is 6:00am ET on release day unless the story needs otherwise, and every writer on the list gets the same moment.
Who asked, what shipped, cold-pack or not, and which states your samples legally can’t go to — flagged before anything leaves your dock.
Style: earned media, drinks only
Is this you?
Fast-forward six weeks
It’s October — Q1 releases and Dry January stories are getting assigned right now. Send us the date and what’s in the glass; we’ll reply within one business day with the campaign that fits.