PJ Loughran is plenty familiar with dehydration. While working for Superfly, the company that produces the Bonnaroo and Outside Lands music festivals, he saw firsthand the rigors of long-haul partying.
“People start drinking in the early afternoon and keep going until the sun comes up,” Loughran says. Though water stations were plentiful, remembering to hydrate is hard when happy hour is every hour. “I kept thinking, it would be amazing if somebody created a Gatorade with booze or something that encouraged better hydration.”
He iced the idea until the pandemic when his entrepreneurial friend Jake Vogel, who worked in the boating industry, approached him to brainstorm businesses, including some trademarked names. “One of them was Funny Water,” Loughran says. Maybe it could be a nutritional water?
Better yet, Loughran thought, what about a lightly boozy water that could be consumed over long stretches of time by a beach, on a boat, or at a music festival? In 2021, the duo introduced the 3.75 percent ABV Funny Water, carving a new niche in non-carbonated alcoholic drinks that, unlike wine or most cocktails, aren’t too strong.
When people first try flavors of no-sugar Funny Water like watermelon, a common refrain is that drinkers “hate bubbles,” says Loughran, the company’s co-founder and chief brand and marketing officer. “They would drink this all the time, but they didn’t know it existed.”
These are interesting days for carbon dioxide. Drinkers fetishize crisp pilsners topped with foamy poofs, while hard seltzers still bubble across a $3
