Aug 26, 2026
Fingers boozeletter author Dave Infante joins the Brewbound Podcast
to deep dive Diageo’s ongoing restructuring and workforce slashing
under CEO Sir Dave Lewis (aka “Drastic Dave” for his reputation for
making big cuts at previous stops).
Infante shares insights from his reporting and conversations with
Diageo employees, many of whom wondered why the Guinness and
Johnnie Walker maker was so slow to adapt to the modern bev-alc
competitive landscape.
“The frustration that I heard from current and former Diageo
employees was mostly about why weren’t we doing this before we had
to start laying everyone off,” Infante tells Brewbound editor
Justin Kendall and managing editor Jessica Infante (no
relation).
“You don’t have to get to this point before you start pivoting to
RTDs.”
The trio also hit recent headlines, including Garage Beer and
Liquid Death tapping into the real world animosity around data
centers and BuzzBallz’s recent Pop-Tarts partnership.
Jessica offered a theory on the BuzzBallz-Pop-Tarts team up: “Kids
aren’t eating Pop-Tarts. You know who’s eating Pop-Tarts? Sad,
elder millennials who can’t afford anything else and want a tiny
treat. The moms who would be out marching on the capitol up in arms
against this aren’t feeding that to their kids.”
“They’re the ones who are intrigued by the BuzzBallz Pop-Tarts that
they saw on Instagram,” Dave adds.
“That’s definitely going into their Stanley tumblers,” Jess
says.