Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg are expanding their gin and juice portfolio

Gin and juice has become much more than a song for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

The latest collaboration between the newly minted billionaire producer and the rapper-TV personality, new Dre and Snoop's Hard Iced Tea and Lemonade canned cocktails, have begun hitting shelves nationwide.

The non-carbonated cocktails (5.9% alcohol by volume, made with gin and juice) come in eight-packs of 12-ounce cans, two cans each of Iced Tea, Peach Iced Tea, Iced Tea & Lemonade and Pink Lemonade.

It's the latest expansion of the duo's spirits line that includes Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop ready-to-drink cocktails – flavors include Honey Apricot, Citrus, Melon and Passionfruit – and Still G.I.N. By Dre and Snoop, an ultra-premium gin, both of which came to market in 2024. New tall boy versions of Dre and Snoop’s Hard Peach Iced Tea and Hard Pink Lemonade, and Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop Mango (19.2 ounces each) are also headed to market.  

Snoop has already established himself in other beverage categories including THC and CBD drinks and wine. "I've put my name on a lot of things over the years. This is different. This is me and Dre's company. We built this," Snoop said in a statement to USA TODAY.

"Gin is a lane that doesn't really do well compared to vodka or tequila, so we saw an opportunity to come in and do it better than anybody else," he wrote. "We chose a lane where we could stand out and build something that lasts."

How did Dr. Dre and Snoop create a gin brand?

As with Dre's venture into headphones with Beats Electronics, Jimmy Iovine, who founded Interscope Records, had a big part to play. When Dre was considering a sneaker line, Iovine – his label released Dre's album "The Chronic" in 1992 – suggested making speakers instead.

That led to millions of Beats By Dre headphones being sold and Dre and Iovine selling the company, which included Beats Music streaming service, to Apple in May 2014 for $3 billion.

After Dre and Snoop performed at the 2022 Super Bowl – along with Mary J. Blige, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar – Iovine asked them why they had never tried to create a product based on the 1994 hit “Gin and Juice,” which appeared on Snoop's 1993 Dre-produced debut album "Doggystyle.""'Gin and Juice' has been part of who we are for over thirty years. It's our lifestyle, our culture. People have been asking us for years why we never turned it into something real," Dre said in a statement to USA TODAY.

"It's what we were drinking every day in the studio," Snoop said. "After all these years, it just made sense to finally build something together."

For Dre, "the timing just had to be right. I don't do anything unless I know I can do it at the highest level. When we finally decided to do it, we brought in people who knew how to elevate our vision. We’ve created great records but this is the first product Snoop and I have actually built together. That means something."

Dre and Snoop's team approached Patrick Halbert, Andrew Gill and Rocco Milano, all of whom had operated ready-to-drink cocktail company On The Rocks. Founded in 2015 and sold in 2020 to Beam Suntory, it has a spirits portfolio that includes Jim Beam and Maker's Mark bourbon brands and Sauza Tequila.

Halbert got an email "asking if we'd like to talk to Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine (a partner in the brand) and Snoop Dogg," Gill told USA TODAY. "We thought it was spam. ... Then before you know it, boom, pretty much the next day, we're on a Zoom with them and we were all in at that moment."

What they learned was this wasn't a situation where the artists sought to provide a celebrity spirit endorsement, of which there are plenty and "are sometimes hit and miss. This was completely different. It was really an organic and authentic company," said Halbert, who is now CEO for all three brands. Milano became chief revenue officer, Gill is chief strategy officer. "We thought we could build an entire gin portfolio."

For the Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop ready-to-drink cocktails, "we wanted something refreshing. Something that tasted like a new version of what me and Snoop have been drinking for 30 years. We grew up on gin and juice. This is that, but done right for everybody now," Dre said.

Dre was especially demanding about Still G.I.N.

"I told the team we aren’t putting this out until it can replace Hendrick's (gin) as my drink," he said. "We went through 15 iterations before I was satisfied and thankfully we got there or it would never have come out."

Industrial designer and artist Ini Archibong helped with the look of the cocktail cans, the Still G.I.N. bottle and a limited-edition HexClad cocktail shaker, unveiled in a commercial with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

Dr. Dre and Snoop's gin brand creating buzz

Soon after the Gin & Juice canned cocktails hit the market, the brand was the headline sponsor for Kendrick Lamar's “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends" Juneteenth 2024 concert in Inglewood, Calif. After the song "Gin & Juice" had played over the Kia Forum sound system, Dr. Dre came on stage to perform "Still D.R.E."

A Still G.I.N. commercial had Dre and Snoop meet Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. – with those family estates' blessing and the use of advanced digital technology including artificial intelligence – and when the brand launched in the U.K., Liverpool FC's Virgil van Dijk joined as a partner. Martha Stewart, who's joined Snoop at the Olympics, has made cocktail recipes using Still G.I.N.

"I've been thinking about getting involved with a clear liquor having liked a vodka cocktail every now and then. Then I tasted Still G.I.N. and it has transformed my cocktail making," Stewart said in a statement to USA TODAY. "The Water Melly was the first drink I made with the gin, and it was so superb and now I consider Still G.I.N. the new vodka."

The team's newest brand partner is Grammy winner Yungblud, who happened to be with Iovine and Dre for a taste test of the Gin & Juice canned cocktails and recruited to help launch the brand in the U.K. "He's got a fantastic personality ... and he's been around the liquid that's in the cans from the very beginning," Gill said.

Restaurants are interested in having the products on shelves. Among them: Applebee's, which began offering Still G.I.N. cocktail specials in February. Meanwhile, more supermarkets and stores are adding the canned cocktails to their shelves.

"We're here to offer something unique and innovative in this space and this is not just a celebrity endorsement deal," Halbert said. "It's exciting to see where we're headed with these brands."

Dre and Snoop have been "part of the evolution of this from the ground up, involved in every step, from creating the gin to selecting the flavors for Gin & Juice," Snoop said. "This is the only business I own with my brother. I get to watch this thing grow with him."

Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at  mikegsnider  &  @mikegsnider.bsky.social  &  @mikesnider & [email protected].