Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Heintz.
Emily, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I founded Sèchey in 2021 after noticing that consumers wanted more sophisticated non-alcoholic options, but retail hadn’t caught up. After two decades in retail, consumer brands, and tech, I saw a chance to build a destination for premium alcohol-free beverages — the kind of discovery experience people get for beauty at Sephora or wine at a specialty shop.
What started as an online retailer shipping from my home grew into one of the country’s first dedicated alcohol-free bottle shops, in Charleston, then our own line of de-alcoholized wines and a growing network of retail, distribution, and brand partnerships. Along the way we helped thousands of people explore alcohol-free living and worked alongside many of the brands shaping this category.
It hasn’t been linear. We navigated supply chain issues, rising costs, and the realities of running an independent flagship store through a fast-changing industry. Those challenges pushed me to ask a bigger question: how could we have the greatest impact on the category we’d helped build?
That question led to our next chapter. Today, through Dryish Group, we’re moving beyond a single retail location to help the whole adult alternative beverage industry grow — building partnerships with retailers, brands, distributors, and media around merchandising, experiential marketing, education, data, and storytelling, while still bringing products to market under the Sèchey brand.
Entrepreneurship, I’ve learned, isn’t about holding onto the original idea at all costs. It’s about listening to the market and having the courage to evolve. My mission hasn’t changed — making it easier for people to discover beverages that fit how they want to live. The path just turned out to be much bigger than I imagined.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, but I don’t think building something truly new ever is.
When we launched Sèchey, there wasn’t a playbook for building a modern alternative beverage company. We weren’t just introducing consumers to alcohol-free wine—we were helping define an entirely new category that now includes functional beverages, hemp-derived products, and other alternatives.
Like many founders, we faced the realities of raising capital during a period of high interest rates and a much more cautious investment environment. As a female founder, I also experienced the challenge of building an undercapitalized business in a capital-intensive industry. Every decision mattered because we simply didn’t have the resources that many larger competitors did.
At the same time, we were investing heavily in retail. Opening our flagship store on Charleston’s King Street required an extraordinary upfront investment, including a security deposit equal to four months’ rent, significant insurance requirements, and substantial build-out costs before we ever welcomed our first customer. Those investments were made because we believed consumers needed a place to discover this new category in person.
Scaling nationally brought another set of challenges. Launching at Target was an incredible milestone, but it also required significant investment in inventory, merchandising, logistics, and operations long before revenue caught up. Distribution across the beverage industry remains fragmented and expensive, especially for emerging brands trying to compete with established alcohol companies.
Regulation has also been a moving target. Hemp beverages continue to face a patchwork of state and federal rules, creating uncertainty for retailers, brands, and consumers. Even alcohol-free wine is often regulated like traditional wine—in South Carolina, for example—which creates unnecessary barriers for businesses trying to make these products more accessible.
Despite all of those challenges, I wouldn’t change the journey. Those experiences gave us something far more valuable than a retail business—they gave us a deep understanding of the industry’s structural problems. That’s ultimately what led to our evolution into Dryish Group, where we’re focused on helping brands, retailers, and consumers navigate this rapidly changing marketplace. Sometimes the biggest obstacles become the clearest indication of where the real opportunity lies.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Sèchey was founded in 2021 on a simple belief: adults deserve more choices. Around that time, I was experimenting with eliminating alcohol from my social life, and I realized there wasn’t a trusted destination for discovering sophisticated alcohol-free options — most non-alcoholic products were buried in grocery aisles, with little education around what existed or why someone might choose them. I wanted to build the beauty-retailer equivalent for the modern beverage movement: a place where discovery, education, and community came first.
Today, Sèchey has grown beyond a retail store into one of the leading voices in the alternative adult beverage space, helping consumers navigate everything from alcohol-free wine and spirits to functional beverages made with adaptogens, nootropics, botanicals, and hemp-derived ingredients. We’ve never told people what to drink — just helped them choose based on the occasion and how they want to feel.
What sets us apart is that we’re category-first, not product-first. Instead of selling one brand, we’ve spent years building relationships across the ecosystem — emerging founders, national retailers, distributors, and beverage companies — to grow the category as a whole. We launched one of the country’s first dedicated alcohol-free bottle shops, built partnerships with retailers like Target, gave hundreds of emerging brands a path to new customers, and educated thousands of consumers through tastings and events.
As we evolve into Dryish Group, that mission is scaling. We’re taking everything we learned building Sèchey — consumer insight, retail expertise, merchandising, media, experiential marketing — and applying it to help the whole alternative beverage industry grow. Sèchey isn’t going away; it’s becoming part of a bigger vision connecting brands, retailers, and consumers around education, discovery, and choice.
If there’s one thing I’d want readers to take away: this movement isn’t about drinking less or more. It’s about the freedom to choose what fits your life, your health, and the moment.
What does success mean to you?
Success used to mean growth for growth’s sake—more locations, more revenue, more visibility. Today, I define success differently. It’s about impact.
For me, success is measured by how much easier we’ve made it for people to discover beverages that fit their lives, and how much we’ve helped strengthen the entire adult alternative beverage category—not just Sèchey.
It’s also deeply personal. Success means building something I still believe in, creating opportunities for the people around me to grow, and having the courage to evolve when the business demands it. Entrepreneurship isn’t about holding onto one model forever—it’s about staying committed to the mission, even when the path changes.
The business will continue to evolve, and I’ll continue to adapt. If we’re helping shape a better future for consumers, brands, and the industry, I’ll consider that success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sechey.com/
- Instagram: sechey
- Facebook: shopsechey
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyheintz/
- Other: https://secheynoir.com
