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Jeffrey House started in America with $1,000. Decades later, he sold Ace Cider, the brand he founded in 1993, to Vintage Wine Estates in 2021 for a figure he puts at close to $60 million. Within three years, the buyer had collapsed into what he calls the biggest bankruptcy in American wine history, and Ace nearly went with it.
On Episode 318 of The Exit, host Steve McGarry talks with House, founder of Thames America Trading Company and Ace Cider, about bootstrapping a category that had barely existed in the US since Prohibition, why he sold a business that was still growing, and what it was like to watch his life’s work unravel after the deal closed.
From importing British beer to owning a cider brand
House, who grew up outside London and worked in advertising there in the 1970s, moved to San Francisco and started Thames America Trading Company on January 1, 1980, importing Fuller’s London Pride and other British and Belgian beers. Cider came into the picture almost by accident: Irish pubs he pitched on beer told him what they really wanted was cider.
Importing taught him an uncomfortable lesson about building on someone else’s brand. As he describes it, a small importer has about ten years to market a brand: do a bad job and you are fired; do a very good job and the brand owner may move to a bigger partner. After losing Fuller’s and the Blackthorn cider brand to larger companies, he decided, “If I’m going to lose one, I’m going to own it.” He started the California Cider Company in Sonoma in 1993, contract-making cider from local Sebastopol apples.
Bootstrapping ahead of the market
Ace was bootstrapped. House sold some stock to a few people, and a local landowning family built a building for the company and gave it three years rent-free in exchange for 5% of the business. The company grew to about 60 people over its lifetime.
Being early, he argues, reduced the capital the business needed. House says Ace was the first cidery in the western United States after Prohibition, and in 1999 he opened the Ace in the Hole pub in Sebastopol, which he describes as America’s first cider pub. Ace moved into fruit ciders before competitors, and its pineapple cider, launched in 2013, became what he calls the number one fruit cider in America.
The bigger lift came when the category itself took off. From around 2010, Angry Orchard and large brewers and winemakers began advertising cider nationally. House says Ace then grew close to 20% a year, won Impact’s Hot Brand award 11 consecutive times, and by 2020 had distribution in every state.
Why he sold a business that was still making money
Ace had suitors, including Sapporo and the French agricultural group Agrial, and House turned them down. “We were making money,” he says. “There was no reason to sell it really.”
What changed was personal. House had a mild heart attack and severe depression, and worried that it could happen again and he “might lose everything.” He also felt the company had had an exceptional run. New York investment bank Cowen marketed the business for more than a year, drawing interest from Swedish cider maker Kopparberg as well as Vintage Wine Estates, a local wine group that had raised money through a SPAC and was growing through acquisitions.
Vintage promised an East Coast plant, more cider pubs, television direct sales, and 100 sales reps to add to Ace’s 20. House turned the first approach down, and had reservations about whether a wine company could handle a fast-moving packaged good like cider. When the figure reached close to $60 million, he decided the timing was right.
When the buyer fails after the deal closes
After the sale, House’s three sons stayed on, and he received a six-month consulting role. In his account, it soon became clear the buyer was not forecasting or budgeting properly and had high staff turnover. Within three years, Vintage Wine Estates had lost $400 million.
What took 30 years to build could have been destroyed in three months.
He explains why a consumer brand can unwind so fast: supermarket business disappears, product comes off the shelf, suppliers go unpaid, and there are no cans or cardboard to produce with. For a founder, he says, every day “was a bit tortuous.”
Trying to buy Ace back
House first urged his sons to buy the business back for roughly ten cents on the dollar, but they felt it had deteriorated too far. In his seventies and with health issues, he did not want sole liability for the investment the brand needed, including a roughly $3 million canning line and a new lease. He partnered with a private equity investor instead, targeting a $4–5 million purchase, and held the stalking-horse position in the bankruptcy until the final day, when a third-generation Anheuser-Busch wholesaler from Ohio outbid them. House decided not to go to $10 million, given the lost shelf positions and bad publicity.
He then offered to help the new owners. He served as general manager for about eight months and says he brought the business back “from zero back up to 50%” before stepping away, hopeful the brand will regain much of its position.
What other founders can take from Ace
- Own what you build. House’s move from importer to brand owner came directly from losing brands he had grown for others.
- Weigh the buyer’s capability, not just the number. His doubts about a wine company running a packaged-goods brand turned out to matter after the sale.
- Know what you lose control of. A consulting role after closing does not guarantee influence; House says his was largely ignored.
Looking back, his advice is simple: “keep on, keep on, keeping on.” His book, The Cider King: How I Aced It!, is available at ciderking.net and on Amazon, and you can connect with him on LinkedIn or visit Ace Cider.
