Southwest Florida may be better known for Gulf sunsets than beverage startups, but three local entrepreneurs are helping change what people pour far beyond Naples and Marco Island. René Armas, Joe Brady and Fil Adams-Mercer have taken remarkably different routes into the drinks business. One helped turn a vodka into a multimillion-case phenomenon. One solved an at-home cocktail problem and transformed it into a ready-to-drink brand. The third brought his English roots to an American audience through small-batch gin.
Together, their stories reveal something about entrepreneurship on the Paradise Coast: big ideas don’t have to begin in New York, London or Los Angeles. Sometimes they are built from Marco Island and Naples, then carried into bars, restaurants, retailers and homes across the country.
René Armas: Building Brands That Break Through
For Marco Island-based René Armas, the beverage business has been a career measured in decades.
Born and raised in Miami, Armas entered wine and spirits in 1993, working in Gallo’s sales division at Premier Beverage in South Florida. He joined Rémy Cointreau in 1997, rising from South Florida district manager to Florida state manager, then moved to Pernod Ricard USA in 2002 as a regional manager overseeing Florida and South Carolina.
The defining gamble came in 2008, when Armas left the relative security of the corporate ladder for White Rock Distilleries and a then-growing brand called Pinnacle Vodka. As Southeast division manager, he oversaw 14 states and became part of the team that transformed Pinnacle into a national success story.
One of its pivotal innovations arrived in 2010: Pinnacle Whipped, a whipped-cream-flavored vodka. The idea was unconventional, but consumers responded. According to Armas, the flavor approached one million cases in approximately 15 months and became the country’s leading flavored vodka. Pinnacle itself grew to nearly three million cases before the brand was sold in 2012.
That experience—spotting an opening, understanding distributors and retailers and recognizing when consumers are ready for something unexpected—became a blueprint for the rest of Armas’ career.
Today, he brings that experience to Durty Gurl Vodka as executive vice president of sales and strategy for Second City Distillery. Produced in Augusta, Georgia, Durty Gurl is positioned around a straightforward proposition: premium quality without an inflated premium price. By 2026, the brand was distributed throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, with Mississippi joining as the company pursued a broader footprint.
Armas’ connection to Southwest Florida, however, is personal as well as professional. About six years ago, he and his family traded Miami for Marco Island. Frustrated with Miami’s traffic and congestion, they also wanted a different environment for their youngest child during the pandemic.
The move has become a family affair. His wife, Laura, transitioned from teaching in Miami to working in the local school system at Tommie Barfield Elementary. Their four children have followed paths spanning law, sales, hospitality and guest services, including their youngest, Michelle, who works at Naples Zoo.
For Armas, Marco Island is now home base for a career that has taken him through nearly every level of the spirits industry. His story is less about inventing a single bottle than understanding how a bottle becomes a brand—and how a brand earns a place in culture.
Joe Brady: Making the Espresso Martini Effortless
A few miles north, Joe Brady’s entry into the drinks world began with a much smaller audience: his wife, Desirée.
She loved espresso martinis. Brady was happy to make them—until repeatedly pulling espresso shots, measuring ingredients, shaking cocktails and cleaning up began to feel like work. He wondered why one of the most popular drinks on a modern cocktail menu still required so much effort at home.
That question became Xtini.
After months of experimenting and taste-testing, Brady and Desirée launched the Naples-based company in 2023. The premise is intentionally simple: take the essential experience of a bar-quality espresso martini and make it nearly effortless.
Xtini combines real brewed espresso, premium vodka and vanilla into a pre-batched cocktail designed to be chilled, shaken and poured, producing the drink’s signature velvety foam without an espresso machine or a counter full of ingredients.
What began as a husband trying to simplify cocktail hour has become a scalable beverage business. Xtini now offers one-liter bottles, which make multiple cocktails, as well as ready-to-drink cans—expanding the occasions when an espresso martini can realistically be served, from home entertaining and brunch to sports and entertainment venues.
Brady’s timing has helped. The espresso martini has evolved from a cocktail revival into a menu staple, but its popularity presents a practical challenge for busy bars: individually brewing and constructing drinks takes time. Xtini’s proposition works on both sides of the bar. Consumers get consistency and convenience; hospitality operators can serve an in-demand cocktail more efficiently.
The company’s growth increasingly reflects that opportunity. Xtini has expanded into hospitality and entertainment venues, and Brady recently announced that the company had onboarded with Reyes Beverage Group in multiple states.
Yet its origin story remains refreshingly domestic. There was no grand plan to disrupt a category. Desirée wanted an espresso martini; Joe wanted an easier way to make one. The entrepreneurial leap was recognizing that countless other people probably wanted exactly the same thing.
Fil Adams-Mercer: English Heritage, Naples Ingenuity
If Brady’s idea was born from convenience, Fil Adams-Mercer’s Rivi Gin is rooted in heritage.
The Naples-based serial entrepreneur grew up in England in a family of seven with modest means. He has spoken openly about being dyslexic, leaving school at 15 and bypassing the conventional route to business success. He worked as a long-haul truck driver before taking a chance on opening a video shop. Eventually, he built four stores and sold the business. Ventures in parcel delivery and technology followed.
Adams-Mercer’s philosophy is uncomplicated: ideas matter only when someone is willing to act on them. He describes entrepreneurship as stepping over an imaginary line—the barrier often being less about resources than the fear of beginning.
Rivi Gin became his latest step across that line.
The brand connects Adams-Mercer’s adopted Naples home with his English roots. Rivi is distilled in England and bottled in Florida, and even its name carries a story from Lancashire. It references Rivington Pike, where a centuries-old beacon tradition became associated with communication across the landscape. A blazing beacon appears on every bottle, giving English history a place on contemporary Florida bar shelves.
Rivi released Raspberry Honey Gin in 2021, followed by Pomelo Grapefruit and an Original expression. Rather than relying on flavored syrups or added sugars, the brand emphasizes natural botanicals and distillations. Its Raspberry Honey expression incorporates honey produced by bees at the distillery farm, while the grapefruit version blends three grapefruit distillations with a juniper-forward dry gin base. The two flavored expressions have earned gold and silver recognition, respectively.
The result is distinctly transatlantic: English in provenance, Naples in entrepreneurial spirit.
Rivi has developed a presence in Florida restaurants and retailers, with the brand now available at Publix Liquors. Locally, it has embraced tastings, cocktail dinners and community events, including a Rivi-paired dinner at Nosh on Naples Bay that turned the gin into an ingredient as well as a pour.
Adams-Mercer has been coming to Naples for more than three decades and has lived here full-time for years. Rivi may be distilled across the Atlantic, but the business idea, brand-building and American growth story are firmly tied to Southwest Florida.
The Paradise Coast, Poured Differently
Armas, Brady and Adams-Mercer occupy different stages of their careers and approach the beverage industry from different directions. Armas brings the instincts of a veteran brand builder who has watched consumer tastes change over more than 30 years. Brady represents a newer generation of founders looking at a familiar ritual and asking how it can be made easier. Adams-Mercer brings the serial entrepreneur’s willingness to enter a new category and make heritage feel contemporary.
What connects them is an ability to see possibility where others might see a crowded shelf.
That may be the real story behind Southwest Florida’s growing drinks scene. These entrepreneurs aren’t simply selling vodka, espresso martinis or gin. They are selling ideas: that quality and value can coexist, that a complicated cocktail can become effortless and that an old English spirit can be reimagined for a modern Florida audience.
From Marco Island to Naples, their home base may seem removed from the traditional centers of the beverage industry. But perhaps that is part of the advantage. Here, amid restaurants, resorts, celebrations and a community that appreciates a well-made cocktail, there is a natural laboratory for discovering what people want to drink next.
And these three local pioneers are already pouring it.
“From vodka to espresso martinis to gin, three local entrepreneurs are proving that Southwest Florida can be home base for beverage brands with ambitions reaching far beyond the Paradise Coast.”