ARMADA, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 2, 2026--
From hard cider and ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails to zero-proof innovation and beyond-beer disruption, Blake’s Beverage Company is doubling down on growth, and bringing in proven leadership to help fuel it. The company today announced the appointment of Amanda Gleason as Chief Sales Officer, a newly established role designed to unify and accelerate sales strategy across Blake’s rapidly expanding national portfolio.
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In her new role, Gleason will oversee a unified national sales strategy spanning the company’s three brand families: Blake's Hard Cider, Austin Eastciders and Avid Cider Co. A key priority for Gleason will be expanding the company’s distributor footprint and strengthening route-to-market execution nationwide. Blake’s Beverage Company currently works with more than 240 distributors across 44 states and continues to identify strategic opportunities to grow share and visibility in priority and white-space markets.
“Blake’s Beverage Company is entering its next era of growth with a sharpened focus on national expansion, portfolio development and channel innovation. Amanda brings exactly the kind of commercial leadership and growth mindset we need as we continue scaling Blake’s Beverage Company nationally,” said Andrew Blake, founder and CEO of Blake’s Beverage Company. “She understands how to build momentum across complex portfolios, strengthen distributor partnerships and unlock growth in evolving beverage channels. Just as importantly, she shares our belief that brands win when they stay authentic, consumer-focused and relentlessly innovative.”
In addition to leading national sales operations, Gleason will architect the company’s total portfolio strategy, helping position its premium, value, regional and innovation-driven offerings to drive deeper penetration across underdeveloped channels, particularly in convenience, where the company sees significant long-term opportunity across multiple price tiers and occasions.
By capitalizing on emerging beverage platforms, Blake’s is well-positioned for continued growth. These platforms include Blake’s Zero Proof, the company’s fast-growing non-alcoholic line crafted for modern drinking occasions, and Giddy Up, its recently launched spirit-forward punch brand designed to meet rising demand for bold, flavor-driven RTD experiences. The company is also preparing for the Summer 2026 launch of Shore Thing.
"Blake's Beverage Company has built a portfolio with real authenticity, strong consumer appeal, and significant runway for growth," said Gleason. "I was drawn to the company's entrepreneurial spirit, its willingness to think differently, and the opportunity to help scale the business nationally through strong distributor partnerships and disciplined execution in the market."
Gleason will also lead a comprehensive assessment of the company’s distribution network with an eye to strengthening distributor alignment and improving velocity in high-priority markets as Blake’s Beverage Company continues its rapid national growth trajectory.
Gleason joins Blake’s Beverage Company from Constellation Brands, where she served as Senior Vice President leading commercial performance across a 15-state footprint.
Founded on a family orchard in Armada, Blake’s Beverage Company has evolved into one of the nation’s fastest-growing independent beverage platforms, with a portfolio spanning hard cider, ready-to-drink cocktails, non-alcoholic beverages and emerging beyond-beer innovation.
About Blake’s Beverage Company
Blake’s Beverage Company is a leading craft beverage producer with a family of brands committed to quality, innovation and authentic fruit-forward flavor. With roots on a 1,000- acre orchard in Armada, Mich., Blake’s Beverage Company now includes Blake’s Hard Cider, Austin Eastciders and AVID Cider Co. As the company continues to expand its national footprint, Blake’s Beverage Company remains grounded in its farm crafted origins – bringing bold, fruit-forward beverages to consumers across the country.
Amanda Gleason, new Chief Sales Officer at Blake's Beverage Company
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, as tensions flared in Israel's separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The halt in communication was likely meant to increase pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there's no guarantee of reaching "a deal that’s acceptable.”
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, come as the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon have increasingly become conjoined. Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon, where Hezbollah remains one of Iran's chief allies in its self-described “axis of resistance” against Israel.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.
Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.
Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.
Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.
Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.
“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.
Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.
A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.
The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.
Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.
The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.
“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”
Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.
"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo)
A nurse looks through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital into a destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
