Sazerac, the US drinks group that owns Southern Comfort and BuzzBallz, has said it has agreed to buy Au Vodka, the Swansea vodka brand known for its gold bottles, in a deal reported to be worth £500m.
The deal, first reported by Sky News, is expected to earn co-founders Charlie Morgan and Jackson Quinn more than £100m each. The childhood friends founded the company in their home city of Swansea in 2015.
Sazerac said in a statement that the acquisition would allow it “to deepen its presence in the UK”. The founders declined to discuss the deal.
The purchase is the latest takeover of a British spirits brand by a global drinks group.
Two years after launching the business, Morgan and Quinn accepted investment from the DJ Charlie Sloth, whose celebrity contacts brought valuable endorsements for the brand’s gold-coloured bottles.
The YouTube star Jake Paul had a tattoo of an Au Vodka bottle as part of a publicity stunt, and the gold bottles became a fixture of poolside parties in Ibiza and Dubai.
The company moved quickly into ready-to-drink cans as that market grew after the pandemic, developing a product that kept the distinctive gold branding of its bottles. In the UK ready-to-drink market, Au Vodka became second only to BuzzBallz, the brand owned by its new buyer.
In 2025 the company opened a new headquarters on an industrial estate in Swansea, converting an office block and filling the car park with gold-wrapped cars. Visitors were offered a nine-hole mini golf course with golden obstacles and balls.
Morgan told BBC Wales News in 2025 that he had set his sights further afield, and that the company was expanding aggressively into the US market.
“If you asked a 25-year-old target market consumer in America, would they know Au? Probably not yet,” he said. “So there’s still so many more people who don’t know about us. And I think we’re still driven to try and take over the world a little bit more.”
Morgan first came to public attention in 2013, aged 17, when he was working as a ball boy during Swansea City’s cup semi-final against Chelsea at the Liberty Stadium. The teenager fell to the ground as Chelsea’s Eden Hazard attempted to get the ball from him, and the midfielder, trying to kick the ball from under him, appeared instead to make contact with the youngster.
Hazard was sent off and later apologised. The incident prompted widespread debate among football fans, players and pundits about who was at fault. Ten years later, as the business grew, the pair reunited for a YouTube video in which they laughed about the incident.
In September 2025 the Advertising Standards Authority found Au Vodka broke advertising rules by inappropriately aiming the alcohol at people under 18 in a social media promotion, and banned an advert featuring a Love Island contestant from TikTok. The regulator ruled that the ads must not appear again in their current form.
