20 for the Next 20: Naehalani Breeland, Ola Brew

With a new kī-based spirit preparing to hit the global market, this co-founder and president draws on her Moloka‘i roots to keep the company grounded.

Naehalani Breeland
Co-founder and President, Ola Brew

For Naehalani Breeland, this may be the year when everything changes.

In March, her beer and hard seltzer company plans to release its original kī (ti) root-based spirit, ‘Ōkolehao, to its taprooms in Hilo and Kona, with wider distribution near the end of 2024. The distilled beverage has already won international awards, including top honors at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Breeland sees a global marketplace for the new spirit, which has similarities to agave-based products such as premium tequila, she says. She shares the vision of Brett Jacobson, the company’s co-founder and CEO, to have small distilleries dotting the Hāmākua Coast and kī as the state’s largest agricultural commodity.

Ola Brew hopes to be the catalyst for that growth. “The way we’ve innovated has been based on what we can source in Hawai‘i,” Breeland says. “Our North Star has always been agriculture.”

The company works with about 150 local growers, who supply crops such as ginger, lemongrass, citrus and coffee for the beverage line. Ola Brew also grows kī on its own farm and operates a distillery, both of which are expanding.

The past decade has been immersive for Breeland, who was new to the beverage industry. “She learned everything, from fundraising to corporate business development,” Jacobson says. “She’s quick, nimble and not afraid to get her hands dirty.”

Born and raised on Moloka‘i, Breeland left to finish high school at a Colorado boarding school, went to college at The New School in New York City, and lived in places as different as Brazil and the Pacific Northwest.

Jacobson met her in Northern California, where she was organizing races to benefit children with cancer. He sponsored her traveling team with products from his earlier venture, Hawaiian Ola energy drinks.

The partnership continued when he offered her the job of marketing manager, which turned into an executive role when Ola Brew launched in 2017 using crowdfunding. It now has about 4,000 investors, the majority from Hawai‘i.

With so many investors, it would be easy to take shortcuts such as sourcing cheaper ingredients from abroad, Breeland says. But she keeps the company “steadfast with our mission and our values and our morals.”

“I value her overall understanding of the impact that our decisions have on the community,” Jacobson says. “The corporation may be focused on the bottom line, but she’s always the voice for the community and the Hawaiian people so everything we do is pono.”