Energy drinks are one of the fastest-growing segments of the beverage industry, with hundreds entering the market every year, according to industry authority BevNET. The climate isn't unlike the booming '90s wine and cigar markets, when one-off witty or celeb-pitched productions fetched captivating profit margins.

Such is the enviable position occupied by Carolyn Hardy 18 months after Hardy Bottling Co. took over Memphis' Molson Coors Brewery. Maintaining a solid warehousing deal with Coors, Hardy's bottling/distribution deals with leading energy drinks could allow the Memphis MBA ('87) to prove her prediction that she'd see profits just two years out. After Coors shuttered the 1.4 million-square-foot plant in a consolidation maneuver, Hardy, a former vice president with Molson Coors-Memphis, announced her vision to take the brewery into its new pop-culture-darling of a niche after unexpectedly bidding on the facility with a group of partners and a $9 million investment.

The move made Hardy Bottling Tennessee's largest minority-, woman-owned contract packaging facility, with about 40% of the company's business based in energy drinks, according to Hardy. Industry experts are already impressed by the company's portfolio, which includes deals with solid players Rockstar and Monster Energy as well as newly buzzing products Crunk! and Jimi Hendrix Liquid Experience.

"There's a lot of demand and growth in energy drinks overall," says Jeffrey Klineman, editor of Boston-based BevNET, "but there's not too much room at the top for new players. If she's distributing Monster and Rockstar, she's kicking butt, [but] the long-term viability of products like Crunk! is less certain."

Hardy is running the plant at less than 10% capacity, but will be close to 50% by summer, with staff at nearly half of the 650 that Coors employed. To further boost production, Hardy has begun bottling Memphis, in a manner of speaking.

"Memphis water was always in my original business plan," Hardy says. Beginning this month, Hardy Bottling will start using existing pumps tapped into artesian wells to bottle Memphis water. The product will initially be sold to the military and to hotel chains, and later expand into the retail market.

Klineman believes it could be a profitable endeavor, "given the fact most bottled water is repurposed municipal water," he says. "It's exactly that kind of product that all these energy-drink makers are trying."

Hardy admits she'll need to educate the public on the fact that Memphis water does not come from the Mississippi River. (Although, a brown bottle of Mississippi River could be an interesting marketing angle in and of itself.)

"We have some of the best water in the world," she says. And if that's not enough, the Bluff City's bottled water will feature an organic filtration process she opted not to detail.

Growth is rampant at Hardy Bottling, but then it needs to be, considering the size of the facility. Hardy finds herself in a position that is the reverse of most new bottling outfits: there aren't likely going to be many jobs too big for Hardy Bottling, but there could be some jobs too small. All in all, a nice place to be.