If Tip Top Proper Cocktails had the resources, it would’ve released 11 new styles of canned cocktails this year.
While they settled for about half that amount, the team still argues that constant innovation is what makes their brand the most in touch with cocktail culture—and helps a small company like theirs carve out a distinct position in a saturated category.
Tip Top debuted in 2020 with a line of classic cocktails in 100 ml cans including the Manhattan, Old Fashioned and Negroni, all clocking in at around 30% ABV per serving. The Atlanta-based brand comes from music industry veterans and longtime friends Neal Cohen and Yoni Reisman. It was one of the early ready-to-drink lines to offer a premium look and feel, and encourage consumers to pour their libations over ice like they would at a bar. It helped that the cocktails were crafted with the help of seven-time James Beard Award-nominated bartender Miles Macquarrie of Atlanta’s Kimball House.
The lineup has since grown to add a gin martini, citrus-based cocktails like the margarita and daiquiri, a Bee’s Knees, a limited edition Jungle Bird, an espresso martini with Counter Culture Coffee and a Boulevardier. Their 11th and latest release is a mai tai, the first of six scheduled this year. That doubles the number of releases from 2023.
“We want to be the brand of unreasonable innovation,” said Cohen, who also serves as the chief brand officer.
Many of the upcoming cocktails include collaborations with the creators of these modern classics: a Naked & Famous crafted with Joaquin Simo formerly of New York’s Pouring Ribbons, and a Paper Plane and a Penicillin made with Sam Ross of Attaboy. A Whiskey Sour and a Cosmopolitan are on the docket too.
Like for most brands, limited releases have multiple purposes: trial, marketing, and in particular for Tip Top, creating a sense of discovery. Meanwhile, a few original SKUs like the espresso martini and margarita are volume-generators in the nearly 25 states where they have distribution (and aboard Delta Airlines). The espresso martini, a notoriously laborious drink for bartenders, has shot up to its third best-selling cocktail and served as a gateway for on-premise to bring in more of the lineup.
“We want to provide cocktail enthusiasts and cocktail-curious people with a great cocktail experience and part of that is having more options and having more to explore,” said Cohen.
At this point, innovation is “a huge, nearly sole focus” of the brand’s marketing, according to Cohen. That means press, influencer deals, asset kits and four-pack carton designs creating a brand world around each cocktail, as well as creating hype with distributors, are timed to a tee as they pace out releases. Which can create challenges.
“We have run into some hurdles and had to make some adjustments. Our first new SKU was supposed to come out in February and that didn’t happen,” said Cohen.
That was a mezcal cocktail, which was delayed due to the source spirit being stuck at the border. But as a smaller company of 25 employees, their nimbleness allows them to pivot release dates if needed or adjust other timelines without bureaucracy, which Cohen views as an opportunity compared to larger brands.
As for the metrics that qualify if a cocktail launch was a success?
“We’re still transparently figuring that out a little bit,” he said.
Of the three released last year, a cocktail known as an industry favorite, the Jungle Bird, saw demand grow within market and via direct-to-consumer, enough to become a mainstay in this year’s lineup. That intel also allows them to make projections for the next batch of SKUs, and the team has identified three of the upcoming lineup that they expect to be “volumetric home runs.” Those will get greater pushes into retail from sales teams, often presented softly as an added-plus for retailers who are interested or already selling the core SKUs.
The other 2024 cocktails, mostly the modern classics, aim to bring in new audiences that are not prone to drinking RTDs, “but are who we want to continue to prove to that we’re the brand that speaks their language,” said Cohen.