Issue #3: Canned Cocktails near the Tip Top
Editor’s Note: Wooooops, it was scheduled for Sunday, which would have made it Sunday Sips. But I caught it!
When I meet a University of Michigan grad who says he’s not much into the “sports cult” of the school, I appreciate it.
That’s where today’s interview starts with Neal Cohen, co-founder of Tip Top Proper Cocktails.
The little canned cocktails are fantastic, and I’ve been a fan since trying them a few years ago. Well, now they’re in Michigan, so I got to chat with Neal about his journey to starting the company and where it can go from here.
His quote about his time at Michigan got me good:
“It was fun for four years, I don’t get too much into the jabbing [with MSU and OSU fans]. I worked at Zingerman’s for two years and got a hell of an education from the training and some of the most phenomenal food products in the world and selling them. That was much more impactful, or at least as impactful as that very expensive school.”
Big cocktails in small cans
In the world of ever-expanding ready-to-drink beverages, it can be hard to stand out.
But there’s something about Tip Top Proper Cocktails that will catch your eye. It starts with a little can and a top hat-wearing giraffe. And it builds on that with incredibly clean design and highlighting exactly what it is:
A classic cocktail, “Always balanced, never too sweet.”
The 100mL cans list out the few ingredients, like in the Old Fashioned, which clocks in at 37% alcohol by volume:
Whiskey
Sugar
Bitters
Co-founders Neal Cohen and Yoni Reisman were both in the music industry before jumping into the world of cocktails. The lifelong best friends were on various paths, Cohen with Superfly, producers of music festivals like Bonnaroo, and Reisman a founder of Governor’s Ball in New York City.
As they advanced out of those stops, they identified a white space in the festival world: solid cocktails.
Another childhood friend, a founder of Georgia’s Creature Comforts Brewing, David Stein, pointed them toward Miles Macquarrie at Georgia’s Kimball House. Macquarrie himself is a seven-time James Beard Award nominee.
“We needed that expertise,” Cohen said. “We’re not coming from the cocktail industry, and it’s been great to identify the places we don’t have experience and find great people to come in and provide that to this brand.
“Miles, being such a scholar of classic cocktails, he was really intrigued by being able to provide us true-to-form classic cocktails to anyone, anywhere.”
It took two years of plowing through everything it took to launch an alcohol brand, including legal and compliance, branding and distribution.
Eventually, they launched in September 2019.
“What we had seen, in looking at the prepared cocktail space, there wasn’t anything that struck us as coming from a place of people who spent time in great cocktail bars,” Cohen said. “A lot of it was cheap, overly sweet, quick buzz type of products. What we were doing, very intentionally, was ensuring we spoke the language of those people who spend time in great cocktail bars.
“That category of people had rightly dismissed the category at that state. With what we were bringing to the market, we wanted people to know we knew what was up.”
The company rolled out the “trifecta” of bitter, stirred cocktails: Old Fashioned, Manhattan and Negroni.
Cohen said they felt those cocktails in the “sophisticated, iconic designed” cans that took cues from classic cocktail books would resonate with serious-minded cocktail drinkers.
The brand has since expanded to include another eight cocktails. Those are:
Gin Martini
Boulevardier
Margarita
Bee’s Knees
Espresso Martini
Jungle Bird
Daiquiri
Mai Tai
But they aren’t stopping at those. Cohen said five other cocktails might be unveiled this year: Cosmopolitan, Whiskey Sour, Naked and Famous, Penicillin and Paper Plane.
They’re working to make sure a home drinker can find cocktail bar quality at the liquor store.
“When you go to develop a cocktail, we always start with Miles making his gold standard of what that ought to taste like,” Cohen said. “We taste it, make sure it aligns with what we hope and identify the spirit that will work for the quality and costs we need to meet.
“One of the things we’ll do in that process is continue to pull back on sugar content until we go to a point we’ve gone too far and it’s too lean and drop back to a nice acid-sugar balance. Ensuring we’re really loyal to that promise of Always Balanced: Never Too Sweet.”
But once those cocktails are out, it does not mean Tip Top isn’t working to make them even better.
They’ve recently re-released their margarita.
“We were living with it and drinking it and getting feedback, and we noticed it was a little sharp,” he said. “The tequila and acidity were poking out and margarita is a drink you don’t want to think about, one you sip and waste away. So we adjusted the formula. We never rest on our laurels. If something needs adjustment, we will even if it’s painful. “
For three of the upcoming “modern classic cocktails,” they’ve partnered with their creators, Joaquín Simó for the Naked and Famous and Sam Ross for the Penicillin and Paper Plane.
While they set out looking to help fill a white space in the music festival world, that route has, at least in part, been blocked by major spirit sponsorships. But that’s OK.
Tip Top can be found on Delta Airlines flights and, while off-premise sales are their bread and butter, they’re also looking to expand into the travel segment, think hotels.
“Of course everyone thinks mini bar, but larger chains have phased those out,” Cohen said. “What they have instead are grab and go convenience stores. We’ve had a ton of success in those. Then working with room service, you can have it delivered separate from ice, so it’s not watered down already when it gets to the room.”
Beyond that, they see success in places that might be short-staffed but want to have great cocktails on hand.
In Michigan, Cohen sees marinas and liquor stores near marinas as likely success stories.
“As lake life heats up, it will be exciting to see how our brand works,” he said, referencing the no-glass rules at many water access areas.
Tip Top has not led me astray with their cocktails, and Cohen likes the pipeline they have to work with.
“The way we’re looking at it, these cocktails have always been in demand, we’re just making them available,” he said. “You don’t have to do a lot of market research to know people love these flavor profiles. Until we deliver on classics as a category, we have no business exploring new flavor profiles. We have 200 years of cocktail history behind us, why put lemon grass in our gimlets.”
One Last Question with Neal Cohen
Pat: Besides your brand, what are you drinking?
Neal: Mostly cocktails. There’s just so much to draw from. But I do find I’ll often go to a bitter aperitif with soda and a squeeze of citrus. I wish there was more in the canned cocktail world that met that desire, and it’s outside our sweet spot, but a carbonated bitter aperitif soda, I’d be crushing that.
It’d be interesting to see it as an American audience that is getting accustomed to that, specifically Aperol spritzes which are very much training wheels. But I’ll take an amaro and soda and citrus any day.
Literary Libations
Hi, Alyssa here! This is Literary Libations, where each week I share a book and beverage pairing because a good book deserves to be accompanied by a good drink.
This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune
It is June 1… which means we are officially in the midst of SUMMER BEACH READ SEASON! I just finished reading This Summer Will be Different by Carley Fortune, which had all the makings of what you want in a beach read — a steamy forbidden romance between loveable characters in a coastal setting.
This story takes place on PEI, and oysters and vinho verde are mentioned probably 50 times. I (very originally) am providing you with a vinho verde spritzer recipe! If you haven’t tried the Espiral Vinho Verde from Trader Joe’s, I highly encourage you to do so. It’s a steal at $5 a bottle; we keep it stocked at our house all summer long.
Lucy’s Vinho Verde Spritzer
Bottle of chilled vinho verde
Soda water
Lemon slices
Lime slices
Method: Fill a wine glass with ice. Pour in your chilled vinho verde. Top with soda water. Garnish with lemon and lime slices.
Great News of the week!
As with any lover of history who also enjoys a beer, Anchor Brewing holds a special place in my heart. Last year, news of its closure was devastating.
Two of my favorite beverage writing career moments include the San Francisco beer company. One was a chat with Mark Carpenter, a brewer who’d worked at Anchor since 1971. Another was a trip to the brewery in 2018.
Well, it’s staying alive! Thanks to the billionaire founder of Chobani, read about it here in Axios San Francisco.
What Pat’s Drinking
Well, I luckily was able to sip on a few Tip Top cocktails the past week or so, including the Negroni, Manhattan and Mai Tai. They were all… tip top.
I also tasted Surfside while golfing, a easy drinking vodka and tea or lemonade beverage. It clocks in at 100 calories, 2g of sugar and 4.5% ABV. The half and half tastes exactly like an Arnold Palmer should.