The Cold New Thing - Ready to Drink Cocktails
Can the “lightning in a bottle” that is an artfully crafted, hand-mixed cocktail really be captured in a can?
Like many folks with what I consider an advanced palate (or at least thirst) for all things spirited, I have always loathed canned cocktails. The ones I had been persuaded to try were all grossly sweet, malty concoctions mass-produced by goliath liquor companies. Besides, for a good number of years I was happily mixing up my own cocktails utilizing the Bay Area’s best spirits, seasonal fruits and botanicals right in my own Bolinas kitchen overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Then I moved to southern Missouri during the pandemic, and everything “dried up”—literally.
A little over a year later, I am still yearning for the high-quality, locally produced food and drink I became accustomed to in California, and, indeed, I am a canned cocktail snob no more. Thanks to a handful of spirits experts who are mixing up (and shipping) canned cocktails that taste like home—even in Blue Eye, Missouri— I can almost feel like I am bellied up to the bar in one of my favorite Marin and Wine Country watering holes.
The options for ready-to-drink cocktails, affectionately known as RTDs, are exploding nationwide. The concept of canning mixed drinks has always been about convenience; eliminating the need to tote all the separate ingredients to the beach or a backyard barbecue. But then the pandemic confined us all to our homes, and we rushed to gather the ingredients to make our own “Quarantinis” every day at 5pm—at times a higher priority than toilet paper .... But DIY cocktailing got old quickly. If you were a regular or even a special-occasion patron of any of our amazing cocktail haunts, like my Sebastopol favorite Fern Bar, you yearned to swig the same libation— well-crafted, by someone else—at home. A convenient buzz was no longer all we were after.
This is where these local makers transcended the mass-produced canned cocktail universe. They shifted the raison d’être from mere convenience to the delivery of a high-quality experience. All in the midst of the global pandemic, with its attendant supply chain chaos, labor shortages and gripping fear.
Most of these canned cocktails have a higher alcohol content than beer or wine, yet Laughing Glass Cocktails co-founders Sydney Rainin-Smith and Carey Clahan joke that one reason they decided to produce their own super premium RTD was the rotten hangover produced by most of the hard (malty) seltzers on the market.
The canned cocktails I “sampled” for this article are all slight tweaks of classic cocktails, up-leveled by the use of high-quality ingredients. A focus on quality rather than crazy creativity is where all these makers landed for their first releases. “No one wanted to be too fancy right out of the gate,” said Barrel Brothers cocktail creator Steven Maduro. “We wanted ‘safe’ drinks people would recognize, with a California twist. Makrut lime in our Cosmo and orange blossom in our Lemon Drop; blackberry and rosemary in our Bramble.”
This “safe bet” sentiment seems sensible considering that a maker’s failure to pivot successfully would have meant an out-of-business sign, and there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure they secure proper distribution channels and, most importantly, sales.
To listen to their tales is to understand that getting to here has been excruciating, not to mention expensive. Their perseverance is impressive. Cappy Shakes’ founder Daniel “Cappy” Ellison Sorentino emphasizes the importance of building distribution and made sure that I understood that this segment of the spirits industry is quite crowded these days, and the smaller makers have to work much harder to secure shelf space. Colleen Hochberger and Zaddy Benham of Zaddy’s concur, telling me that have been masking up for in-person appearances for months trying to push sales.
It seems the very least we can do to support them is to seek out and enjoy the fruits of their labors—straight out of the can or poured over ice into a gorgeous cocktail glass.
ALLEY 6
Local Canned-Cocktail Pioneers
The Healdsburg-based wife-and-husband duo behind the small-batch craft distillery Alley 6, Krystle and Jason Jorgensen, currently produce one canned cocktail. They do it exceptionally well, and they did it long before the pandemic lockdown, or anybody else in the area.
Alley 6 first canned their “grain to glass” concept back in early 2019, when a a local cider company that was going out of business auctioned off its canning line. The initial intent was to can an Old-Fashioned cocktail to be used at the numerous cocktail events that self-distributing distilleries need to attend in the quest for market share. The canned cocktails were also an enthusiastically received perk gifted to members of the distillery’s popular spirits club. It was not long before word got out to the broader cocktail-loving public, whose support encouraged the Jorgensens to make the potent RTDs a permanent offering.
According to Jason, the secret to canning a cocktail that isn’t merely a “PBR version” is foremost the ingredients. Supporting other local makers and ingredient producers are also key, he adds. Case in point, the Old Fashioneds are made with Alley 6’s own rye whiskey as well as their Candy Cap Bitters—Sonoma coast— foraged candy cap mushrooms, soaked in Alley 6 rye whiskey and warming spices to coax out the warm and earthy end product. They also include the distiller’s apple brandy made with fresh cider apples and aged for two years in French and American oak.
One of the benefits of making your own cocktail in a can, Jason pointed out, is that you can make it even richer in nuanced flavors because you are essentially making a large batch versus a single cocktail. This allows for ingredients like molasses and lemon zest to be utilized that might not be included in the single-glass version made at a fast-paced cocktail bar.
Serve over ice, garnished with a charred orange rind and a brandied cherry.
GRIFFO DISTILLERY
Hyper Local Allies
Petaluma’s Griffo Distillery’s RTD story follows both a classic pandemic business narrative about successfully confronting adversity, as well as the clever, collaborative and focused expertise of the North Bay’s booze community. Like most of these stories, it started when a thriving business run by smart, entrepreneurial spirit makers was forced to shut down its normal ways of doing business.
Jenny and Michael Griffo, the wife-and-husband dynamic duo behind Griffo, already embodied the tenaciously creative, pennywise attitudes needed for survival through the pandemic. As everything closed up, the company pivoted first to (still-successful) cocktail kits. Canned cocktails were the next obvious step in making their spirits accessible to more people. They had already been co-packing other brands’ spirits in their distillery, so they had the equipment and know-how. It was still complicated.
They knew they wanted their canned cocktail venture to lift up others in their community. The pandemic intensified the couple’s mission of utilizing local ingredients and artisan-made products. Their existing relationship with Petaluma native and star mixologist Danny Ojinaga was an easy tie-in, and it was he who created the recipes for both of Griffo’s current canned cocktails. Another local Petaluma maker, FloraLuna Apothecary & Trading Co, adds spice to the mix through their hand-crafted bitters and popular Cardamom Clove Syrup and Wildflower Syrup. Every detail, down to the art by local artist Lisel Ashlock on the slim, sensual cans, shows a love of local and the spirit of collaboration.
The pandemic changed things for many if not most of us; as for the Griffos, it brought them closer to what they wanted. The expansion into canned cocktails “allows us to follow our hearts and still expand,” said Jenny. “We are a small-batch craft distillery that pays tribute to the North Coast and the people within it. That’s what we are doing with the cans.”
CAPPY SHAKES COCKTAILS
Invite the Bartender To Your Home
Daniel “Cappy” Ellison Sorentino, a Sonoma native, is a self-proclaimed hospitality guy and a bartending veteran who has spent many years shaking drinks and managing bars all over Wine Country, as well as in Los Angeles. Many know him as one of the many rock stars born from the days when Healdsburg’s Spoonbar emerged as one of the country’s leading farm-to-bar establishments.
An expert on crafting hyper-local shrubs, bitters, syrups and mixers, Cappy walks the talk of the importance of making everything from scratch.
At Duke’s of Healdsburg, where Cappy was one of the co-founders (none of whom are still affiliated with the bar), the extensive craft cocktail program utilized many shelf-stable ingredients including clarified and pasteurized juices and essential oils in their signature shelf-stable cocktails on tap. The tinkering was ongoing, and creating new and better shelf-stable recipes was part of the normal bar program. It seems the segue into canned cocktails was destined from the beginning.
When the pandemic hit, Cappy was ready. He offered not just to-go cocktails but partnered with Alley 6 (Cappy’s Gin & Tonic uses Alley 6 Gin) to offer Duke’s canned to-go cocktails. With a bit of additional equipment secured, Cappy was shaking and canning cocktails by mid-May of 2020.
Cappy’s canned catalog not only contains one of Duke’s staple cocktails, Fool’s Paradise (tequila, blanc vermouth, clarified passionfruit juice, orange and eucalyptus flavors blended into a sultry vacation-tasting drink), he takes pieces of the most popular drinks from his history of mixing. Pour one over ice and know you have been served by a man who is passionate about providing excellent hospitality, including meticulously craft ed cocktails.
BARREL BROTHERS BREWING COMPANY
Full Circle Science
The brothers-in-law behind Barrel Brothers Brewing make exceptionally tasty beers that are both serious and fun. It’s not surprising that their “circular objective” took a wonderful cocktail twist when they paired up with Steven Maduro, one of the four founders of Duke’s in Healdsburg (and a guy who knows a thing or two about tinkering and making good cocktails).
The company started making nonalcoholic beer back in November 2020 and took the process to new heights during the midst of the pandemic with the addition of their in-house de-alcoholization unit, called a GoLo. The way the GoLo works, and how cocktails got involved, is by gently removing the alcohol from beer. The nonalcoholic beer that remains jets off, filled with all its natural flavors, to be enjoyed, leaving a high alcohol-by-volume (ABV) grain alcohol, which is then redistilled, cleaned up further and turned into vodka to become the base of the line of Barrel Brothers Brewing’s canned cocktails that launched this past October.
Their process is an example of the powerful full-circle thinking that attempts to minimize waste with clever ingenuity—concepts that are as native to Northern California as the botanicals found here.
Steven is not only one of the area’s most celebrated and humble mixers, he’s also the guy who reminds us that bartending is a science. He has a self-described geeky understanding when it comes to technique, flavor, balance, acidity and even ice.... He’s an expert at ice, not just as a temperature control agent but as an essential flavor ingredient.
For Steven, making a good cocktail is a three-part equation: He starts with the classics, giving them his own twist; high quality ingredients are nonnegotiable; and he’s a stickler for great technique and technology.
He is also crystal clear that, while making a well-crafted, delicious cocktail is a tough task, putting that drink into a can where it will maintain that deliciousness is one of the toughest things he’s had to do yet. “My goal is to deliver a literal, true quality bar cocktail in a can,” he said.
Currently brewing for a winter 2022 release: a Cold Brew Espresso Martini, made with oat milk (so it’s vegan) and utilizing nitrogen instead of CO2 for a lighter, creamer and more delicate feel.
ZADDY’S
The Do Gooders
Zaddy’s is a low-alcohol, low-calorie, gin-based line of canned cocktails designed with the health conscious in mind. Crafted by cofounder couple Zaddy Benham and Colleen Hochberger, the line is made with all California ingredients and strikes a perfect balance between a hard seltzer and a canned cocktail.
The cocktails incorporate a “dialed back” version of Benham’s Sonoma Dry Gin, made in Zaddy’s father’s Sonoma distillery, Gratton Distilling Co. The gin has a California botanical vibe and utilizes California- farmed citrus like Meyer lemon and Buddha’s Hand citron.
Local-artist-illustrated cans pay homage to California, and the recyclable packaging and biodegradable carriers show what is possible in terms of eliminating plastic in packaging—something that should be everyone’s mission.
The mission of creating great-tasting canned cocktails in an eco-conscious manner is not an easy one, especially for small businesses who often bump into minimums that could price them out of the market. The packaging sector of the RTD industry, which has come a long way, is still way the rest of the world. This creates great challenges for local brands like Zaddy’s who are determined to do better. This brand is everything it claims to be in taste, flavor and mindful drinking; there is no compromise.
If you, like many of us, have had too many gincidents (Google it) in your life, this might be the can for you. Their Corpse Reviver was modeled after the couple’s favorite classic gin drink, but hits lighter. California herbs and fennel are potent. The gin is obvious, yet quiet. Loyal fans of the classic recipe will be happy—as was I, who likes a little wild herb flavor in my drinks. All of us can be sure that our support helps the industry “clean up its act.”
LAUGHING GLASS COCKTAILS
Made By and For Mill Valley Moms Cocktails
Almost 10 years ago, at a gathering of Mill Valley moms around the same time that “Housewife’s” bottled low-calorie Margarita brand was booming, the talk turned to why someone couldn’t make a ready-to-serve Margarita that was low calorie, but also used real ingredients and tasted great (not medicinal, as many described the TV-famous brand).
Two of those moms, Sydney Rainin-Smith and Carey Clahan, became those someones, creating Laughing Glass Cocktails.
Launched in 2011, the brand initially offered three low-calorie, ready-to-serve bottled Margarita options. Their two canned Margaritas, a low-calorie regular Margarita and a low-calorie Paloma (with grapefruit juice) hit the shelves just this past October.
Rainin-Smith and Clahan partnered with an artisan distiller in Mexico to create their own bold proprietary blend of premium Tequila Blanco. They also source and use 100% organic agave nectar from Mexico. No artificial ingredients or preservatives are used whatsoever, unlike that “other” skinny Margarita brand that came under fire for misrepresenting its “natural” ingredients.
Laughing Glass’s canned RTDs are even lighter in calories than the company’s bottled predecessors, as they are less potent in alcohol—coming in at 8% ABV versus the 12% of the bottled version. The typical Margarita served at a bar or restaurant contains 12—15% ABV.
Canning cocktails is more complicated than bottling them. Recipes must be altered significantly to make shelf-stable concoctions, but that doesn’t require artificial ingredients. Organic citrus oils are a big part of these and the other canned cocktails on the list. It’s a difficult dance to get the recipes right, but the complexity of flavor in Laughing Glass’s proprietary tequila really shines in these.
The founders cite the power of “Marin spreading the word” as one of their strongest support mechanisms. “In Marin you can ask anyone a question and, if they don’t know the answer, they know someone who does. They are free with their expertise, information and advice; they will always help you,” Carey said.
