Taste test: Tip Top canned cocktails are not only tip top — they’re adorable too
Chicago Tribune·Brian Cassella //Chicago Tribune/TNS
Josh Noel, Chicago Tribune
5 min read
CHICAGO — Ready-to-drink cocktails have proliferated in recent years, but Tip Top Proper Cocktails stand out.
Most striking about Tip Top, which arrived in Chicago earlier this year, is its charming package: a wee 3.4 ounces, just about right for cocktails as boozy and full-flavored as these.
The presentation is also attractively retro, inspired by a 1920s-era French cocktail book and harks back to a simpler, less frilly era. It’s not hard to imagine Ernest Hemingway downing a couple of these at the bar.
But the key, of course, lies inside those handsome, little cans, and at its best, Tip Top is among the greatest things happening in RTD cocktails. The brand is well aware of what makes it work, and it’s printed on either side of its mascot, a giraffe wearing a monocle and top hat: “Always balanced ... Never too sweet.”
Tip Top generally follows through on that simple holy grail of cocktail construction across six classic offerings, some of which succeed better than others: Old Fashioned, Manhattan, daiquiri, margarita, Negroni and Bee’s Knees.
It was the inclusion of a Negroni that caught my eye and which arguably underscores Tip Top’s ethos. Negroni is a delicious cocktail built of three ingredients — gin, vermouth and Campari — but it’s one that ready-to-drink brands generally avoid due to the muscular bitterness just below the fruity sweetness.
Tip Top’s Negroni pulls no punches; a lovely herbal sweet-bitter duel is followed by a long bitter walk off. It’s far from an obvious crowd pleaser. But that was the intention, Tip Top co-founder Neal Cohen said.
Tip Top’s ethos, he said, is not to replicate what many of its competitors do: bubbly backyard refreshment or overly sweet, dumbed-down takes on the classics. Tip Top aims to be the classic cocktail — just in adorably cute canned form. Simple as it sounds, it’s disappointingly rare in the ready-to-drink space.
Cohen, a former Chicago resident who worked at the late, great Pastoral cheese and sandwich shop, launched the brand with childhood friend Yoni Reisman in 2019, just as the ready-to-drink space was heating up. Canned cocktails were rare when they began writing a business plan four years earlier. That changed quickly — the market officially went into overdrive when Anheuser-Busch bought Cutwater Spirits in 2019 — but Tip Top still offers a unique point of view by favoring authenticity over accessibility.
None of its six canned cocktails are duds, though three stand out: the aforementioned Negroni; the daiquiri, which boasts outstanding rum depth with a sweet-limey bite; and the Manhattan, which is simply a spot-on take of a classic cocktail.
Cohen and Reisman became interested in RTD cocktails while producing and marketing music festivals, where there was always plenty of beer available, but rarely quality cocktails. They launched with three classic stirred cocktails — Old Fashioned, Manhattan and Negroni — to signal the audience they were after, which is more cocktail fan than casual shopper.
“We knew for discerning cocktail drinkers, seeing those were the ones we started with was meaningful, that this wasn’t another overly sweet, cheap type of canned cocktail offering people were writing off at the time,” he said.
Last year, they added three stirred cocktails: a margarita (which is a bit out of balance and my least favorite of the six, though Cohen said tweaks are forthcoming), that splendid daiquiri, and a Bee’s Knees I wish was less honey-forward (tweaks are coming to that one too, Cohen said). New offerings are planned for later in the year.
The cocktail recipes are developed by Miles Macquarrie of Kimball House, a restaurant in Decatur, Georgia, with a renowned cocktail program, and made at Temperance Distilling in Temperance, Michigan. Tip Top has no plans to open its own bricks-and-mortar operation, Cohen said.
Tip Top’s bourbon, rye and gin are sourced from MGP distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, which has also supplied spirits to brands that include Templeton, Angel’s Envy, Bulleit and the Gold Fashioned, a $150 bottle of Old Fashioned released last year. The tequila comes from Mexico (of course) and the rum is Caribbean.
Illinois is the sixth state where Tip Top is sold; it is available at dozens of stores, including Sunset Foods and Foxtrot markets, plus liquor stores including Bitter Pops, Rogers Park Provisions and The Wine Goddess in Evanston. They’re sold as single-flavor eight-packs ($40) or as individual cans (usually $3.99 to $5.99), often as a cash register impulse buy. This summer will see the introduction of a mixed eight-pack, featuring two cans each of the Bee’s Knees, Daiquiri, Negroni and margarita.
Cohen said he hopes to take the brand national, including getting into hotel chains. Tip Top’s Old Fashioned and margarita are already sold on domestic Delta flights.
Growth has become challenging as more ready-to-drink cocktail brands emerge, Cohen said. That’s where Tip Top’s adorable little package comes in.
“Retailers are resistant to new prepared cocktails, but the second we pull out the can and they recognize this is different, it allows us to find our own niche within the category,” he said. “The idea of taking the mythology and history in these cocktails and making it available to the public is a challenge we were excited to take on.”
