Tip Top Proper Cocktails Is Bringing Craft to Cans

Making canned cocktails isn’t hard. Making excellent canned cocktails is. 

Yoni Reisman, CEO of Atlanta-based Tip Top Proper Cocktails, and childhood friend Neal Cohen, the company’s chief brand officer, cofounded Tip Top in 2019. The Atlanta natives and former music industry veterans had little experience with cocktail production, but they could see the potential scope of the ready-to-drink market. Today, their canned cocktails are among the best, if not the best, out there — and they’ve been instrumental in pushing this now-booming category toward true craftsmanship. 

Although Tip Top wasn’t the first canned cocktail company out of the gate, the quality of its offerings and distinctive aesthetic set the brand apart early on. To get their recipes right, Reisman and Cohen brought in bartender and James Beard Award finalist Miles Macquarrie, launching with three spirit-forward classics: an Old Fashioned, a Manhattan, and a Negroni. “Looking at what was out there at that time, there was nothing that spoke to a consumer who spent time in great cocktail bars,” says Cohen. 

The choice to use small, 3.4-ounce cans was also intentional. “A three-ounce drink, little dilution, that’s the right size,” says Reisman. Plus, cans are “infinitely recyclable, better for keeping products more stable, [and] lighter and less expensive than glass.” Tip Top’s whimsically retro labels, inspired by vintage cocktail books, also set them apart, hinting at small-scale craft liquor rather than mass-market booze. 

Tip Top’s distinctive presence and unmatched quality combined with the ready-to-drink category’s meteoric rise has resulted in explosive growth for the company: Based on NielsenIQ’s stats, Tip Top cracked the top 25 in earnings within the spirit-based RTD category last year. The brand is now sold in 26 states and Washington, D.C., and in 2024, sales boomed to almost $10 million in revenue. 

But even with all the bar-world accolades, growing numbers of fans, and financial success, Reisman and Cohen aren’t resting on their laurels. Tip Top continues to evolve, recently teaming up with respected star bartenders to add depth to the portfolio. “We’re particularly proud of our collaborations with Sam Ross and with Joaquín Simó in the past year,” says Cohen. To develop Ross’ Paper Plane and Penicillin cocktails and Simó’s Naked & Famous — three iconic modern craft cocktails that are all now part of Tip Top’s permanent lineup — the company went directly to the two original creators. “It was really important to Miles in particular that we work with them and ensure that we have their blessing,” says Cohen. 

“We dubbed this past year as the ‘year of unreasonable innovation,’” says Reisman. “Doing six new cocktails in a year is a lot, and maybe we should have spread it out, but we didn’t.” Safe to say, unreasonable innovation, no matter how much work is involved, has more than paid off for both the Tip Top team and for thirsty cocktail fans across the country.