The spirits industry has historically been male-dominated at the ownership level — but that's changing. A wave of female-founded cocktail and spirits brands has emerged over the past decade, bringing a different sensibility to product development, brand identity, and community values.
Here's a look at the landscape, and what makes female-founded brands in the ready-to-drink cocktail space particularly worth knowing right now.
Why female-founded brands matter in the RTD space
Ready-to-drink cocktails are one of the fastest-growing categories in beverage alcohol, projected to reach $31 billion globally by 2028. It's also a category with relatively lower barriers to entry compared to distilling from scratch — which has made it a space where entrepreneurial founders, including women, have been able to build real brands without the capital footprint of a legacy spirits company.
Female founders in this space tend to bring a consumer-first orientation: sharper attention to how products are used in real-life occasions, cleaner ingredient standards, and storytelling that connects brand to community. Those qualities are showing up in the products.
Brody's Crafted Cocktails
Brody's Crafted Cocktails was founded by Cristy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The brand is now available in over 1,000 retail locations across 15 states, including 87+ Whole Foods Market locations and Total Wine, with e-commerce shipping to 36 states.
Brody's makes nine ready-to-serve cocktails using real spirits — vodka, gin, bourbon, rum, and now tequila — with all-natural ingredients and no artificial flavors. The lineup has collected 16+ medals across the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, SIP Awards, and New York International Spirits Competition, including a Double Gold for the Classic Mai Tai and a Best-in-Class Top 3 finalist nod at the 2023 Top Shelf Gala in Las Vegas.
The newest addition is the Apple Melon Marg, a tequila-and-vodka margarita launching Spring/Summer 2026. The full lineup also includes the Black Orchid vodka martini, the Touch of Grey (vodka with real Earl Grey), the French 75 made with real gin, and the Minted Mule — each designed to taste like a cocktail a bartender made, because the recipes came from one.
A portion of every Brody's sale supports Monty's Fund — the brand's commitment to donating up to 5% of net proceeds to canine care causes, named after the family dog whose spirit inspired the brand.
Tip Top Proper Cocktails
Tip Top Proper Cocktails comes in small 100ml cans focused on classic spirit-forward cocktails — Old Fashioned, Negroni, Manhattan, Last Word. Their production approach prioritizes pre-batched quality over mass-production shortcuts, and their cocktails drink like something you'd be served at a serious cocktail bar. Tip Top has been a standout for bringing the Atlanta cocktail-bar sensibility to the RTD shelf.
Crafthouse Cocktails
Founded by Chicago bartender Charles Joly (named World's Best Bartender) and Matt Lindner, Crafthouse brings genuine craft credentials to the RTD category. Made with premium spirits and natural ingredients, their lineup includes the Smash, Southside, and Rum Mule — all built to bartender spec. Crafthouse is the RTD category's clearest example of a brand that treats the bottle as a serious cocktail, not a shortcut.
Fishers Island Lemonade
Founded by Bronwen Keegan, Fishers Island Lemonade is a cult favorite built on a single product done extremely well: vodka, whiskey, fresh lemonade, and nothing else. The flavor is bracingly honest — exactly what the label says — and the brand has built a devoted East Coast following on the strength of pure simplicity.
What to look for in female-founded RTD brands
Across the category, the strongest female-founded RTD brands tend to share a few characteristics: transparency about ingredients, a clear point of view on quality versus convenience, and a community orientation that extends beyond transactions. Many are also mission-driven — connecting their brands to charitable causes, sustainability commitments, or social impact programs.
Brody's operates Monty's Fund, a charitable giving program tied to canine care causes. Tip Top and Crafthouse consistently support independent hospitality workers and bar professionals. Fishers Island has championed coastal conservation and East Coast hospitality charities. These are not marketing accessories — they signal that the brand's values extend beyond the product itself, something increasingly important to the millennial and Gen Z consumers driving RTD growth.
Supporting female-founded brands
One practical way to support female-founded beverage brands is simply to buy them when you see them on retail shelves — and to ask for them if you don't. Retail placement is heavily influenced by velocity (how quickly products sell), so consumer demand has a direct impact on whether female-founded brands maintain and grow shelf space.
For Brody's specifically, the brand is stocked at Whole Foods Market and Total Wine in select regions, with 87+ Whole Foods locations searchable at our Whole Foods locator. Online ordering ships to 36 states.
The growth of female-founded cocktail brands is one of the more interesting stories in beverage alcohol right now. As the RTD category continues to mature, expect to see more of these brands reach national scale.
Shop the Brody's lineup of craft premixed cocktails, learn more about the Brody's story and team, or read about what to look for in all-natural cocktail brands.