We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Neal Cohen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Neal thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?
Things very rarely, if ever, go to plan. Prior to cofounding Tip Top Proper Cocktails, I was a Marketing Director at Superfly, working on festivals such as Bonnaroo, Outside Lands and Comedy Central’s Clusterfest. Festivals are highly volatile environments. When lots of attendees, artists, vendors and staff from all over the place come together in an outdoor space for multiple days to have a shared experience, approximately four million different things have to go right in order for it to be the experience that was promised to everyone involved. It never happens perfectly and as the person overseeing all communication between festival and fans, I had to learn to be prepared for a myriad of scenarios from artist cancellations to sudden inclement weather, special guest appearances to frustrating entrance lines. As news came in about one of these unforeseen circumstances, I was often in the room with key stakeholders as they made difficult problem-solving calculations on the fly and then it was my duty to translate those decisions into clear communication for the general public. As a business owner, new fires both big and small come up every day. This past experience allows me to keep cool (it’s just rock n’ roll), assess all factors, make decisions and translate into actions and communication with staff and partners.
Neal, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Atlanta-based Tip Top Proper Cocktails was founded in 2018 by childhood friends and music industry veterans Neal Cohen and Yoni Reisman. After years producing large-scale events and festivals in NYC and around the country, the two discovered something was missing from the market: high-quality, classic cocktails that could be enjoyed with convenience at a concert, dinner party, tailgate, or simply at home. Enlisting the help of veteran Atlanta bartender Miles Macquarrie (Kimball House) to develop the recipes, the team has created six 100ml canned classic cocktails: the Manhattan, Negroni, Old Fashioned, Daiquiri, Margarita and Bee’s Knees. As the product marks three full years of distribution in October 2022, it can now be found at legendary music venues, on domestic & international Delta Air Lines flights and in stores across Georgia, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado and Texas.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Yoni Reisman and I met in elementary school while growing up in Atlanta, GA. We’ve embarked on many a journey together prior to cofounding Tip Top, from a 28-day backcountry camping trip in Wyoming to packing up the car to going out on tour with Phish and all points in between. We took parallel paths in the musical festival business that eventually converged when we started Tip Top to address a hole in the market for great cocktails in concessions programs at high volume events.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I can identify three things that have helped us build our reputation and I’m sure there’s others I’m missing but… 1) Great branding – From packaging design to content creation, we built the Tip Top brand to speak to high quality, an appreciation for the cocktail tradition and a love of culture from art to music to culinary.
2) Top notch product – In selecting Miles Macquarrie as our recipe developer, we chose to prioritize a consistently delicious product. It’s not always easy to meet the standard Miles has set for our product but we are unrelenting in doing so which has served us quite well.
3) No a$$hole rule – It doesn’t matter how talented someone might be, we only hire people who are personable, humble and easy to get along with. Ultimately everyone that works for Tip Top is representing the brand and it’s vital to hire carefully with that consideration being top of mind to retain the ideal perception of what we’re creating here.
Contact Info:
- Website: tiptopcocktails.com
- Instagram: tiptoppropercocktails
- Facebook: Tip Top Cocktails
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/11845492/
- Twitter: tiptopcocktails
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/7igggbzr74x66b1zrhxo6jqzw?si=3cea401c93c24692
Image Credits
Jill Case Luke Beard Mia Yakel