Just Add Water (and Maybe Vodka): The Craftmix Cocktail Revolution

Check out all the great events Laurie has on the calendar in 2026 on her website at TheWineCoach.com/events including the Wine Meets its Match tasting at The Ivy Cafe in Easton, MD on April 22nd.

Cocktails without the stress? Yes, please. In this episode, I sit down with Daniel Incropera of Craftmix to talk about how a simple idea—making great cocktails easier—turned into a fast-growing beverage brand. We get into the real story behind the product, from early trial-and-error to what it takes to stand out in a crowded drinks market.

We also dig into what today’s drinkers actually want (hint: it’s not complicated), the rise of low-calorie and mocktail options, and how Craftmix is building a loyal community along the way.

If you’ve ever wished you could make a great cocktail anywhere—without dragging half your bar with you—this one’s for you.

Key Topics

From Kitchen Experiment to Cocktail Disruptor
How Craftmix went from DIY mixes at home to a brand shaking up the drinks space.

What Makes It Different
Natural ingredients, low sugar, and cocktails that travel better than your suitcase.

Flavors That Actually Make You Curious
From Passion Fruit Paloma to seasonal drops like Apple Cider—what’s working and what surprised them.

Cocktails at 30,000 Feet
Partnerships with airlines and the bigger push toward sustainability and smart packaging.

Building a Brand People Actually Care About
Why community, personality, and vibe matter just as much as what’s in the packet.

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:27)
This week on The Sipping Point, it's all about cocktails and cocktails you can take on the go from CraftMix. I'm going to bring in my guests in a minute, but just a reminder that next week is my virtual tasting from Lava to Glass, where I'm going to explore three amazing wines from Greece and Italy, all from volcanic soils. And we'll talk about why that affects the wine, how it tastes, and why you're going to fall in love with these wines.

If you go to thewinecoach.com slash events, you can sign up for the virtual tasting, invite your friends over, and I will lead you through the tasting, the wines, and you can even order the same wines to have at home. All the information will be sent to you once you register. All right, I also just wanted to remind you, if you're interested in my Treasures of Tuscany wine tour,

Drop me a line, I'd love to tell you more about it. Only two rooms left. We will be going this October 12th to the 17th. All right, I'm gonna bring in Dan Incrapera, Director of Sales for Craftmix. It's the number one cocktail mocktail mixer in the country.

Laurie Forster (01:34)
It comes in a little packet, kind of like a sugar packet. You mix it with some water and a spirit if you like, and you've got a delicious cocktail or

Laurie Forster (01:43)
Daniel, welcome to The Sipping Point.

Daniel Incropera (01:46)
Thank you so much for having me. Super excited.

Laurie Forster (01:49)
I am too, and I've mixed up a couple of your cocktails, so I'll be tasting those along the way. But I'd love for you to start out and let my listeners know about Craftmix What was the genesis of the idea that created these cocktail mixes that you can take with you anywhere, including an airplane? Tell us how that all came about.

Daniel Incropera (02:10)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just to give like a really quick gist, I guess, for all the listeners out there. Like you said, they're portable, I guess you could kind of say like pocket sized cocktail, mocktail mixers. She's got them right there. They're three inches by three inches. So they, could fit a bunch in your purse pocket, bring them wherever you go. They're, you know, made from real fruits. They're all natural, low calorie, low sugar. And I guess the genesis of it was our founder who, you know, was a young guy. He's turning 30 soon. So I don't know if that's a soft spot for him, but.

young guy, so right before COVID, he was a bartender, you know, kind of straight out of college. And he was always that guy where he had his buddies over and he was the one making drinks because you have your bartender of the friend group and he's the one making drinks. So he would just find himself kind of away from the party and constantly just going back and forth and saying, hey, Jake, can you make me another one? Jake, make me another one. And so he also was a very health minded person. His dad had a few kind of like health things that was going on. So

He wanted to make a product that not only was quick to make, kind of foolproof, it takes about literally 15 seconds to have a craft cocktail, but also something that's a little better for you. And obviously around that point in time was kind of when health was really starting to rise, kind of that 2019, 2020 time. And that was when he made the products. He made it literally out of his kitchen. He was ordering all the ingredients to his apartment and mixing them up.

a la Breaking Bad in his apartment and had a few, I'm sure, long nights to make sure the formulas were correct. But ⁓ yeah, now we've been around for a little over five years coming up on five and a half as a company and trying to make it work day by day. But that's a little bit about the history of how the brand came about.

Laurie Forster (03:56)
Love that. And the whole better for you category obviously is a very, you know, popular trend right now. Maybe people, you know, want to drink better or even drink less because these you can make as a mocktail or as a cocktail. And I made mine as cocktails just to, ⁓ you know, to put that out there, but you could do it either way. Who do you see as your

I mean, who do you see as this sort of ideal craftmix customer?

Daniel Incropera (04:29)
Yeah, I mean, that's a really good point because health and wellness, it really does change year by year, sometimes even quicker than that. There was a point a few years ago where everything was zero calories, zero sugar, and really just pumped with all this crap that inflamed your gut. ⁓ like I said earlier, we have a little bit of sugar. It's five grams per packet. So if you're on zero sugar whatsoever, you might not be able to enjoy our products.

It's a better for you product that still tastes amazing and taste is king no matter, you know, kind of where we are with society. Taste is always going to be king. ⁓ so I guess like our customer demographic is mainly that person who, you know, wants to have a good time with their friends might not be a bodybuilder or like, you know, this super Uber health focused person, but someone that wants to have fun, kind of have that sense of community with their friends.

and still have something that's better for you than the typical mixers that are out there that are 40 grams of sugar compared to five. So you save some calories there. And like you mentioned, it's a non-alcoholic powder. So every product can be made as a mocktail. You just omit the one shot of liquor for an extra shot of water ⁓ and they still taste really, really good. So it's kind of like all-inclusive. We don't necessarily have one customer segment that works like

Laurie Forster (05:34)
Yes.

Daniel Incropera (05:54)
anybody can enjoy our drinks and that was kind of the whole point of it. So yeah, yeah.

Laurie Forster (05:58)
Mm-hmm.

let's talk about it, how you make it. So basically, ⁓ the first one I'm trying here is your passion fruit paloma. And mix it with four ounces of water. You put the contents of this. I did one ounce of tequila for this one. And then you just stir for 30 to 60 seconds just to get it all ⁓ integrated.

and I just strained it over some ice. So it was super simple. I travel a lot. So I love the idea of bringing this on the plane when maybe I don't like the options there, but I could just get the spirit and the water. But like you said, in a minute we have the cocktail here. So how do you come up while I sip this passion fruit paloma? Tell me about how you decide on the flavors. You sent me the variety pack, but you have many, many more flavors out there.

Who is the brainchild behind all these flavors?

Daniel Incropera (06:56)
So our founder and CEO is still the main product development person, I guess you could say. I we're a small team, so we all kind of wear multiple hats, but he definitely manages all of that. And yeah, that variety pack SKU that you have there was our first ever product we launched. So was all the four flavors that are inside of it, which is blood orange, Mai Tai, mango margarita, strawberry mule, and passion fruit paloma, as well as the variety pack. That was it when we first launched. And then, you know,

Obviously things are kind of hyped up as you go along. So like I said, that was 2020 or so. Espresso martinis weren't really popular then, you know, they were kind of on the come up, but around 2022, 2023, that's when they really blew up. So we launched ours, I believe late 2023. So just kind of following the trends, but also wanting to have a lot of stuff that's more personal, you know, like.

A strawberry Moscow mule might not be something that you can find at a bar, might not even be something you would think of, right? You might just think of a normal Moscow mule, but having that kind of strawberry and ginger lime kind of twist to it really gives it that sweet sweetness that is really kind of the craftmix special. ⁓ We also did some margarita launches. We have a classic margarita we launched later on, as well as dipped our toes in the zero calories, zero sugar with our skinny marg.

Laurie Forster (08:01)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Incropera (08:17)
Then a couple of years later, we did a seasonal launch. We have an apple cider, we have a cranberry vanilla. ⁓ And then lately, I would say the last year or so, we've really focused on how can we still be in the cocktail world, but maybe we could step out of it too and see what we could do. So we launched a hot chocolate mix, which has been insanely popular for us, especially the winter months, ⁓ but also lemonades.

We launched a full lemonade line last spring, which has been really great as well. And then, you know, this might be breaking news to people because we haven't really spoke about too much, but we are launching an electrolyte line this summer as well, probably around June or July. So ⁓ that's kind of the beauty is as a powder beverage brand, there's a lot of different things you can do. And we just want to, you know, kind of right now throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And so far, everything's stuck. So, yeah, that's kind of it.

Laurie Forster (09:11)
Nice.

Well, being a small, ⁓ agile company, I guess you have that luxury to be able to try a lot of things and maybe move a little faster than some big companies would. This is delicious, by the way. Really, really love it. Have you, I know you're selling direct to consumer like myself, I can go to, know, craftmix.com and purchase any of the flavors. Where else can people find your cocktail and drink mixes?

Daniel Incropera (09:40)
Yeah, really good question. So online is definitely the easiest because you could get it same day on Amazon Prime and obviously craftmix.com. Retail, a lot of CPG people I'm sure are listening to this and they agree with me. It's definitely hard to crack. And you've learned that maybe your online customer isn't your retail customer. And so over the years, we've acquired a lot of more independent kind of retail shops.

I like to think of your hometown on Main Street, that one gift shop that's been there your whole life, and you're like, how the hell are they still in business? It's because of us. It's because we sell so much craftmix at that store, I can promise you. So we have a couple thousand of those stores. And then we've done a few different launches. We've worked with Sprouts in the past. We're actually in couple of Walmart stores, about 200 Walmart stores. And this year's the biggest.

retail year for us. We're launching in Michaels, the craft store, all 1200 and some odd US Michaels stores in May, which is really exciting. So please go support because we need your help there. ⁓ And then we also have another really large launch potentially in October, ⁓ which I don't want to put it out in the world yet, but that's going to be the biggest one ever. I would say right now we're in about maybe 3,500 stores once Michaels launches.

Laurie Forster (10:37)
Wow.

Excellent. what do you think surprised you the most about your consumer, your loyal fans, the people that are just diehard, craftmix fans? Is there anything that surprised you about how they interact with the brand or what they love so much about it?

Daniel Incropera (11:18)
Yeah, we've done it so differently, I think, than most other food and beverage companies. We have a really large crowd on social media. We have over a half a million followers between Instagram and TikTok. I give full sponsorship and ownership to Sarah and Tessa over there on our social media team. ⁓ Check us out at CraftMix on both of those platforms. But we've really found a way to have a great community.

where sure we make cocktails and mocktails and they're great products, but also we're a fun young team. We post skits where we're pranking our boss on our weekly team calls or Sarah will call me up and prank me. We like to keep it relaxed. I know a lot of people in the corporate world wish they could do that. I think a lot of companies take it way too seriously and it's just never that serious. I like to say we're on a floating rock.

Laurie Forster (11:56)
Bye.

Hey

Daniel Incropera (12:15)
I promise you it's not that serious. So we like to keep it relaxed. But yeah, I think our customer wants to have something to like root for or people to root for. And we found that, you because we have such great people that work for us, let's highlight our personalities and show the fun that we do have working. And people have really enjoyed that.

Laurie Forster (12:19)
Right.

Now, I mean, obviously, you know, you can take it with you anywhere on the go, whether you're, you know, road tripping or flying somewhere. Have you ever thought about selling, having the airlines sell these on the plane? I would think this would make their life a lot easier because it takes up so much less room. You know, there is this whole environmentally sustainability feature that you have given that you're able to do it in such a small packet.

and not have all of this extra waste like glass and plastic and all those things. Have you collabed with any airlines or any travel companies?

Daniel Incropera (13:15)
Yes, 100%. It's funny you bring that up. So the way airline and most travel, even train companies like Amtrak, they're very contractual when it comes to their food and beverage items they have on board. So we actually had a two-year contract with JetBlue where we were their sponsor. We had a sponsor cocktail on their menu for a couple of years. Same thing with Amtrak. I believe we were with them for one full calendar year. ⁓ But yeah, like you said, sustainability is huge for them.

And you might not really think of it. It's like, you know, we had 12 packets on board, right? So our packets are seven grams, whatever that math comes out to. But if you compare it to, you know, having six bottled, you know, liquid mixers on there compared to our 12 packets, you might think, you save a pound or two per flight. But if you then think about how many flights they have per day, per airline, and what that actually costs in fuel emissions, like it adds up really quickly. So.

The airlines see the value in us and it was a success. We were moving through a lot of packets with JetBlue and we're hoping that once their current contract that they have, we can kind of circle back with them and get back on. And yeah, we've been in contact with nearly all airlines, I would say. And we know that that's going to be a huge, huge piece of our business eventually. ⁓ So yeah, it's funny you mentioned that, but yes.

Laurie Forster (14:36)
Mm-hmm.

Perfect, well, I also made the blood orange Mai Tai. So that was the second cocktail I mixed up here. What are your thoughts on this? I love blood orange, so I was immediately attracted to the cocktail. I did put a little rum in here, as that's typically the spirits for Mai Tai, but tell me your thoughts on this one.

Daniel Incropera (15:01)
It's funny because the two cocktails that you're drinking are actually like on the lower ranking scale for us in terms of top sellers. And you said they were both great. So it just kind of goes to show that like we do have really great products. I'm like not even a coconut guy, like usually coconut flavored things, even when there's just a little hint of it, I don't like, but I really do like that flavor. I think it's very tropical. It kind of transports you to like thinking, you know, toes in the sand on the beach type of vibe. ⁓

Laurie Forster (15:10)
Wow.

Absolutely.

Daniel Incropera (15:30)
And yeah, it's

definitely orange focused, a little bit of coconut on the background. I get some kind of citrus undertone, but ⁓ I really like that flavor.

Laurie Forster (15:40)
And I could see throwing it in one of those little smoothie blenders and making it into a frozen drink as we get into the warmer weather. Where are you connecting to us from? Where are you in the world and where is everybody in the company in that one location?

Daniel Incropera (15:58)
So we're actually all remote. So I I'm from New Hampshire originally I live about 45 minutes south of Boston now in Weymouth Mass, South Shore Mass ⁓ And yeah, JT who's our founder CEO. He's in LA ⁓ Sarah our social media managers in Nashville. I have a sales intern who goes to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville So we're all over place our marketing directors in the Seattle, Washington area. So we are literally scattered very far apart

But we make it work. Like I said, we're all online and we're all so close that it kind of works. ⁓ But yeah, it just goes to show that you don't need to have an office to be successful. You can work on your own time and be relaxed.

Laurie Forster (16:37)
Not anymore.

I saw you had some great video content, obviously, on your socials, but also on the website, tutorials about mixing up the different drinks or just thoughts about ⁓ the different flavors. What is the way you come up with that? Are these just really amazing, loyal fans? Are these all people from your team? How are you ⁓ keeping your content fresh and showing people all the different ways to use Craft Mix?

Daniel Incropera (17:07)
Yeah, it's definitely, I would say mainly internal strategy. And then we work with some UGC creators like Mocktail Girly on Instagram and TikTok is one that we've worked with a lot. She does really, really great drink making ⁓ content. So yeah, I would say a lot of it is making sure that we're showing that the drink can be made and look like literally you bought it from a bar, even though you made it in your home with the same glass you've been drinking out of for the past 10 years. ⁓

But yeah, all the strategy is pretty much internal and then we kind of outsource based on, you know, whether we're doing an outdoor shoot or an indoor shoot or, you know, whether we want more, you know, lifestyle content or more just like quick, you know, a gif of just showing the steps. have different people that we've been working with for a while. You'll notice that we're a big people team. Like we use the same outsourced kind of teams. Once we find someone that we like, we really...

know, stay with them for the long haul, so.

Laurie Forster (18:07)
Nice. And are you out there at events around the country? you sponsor any, you know, festivals or events where people can sort of any activations they can interact with you?

Daniel Incropera (18:20)
So nothing recurring. ⁓ We've done, you we sponsored a music festival once in San Diego. I'm blanking on the name. I think it was same, same, but different was the name of the festival. But yeah, we had two drinks there. So we had our espresso martini and our classic margarita. Of course, they were the two top selling mixed drinks at the festival because why wouldn't they be? ⁓ But it makes sense because, you know, for those types of events, they're really fast paced, high volume, and they need to get things out really quickly. So.

Each day they would go in, they had an idea of how many drinks each bar would be serving that day. And they pre-bashed it before the gates even opened. So you just basically make like 12 drinks in a tub, mix it for a couple of minutes, and it's good all day. You sit it on ice and it's literally, you can just pour as you go. So if you're having a large family event or a large party at your house, the same works. You can buy a bunch of different packets and make 20 drinks in a big pitcher. Literally just stir it once and it's good all day. ⁓

Yeah, music festivals are definitely a strategy for us, like kind of airlines in the future. Just kind of one of those things where we have so many things that we could be doing and will be doing, ⁓ but we only have so much human manpower and ⁓ hours in the day. But eventually we will be sponsoring more once our marketing budget expands a little bit, but ⁓ we've had success with it.

Laurie Forster (19:44)
Love that. what is you, do you have a craftmix hack? Like maybe two flavors that you mix together that you think are delicious or just a little secret recipe that you figured out enjoying the different flavors over the years.

Daniel Incropera (19:59)
Strawberry ⁓ Mule and Mint Mojito. Strawberry and mint. Mint Mojito on its own is probably my least favorite flavor. ⁓ It's kind of a polarizing one, some people love it, some people hate it. ⁓ But for some reason the strawberry mint thing, really, and a watermelon mint is popular too, but maybe it's just that kind of fruit with mint flavor. I really like, so try that out. But I like to say too, our slogan is be your own bartender.

Laurie Forster (20:04)
⁓

Daniel Incropera (20:26)
However the hell you like to make your drinks, can make it. If you like it sweeter, make it sweeter. If you don't like it as sweet, you don't have to make it as sweet. If you like it stronger, add more liquor. Like once you kind of figure out how you like your products, can eyeball it. You don't have to measure of four ounces and one ounce. You can kind of eyeball and you're good to go.

Laurie Forster (20:43)
Right.

And I noticed on, I used regular just spring water, but I noticed a lot of people were using like the bubbly water for a lot of the cocktails as well. So I guess you could interchange this with carbonated water if you want more of that fizz. ⁓

Daniel Incropera (20:58)
Yes, I would say for all of them

except for obviously like espresso martini that would be kind of gross with sparkling water. Same thing with obviously hot cocoa you don't want that sparkly but I think like anything fruity fruity you can make it sparkly.

Laurie Forster (21:05)
Mmm.

No.

That's awesome. Okay, a couple of just fun questions. What do you think is the most overrated cocktail?

Daniel Incropera (21:19)
Bloody Mary is an easy, quick answer. ⁓ I have never liked Bloody Marys. I don't like tomato juice. I don't like V8. I think I had a little experience when I was like a kid with V8 where someone gave it to me. didn't know what it was. I took a big gulp and I was like, this is awful. And I just haven't tried it ever since. And I'm saying that when we're even launching a Bloody Mary, like I think it might already be live on our website, but like within the next couple of weeks, it will be live. ⁓

Laurie Forster (21:29)
Uh-huh.

Okay.

Daniel Incropera (21:48)
It's funny because me and our founder, when I first started here, we agreed we both hate Bloody Marys, we'll never do it. We know how popular it is, we know if you go to the cocktail mix section in the grocery store, it's pretty much 90 % Bloody Mary mixes. And here we are, we folded and we made one. yeah.

Laurie Forster (22:07)
It is popular for a reason, but it's one of those things, I guess, either you love it or you hate it. What do you think is the biggest mistake people make making cocktails at home? Other than not getting craftmix.

Daniel Incropera (22:13)
100%.

⁓ yeah,

well that for sure. ⁓ yeah, I would say like the, biggest mistake is you thinking that it's going to be a ⁓ repeat thing in your household where you're buying all of these ginormous bulk ingredients, where it's like 40 servings of this mixer, or you're getting something like a bottle of bitters. That's like 80 servings. And it's just kind of taking up space in your fridge and you have it maybe once or twice. And you realize I don't need to have anymore.

to your kind seltzer or your other drink that you might normally be drinking. ⁓ And then I think with us, the biggest, really the only negative comments we get on ⁓ our like, know, reviews or whatever, it's people who you can tell are making the drink just wildly incorrectly, either like, you know, doing three shots of liquor to one shot of water. And then they say, this doesn't taste good. It's like, well, how did you make it? And they say, that's how I made it. And you're like, okay, well, that's why it doesn't taste good. Okay, like.

Laurie Forster (22:52)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Incropera (23:17)
So I would say following the directions is probably the biggest ⁓ mistake that people make, but that probably happens a lot.

Laurie Forster (23:17)
Right.

Yeah, well, that, yeah, that, it's very easy. It's four ounces of water or sparkling water, one ounce of alcohol or more, but try it with the one ounce, think is what you're saying. And then you can always up the ante later. But I would think that you specifically have scientifically created the mix to operate in that ratio. So if you're not using the ratio, then it's gonna throw off the taste as well.

Daniel Incropera (23:50)
Yeah, like I said, if you don't like the sweetness as much, you can add an extra shot of water. You can really tailor it, but around that, I like to say about five ounces of liquid per packet is kind of the sweet spot. Maybe give or take an ounce or two. Anything other than that, it's probably going to throw it off quite a bit. And if you make it that way and don't like it, you don't have to tell everyone on Amazon that you don't like it when you made it that way. ⁓

Laurie Forster (24:10)
Mm-hmm.

Follow the directions which are on the back and on the website as well. Well, this has been great and thanks for getting me to double fists in the afternoon. I appreciate that. If folks want to tell everyone again where they can go to interact with you on social, your website, and we only scratch the surface of flavors here. There's so many more out there on the website I saw and of course Bloody Mary coming on soon. Where should people go to interact with you?

Daniel Incropera (24:47)
Yeah, so TikTok and Instagram, our handle is at Craftmix, just the company name. You can also check us out at craftmix.com. That's our website. We're also on Amazon, obviously. If you're a Target.com, Same thing with Walmart.com. So any of those platforms we're available on. ⁓ And then, yeah, if you ever have questions, our main company email is just info at craftmix.com.

We get back to you very quickly. have an awesome team that supports that.

Laurie Forster (25:15)
Well, Daniel,

thank you so much. just want to say thank you for coming on The Sipping Point and cheers.

Daniel Incropera (25:21)
Cheers, yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

Laurie Forster (25:24)
how to make delicious cocktails on the go. Go to craftmix.com to get more information, see all the flavors and pick them up to try them out yourself. Also go to thewinecoach.com slash events. You'll get all the information about my virtual wine tasting next week on April 29th and my upcoming live events.

my wine tour to Tuscany in October, and so much more. As always, I'm so thankful for you tuning in. If you love this podcast, please pass it along to another wine lover you know. And if you download my free app, The Wine Coach for iPhone and Android, you can listen to the podcast, watch my videos and get my wine picks and so much more all for free. Okay, until next week, cheers.