Anybody can put a medal on a box. So here's what an award-winning Old Fashioned mix actually means when the judging is done right.
Why a double-blind medal makes an award-winning Old Fashioned mix worth trusting
When a cocktail mixer goes into a competition, the judges don't see the brand. No logo, no packaging, no story about a kettle in Portland. They taste the liquid in a glass next to dozens of others. Blind. The drink has to earn it on taste alone.
Some competitions go a step further. The SIP Awards run double-blind. The judges are everyday consumers, and every sample arrives coded and unbranded, so nobody in the room (not the judges, not the people pouring) knows whose product is in which glass. Blind removes the label from the judge's view. Double-blind removes it from the entire process. That's the scrutiny you want behind an award-winning Old Fashioned mix.
That setup is the whole reason these medals are worth anything. Plenty of awards are pay-to-play, or they reward the prettiest label. Blind judging strips that away. The judge has a numbered glass and a scoring sheet. A medal earned that way is what separates an award-winning Old Fashioned mix from a decorated box.
The Platinum year
In 2024 the SIP Awards gave us Platinum. Platinum sits at the top of their scale, above Double Gold, and it goes to a product that takes top marks from the consumer panel with almost no dissent. So Platinum is a room full of ordinary drinkers, none of whom knew whose glass they held, all writing down the same verdict.
We've kept placing in that room since. SIP Awards Double Gold in 2023 and again in 2026. SIP Awards Gold in 2025. And SIP Awards Consumers' Choice in 2024, 2025, and 2026, which SIP Awards gives only to brands that place 2 or more years running. Four straight years, one panel of everyday drinkers, an award-winning Old Fashioned mix that keeps scoring.
14 medals, 6 judging bodies
Away from SIP, this award-winning Old Fashioned mix has medaled with five other panels. Proof Awards Double Gold in 2023 and again in 2024. Beverage Testing Institute Gold in 2024. Best Spirits Competition Gold in 2026 with a score of 91 points, judged double-blind by industry experts in New York. L.A. Spirits Awards Silver in 2023. And we medaled at the New York World Wine & Spirits Competition two years running, Silver in 2023 and Bronze in 2024, which is the tasting New York's trade buyers and sommeliers judge.
That's 14 medal awards from 6 judging bodies behind one award-winning Old Fashioned mix, 2023 through 2026. A single medal could be a fluke, a soft panel, a good day. Fourteen of them across six panels in four years is a pattern, and a pattern is the thing worth trusting in an award-winning Old Fashioned mix.
Seven consumer medals, seven industry medals
Split the 14 by who did the tasting and it comes out even. Seven are consumer awards, all from SIP, where the panel is people who buy cocktails rather than people who make them for a living. The other seven come from trade and expert panels at Proof, New York, the Beverage Testing Institute, Best Spirits, and L.A. Spirits.
Those two rooms usually want different things. Trained palates reward technical balance and forgive a drink that's hard to love. Consumers reward the drink they'd order a second time. An award-winning Old Fashioned mix that wins in both rooms has satisfied two juries with different standards, tasting the same unmarked glass.
The expert verdict tells you the balance is right. The consumer verdict tells you you'll like it. We have seven of each.
What we leave off the box
We hold one more medal than we market. The competition that awarded it went out of business, so no organization is left to verify it, and a medal nobody can check isn't worth printing. It stays off the box and off this page.
The same rule runs the ingredient panel. Brown sugar, sorghum, maple, two bar-standard bitters, Amarena sour cherry, orange extract. The caramel color and the certified food colors come from the bitters. The artificial flavors come from the cherry syrup. We add citric acid to balance the sweetness, and potassium sorbate, a common food preservative, is what keeps a packet stable for a year without refrigeration. It all prints on the side of the box. Read it and decide. We'd rather do that than build an award-winning Old Fashioned mix on language the label contradicts.
What an award-winning Old Fashioned mix means in your kitchen
That answers the objection a cocktail in a packet always raises. Yeah, but does it actually taste good?
A lot of convenient things taste convenient. You can feel the corner that got cut. The medals are the evidence that this award-winning Old Fashioned mix is different. The same award-winning Old Fashioned mix that wins double-blind against bottles and bar pours is the one you're making in 30 seconds with your own bourbon. The convenience is on the outside. The quality is in the glass, and the judges confirmed it without knowing whose glass it was.
For context on the drink itself, the Old Fashioned is a notoriously hard classic to balance, which makes a blind win mean more.
Our customers landed on the same verdict about the award-winning Old Fashioned mix without the judges. The most common five-star line is some version of "tastes exactly like a bar-made Old Fashioned." One reviewer called it her secret, then confessed she'd bought ten boxes in five months. Another said it was "bordering on dangerous."
Why the years on the box matter
Awards age. A trophy from a decade ago tells you nothing about the bottle on the shelf today. The wins behind this award-winning Old Fashioned mix run from 2023 through 2026, and three of them landed in 2026. A SIP Double Gold, a third straight Consumers' Choice, and that 91-point Gold. They describe the exact liquid you'd pour tonight.
A current medal from a blind panel is the closest thing a shopper gets to tasting before they buy. So skip taking our word for it, and skip trusting any single review. Fourteen results from six separate panels across four years let you reach your own conclusion before you ever open a packet.
We lean on the medals because they settle the only argument that matters. The liquid holds up. Make one tonight and taste why this award-winning Old Fashioned mix keeps winning.
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