Reinventing Ready-to-Drink with Booz Box Cocktails | Ryan Provost, Booz Box Cocktails

On this episode, we’re joined by Ryan Provost, the Co-Founder and CEO of Booz Box Cocktails, a boxed RTD cocktail brand disrupting the spirits industry with bold packaging, craft mixology, and a form factor nobody saw coming.What started as a pandemic dinner-table idea between roommates in Jersey City has grown into a multi-market brand now sold in six states including New Jersey, Florida, California, and Texas. Booz Box Cocktails are 1.75L boxed cocktails that deliver bar-quality drinks—like the Pineapple Mule and Watermelon Cooler—straight from your fridge tap.In this episode, Ryan shares how they landed on boxed cocktails as a form factor, why branding for Gen Z was a non-negotiable, and how a co-packer pivot unlocked their go-to-market. We also talk through fundraising challenges, working with a tiny team, and why good taste (literally) is still the most important growth lever.We chat with Ryan about standing out in a crowded RTD category, refining flavor formulations, convincing skeptical distributors, and lessons learned from a crowdfunding campaign that didn’t quite go to plan.—---------------Episode Highlights: 🍹 Why boxed cocktails were the winning form factor 📦 What it took to get a co-packer to take a chance 🎯 Branding lessons for Gen Z and millennial appeal 👨‍🍳 From bartending notebooks to scaleable SKUs 🧃 Flavor challenges (and the cucumber misstep) 💡 Form factor as both differentiation and a moat 📉 What didn't go as planned with their crowdfunding campaign 🚚 Building a self-distribution playbook 🌍 Expanding into 6 markets in under 12 months 🔥 Why “taste” still trumps branding—---------------Table of Contents: 00:00 – Intro & Booz Box origin story 02:30 – Choosing boxed cocktails over cans 06:00 – Form factor, branding & Gen Z appeal 11:00 – Working with their designer, Kyle Perry 13:00 – Recipe formulation & co-packer challenges 17:30 – Manufacturing woes & their redemption story 21:00 – Distribution strategy & key markets 25:00 – Balancing velocity vs. distribution 28:00 – Crowdfunding lessons 30:00 – Where to follow Booz Box & invest—---------------Links:Booz Box Cocktails – https://www.boozbox.co Follow Ryan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanprovostofficial Crowdfunding campaign on Loupt – https://loupt.co/offering/booz-boxFollow Adam on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.Shout out to my friends over at Glimpse, the go-to partner for automating retail-related back-office operations and unlocking margin trapped in invalid fees and manual processes.Are you in the market for a new flexible packaging partner? Check out HD Packaging. Third-generation, family-owned and built for the needs of category leaders like Newman’s Own and A Dozen Cousins. Faster launches, lower costs, and no artwork fees.