Whether you’ve resolved to tighten up that discretionary bar-hopping budget in 2021 or can’t deal with the thought of putting on actual pants (with buttons!) to venture out for an expertly mixed drink, you can still enjoy a glam cocktail life this winter with little to no effort right in the comfort of your own home.
In fact, local companies are stepping up to the bar with mixers that make crafting elevated boozy concoctions as easy as a little pour, stir, and sip. Mixers have come a long way in a very short time, and a few Music City businesses are taking them to the next level by combining all of a cocktail’s essential ingredients in one easy-to-pour bottle. Think: fresh juices, spices, herbs and bitters — many of them sourced locally. All you have to do is add your favorite booze to the mix and pretend that you’ve saddled up to your favorite bar. Dress code: strictly pjs.
PERFECTLY CORDIAL
After 20 years working in food and beverage, Rhonda Cammom turned her attention to the bartending world, where she noticed a gap in the marketplace for an all-natural craft beverage that catered to drinkers and non-drinkers alike. Made with fresh fruit, warm spices, and a proprietary herbal blend, all of Perfectly Cordial’s flavors are crafted by hand in small batches, including the jalapeño mint and caramelized pineapple and coconut water. Each bottle is preservative-free and made without artificial colors or flavors in Nashville.
“We tell customers to treat it like a jam or jelly because we make them in the same fashion,” adds Cammom.
WITHCO.
Short for “with company,” WithCo has been churning out batched cocktail mixers from their headquarters in Music City using fresh ingredients like ginger root and just-peeled orange rind. In fact, that’s why they suggest only keeping a bottle around for two weeks after it’s been opened — like any fresh product, the shelf life is limited. But no matter. After tasting mixers like the honey sour and Ellis Old Fashioned, we predict the bottle won’t last for much longer than that.
Each 16-ounce mix can make up to 10 cocktails, with the exception of the Ellis Old Fashioned, which can make up to 32. That’s something to cheers to.
BARSMITH
With a belief that mixers could and should be on par with craft bar and restaurant sips (while also being reasonably priced), Barsmith was born. The brand works with multiple Nashville-based bartenders to develop their mixers, with Robert Longhurst (Virago, Holland House, Josephine) leading the charge as creative director. Ingredients for each mixer — like the dirty martini, paloma and Old Fashioned — are sourced as locally as possible with no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives, and made in Tennessee.
WHITE’S ELIXIRS
What started off as brotherly bonding over a few cocktails at The Patterson House blossomed into an idea for a mixer company that would take off throughout Middle Tennessee and beyond. Brad White’s eponymous brand takes pride in bottling his small-batch mixers in Dickson, Tennessee, with ingredients anyone can easily read and understand.
“I passionately believe you shouldn’t have to be a chemical engineer to understand what you’re being asked to ingest,” says White.
While the labels for each cocktail mix comes with a subtle dose of quirky humor, the flavors you’ll find in mixes like the Moscow Mule and margarita are quite serious about tasting their best.
ELI MASON
An Old Fashioned in less than 60 seconds? True story. Eli Mason has been making expedited cocktails a reality with their pre-blended mix of bitters and cane sugar made in small batches from their Nashville location. The recipe is simple: grab your favorite whiskey, add some Eli Mason Old Fashioned mix, stir and boom — a cocktail faster than you can say “make it a double.” (Because you will.) But Eli Mason is no one-trick pony — the brand has expanded their line to include a mint julep mix, bar kits and soon, premium cocktail cherries.
WALKER FEED CO.
In 2008, Kristin and Cody Walker moved to Nashville to pursue their passion for music. But five years later, that passion grew beyond the stage and into the bar. Enter: Walker Feed Co. Each bottle, like their Southern Bloody Mary and Strawberry Rhubarb Margarita, is made with fresh squeezed juices and uses regional flavors to help create a well-rounded, Southern flavor profile in every sip. No surprise then that local restaurants like Party Fowl are big fans of the stuff.