Have you ever wondered what came first? The Spiced Honey or Cranberry Thyme? The answer is neither. We’re going to share a little big about the origins of our flavors.
Both Matt and I worked in the restaurant industry when we started Iconic Cocktail Co. It October of 2015. We did our first catering event with our friends Hoot & Holler (now Form Floral) Pink Puddle Studio, and Lunabear Studio for a floral watercolor workshop. We were in charge of the cocktails so we came up with a colorful menu inspired by the event.
We had a Pina Colada on the menu that was made traditionally but “colored” with a splash of our house made Grenadine. And that’s the truth--it was house made. We made everything in our little apartment. Our hosts asked if we had anything we wanted to give away to help promote our business. We had nothing; barely a logo and a business card. But we did have a handful of leftover empty clear bottles from the previous Christmas. (Matt would make batched cocktails and give them to co-workers as presents.)
We bottled up the Grenadine and came up with the first draft of a label. I went to Staples to pick up those generic white circle labels and decided to teach myself Adobe Illustrator. And guess what? They were terrible. I remember feeling so discouraged because anything I came up with just looked off. We almost named it “Grandma’s Grenadine.” #dodgedabullet
My co-worker gave me a few sheets of kraft circle labels that didn’t work for his candles. Years prior to the idea of Iconic, Matt bought me a old base-ribbed stamp kit. I decided to spell out the letters and stamp them right onto the label with the date we made it. Little did we know that typeface would be the foundation of our bottle appearance.
We handed out the few bottles we had leftover but it inspired us to make something else. Matt had a few recipes that he always carried with him but never shared. It started with Ginga Syrup with the first batch made at the end of October of 2015. And then came Spiced Honey labeled on 110215.
We would make 10 or 15 of these little tiny bottles and split them up before we’d head into our shifts. We would offer them to our co-workers for five bucks and come home empty handed and full of business ideas. That holiday season, we designed our first seasonal flavor, Cranberry Thyme, and we sold our cocktail mixers like Girl Scout cookies to friends and family.
Not a lot has changed since those original batches. Spiced Honey is exactly how we made it on November 2, 2015. We perfected Cranberry Thyme’s consistency but it still tastes exactly like Christmas four batches ago.
Since then, we’ve added our rotating seasonal flavors and our flagship mixer, Lime Leaf Tonic.
Maybe in 2025 to celebrate 10 years, we’ll do a throwback bottle but until then, you can find all of our flavors right here. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, both Matt and I are so thankful for this opportunity we have and couldn’t do it without the support of our customers, friends, and family.
We want to share our love with a 10% discount on the site. Use promocode GRANDMASGRENADINE to redeem it (expires January 2019)
Cheers!
Kaylee & Matt
Iconic Cocktail Co.