Big Brand vs. Craft: What You Are Really Paying For

Walk any liquor aisle and the biggest names take the most shelf space. But a surprising amount of what you pay for a household-name bottle is marketing, not liquid.

The label tax

Big brands spend heavily on advertising, sponsorships and shelf placement, and that spend is baked into the price. Small producers cannot buy that visibility, so their money goes into better raw ingredients, slower distillation and hand-finishing instead.

Smoothness you can trust

Many mass-market spirits also lean on additives to soften a young spirit - in tequila, up to one percent additives can go in without appearing on the label. Craft and additive-free bottles let you taste what is actually there.

Our answer

We taste widely and hand-pick small-producer bottles in the $30-45 range that genuinely beat the big names in their categories. That is the entire premise of the Craft Bartending Kit - and if a bottle ever misses for you, we make it right.

Must be 21+. Please enjoy responsibly.

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