Mission Craft Cocktails Inks Exclusive Kentucky Bourbon Deal With Lofted Custom Spirits Just in Time for National Bourbon Day
The timing could not have been more deliberate. On June 11, 2026, just three days before the country raises a glass for National Bourbon Day, Mission Craft Cocktails announced an exclusive new supply agreement with Lofted Custom Spirits for its bourbon and whiskey-based cocktails. For a Southern California brand that built its reputation on bar-quality ready-to-drink cocktails, the move sends a clear message about where the company is headed and what it thinks serious American drinkers deserve in a bottle.
This isn't a one-off ingredient swap or a marketing stunt dressed up as a supply chain decision. It's the second major exclusive sourcing deal Mission Craft Cocktails has announced in 2026, and it locks in two of Kentucky's most decorated distilleries as the backbone of every bourbon and whiskey RTD the brand produces. For consumers who've been watching the ready-to-drink category balloon with sugar-heavy, spirit-light products, this kind of commitment to genuine provenance carries real weight.
The Partnership: Two Kentucky Distilleries, One RTD Brand
The Mission Craft Cocktails Old Fashioned, bottled at 40% Alc/Vol, now features barrel-aged bourbon whiskey from Green River Distilling Co., blending orange and aromatic Angostura bitters, while the Mission Craft Cocktails Manhattan, at 32.5% Alc/Vol, uses premium rye whiskey distilled and aged by Bardstown Bourbon Co., combined with semi-sweet vermouth, aromatic bitters, caramel, and dried fruits. These aren't anonymous sourced spirits poured from a commodity tank — they come from two of the most respected addresses on Kentucky's Bourbon Trail.
The agreement covers both SKUs under a single umbrella because Lofted Spirits produces and owns both Bardstown Bourbon Company and Green River Distilling Co., which were united under a single name in March 2025. That consolidation matters for Mission Craft Cocktails. Rather than negotiating separate agreements with two independent distilleries, the brand now has a single, integrated supply chain partner whose portfolio spans different whiskey styles and distillery profiles — exactly the kind of flexibility a growing RTD brand needs when its lineup spans both bourbon-forward cocktails and rye-based ones.
What the Founders Say
"Our exclusive supply agreement leverages the full Lofted Custom Spirits portfolio to give Mission Craft Cocktails a world-class whiskey supply chain, unmatched consistency, innovation capabilities, and a premium Kentucky bourbon story," said founders Amit Singh and Marcin Malyszko. That phrase — "premium Kentucky bourbon story" — is doing a lot of work. In a retail environment where consumers are reading labels more carefully than ever, being able to point to Green River or Bardstown Bourbon on a bottle's back label is a genuine differentiator. Both distilleries carry serious reputations earned through years of awards, critical acclaim, and enthusiast loyalty.
Who Is Lofted Custom Spirits?
To fully understand why this agreement matters, it helps to understand the company on the other side of the deal. Lofted Spirits was established as the parent company uniting Bardstown Bourbon Company, Green River Distilling Co., and Lofted Custom Spirits, the company's newly renamed contract distillation business. The company also runs a contract distilling operation, Lofted Custom Spirits, supporting clients for other distilled spirits categories such as American whiskey, vodka, rum, cream liqueur, and ready-to-drink. It is the number one producer of Kentucky custom contract whiskey.
Expanding on the work started by Peter Loftin in 2016, Lofted offers custom contract distillation while developing Bardstown Bourbon Company and Green River. Bardstown Bourbon Company was acquired by Pritzker Private Capital in March 2022, followed by the acquisition of Green River Distilling Co. in August 2022. As Lofted Spirits, the company continues to be owned by Pritzker Private Capital with a focus on long-term investment and expansion.
The infrastructure backing this deal is substantial. Lofted Spirits, producer of Bardstown Bourbon Company and Green River Distilling Co., has broken ground on a 4,000-square-foot expansion that will nearly double the footprint of its existing bottling operation while cementing the company's position as the most nimble independent copacker in Kentucky. The bottling operation already supports a broad customer base across distilled spirits categories including American Whiskey, Vodka, Rum, Cream Liqueur and RTD. While the facility currently processes more than 10 million bottles per year, the addition of a high-capacity, high-speed, small format line will bring capacity above 35 million bottles annually.
That expansion signals that Lofted isn't simply accommodating current demand — it's building capacity for the wave of premium RTD growth that industry analysts have been projecting for years. The introduction of Lofted Spirits as the parent company provides a strong brand identity for the custom distillation business, which offers fully customizable, end-to-end whiskey production for brand partners worldwide. For a fast-moving RTD brand like Mission Craft Cocktails, that end-to-end capability is worth more than a simple barrel purchase agreement.
Bardstown Bourbon Company: The Collaborative Distillery
Bardstown Bourbon Company is regarded as one of the most sophisticated whiskey distilleries in the country, pushing the boundaries of bourbon production from its home in Bardstown, Kentucky. The distillery made its name through collaborative whiskey programs, bringing in celebrated names from wine, beer, and spirits to co-create aged expressions that pushed the category forward. Its rye whiskey, now flowing into Mission Craft Cocktails' Manhattan, carries the same DNA of technical precision and blending expertise the distillery has built its reputation on.
Green River Distilling Co.: Heritage in Every Barrel
Green River is the 10th oldest distillery licensed in Kentucky, showcasing quality through timeless whiskey recipes. It is located in Owensboro, Kentucky. That kind of historical lineage isn't window dressing. Green River's mash bills and distilling traditions stretch back into an era when Kentucky bourbon was a purely utilitarian craft, not a status category. The barrel-aged bourbon now appearing in Mission Craft Cocktails' Old Fashioned brings that depth of character to a format — ready-to-drink — that has historically struggled to source spirits with genuine backstory.
The Brand Behind the Bottle: Mission Craft Cocktails' Origin Story
The Lofted deal makes more sense when you understand where Mission Craft Cocktails came from and how quickly it has scaled. During the pandemic, Amit Singh and Marcin Malyszko started mixing cocktails at home, frustrated by the overly sweet ready-to-drink options they were buying at the store. That quarantine experiment became Mission Craft Cocktails, a Mission Viejo-based ready-to-drink cocktail brand now sold in more than 600 stores nationwide, including 240 Total Wine & More locations in 29 states.
The founders weren't spirits industry veterans. With no background in the beverage industry, Singh and Malyszko spent the next two-and-a-half years developing recipes and learning how to commercialize the products. In 2023, they launched five different drinks at small liquor stores in their hometown. A year later, they landed in 10 local BevMo stores. From there, the growth became genuinely extraordinary.
Mission Craft Cocktails went from selling roughly 2,000 cases in 2024 to over 81,000 in 2025. Last year, the startup generated around $6.3 million in sales. That's a trajectory that demands better infrastructure, more consistent supply, and the kind of distillery partners that can grow alongside the brand rather than becoming a bottleneck. The Lofted agreement is, in part, a direct response to that pressure.
A Purpose-Driven Brand With Real Numbers
Mission Craft Cocktails has always paired its commercial ambitions with an explicit social commitment. Since the beginning, 5% of sales have been donated to help fight food insecurity in the U.S., and to date, the company has funded over 1 million meals with Feeding America. Singh has noted that "in three years of being on the shelf, it's been over a quarter of a million dollars" in hard cash donated. For a brand that reached 600-plus retail doors in roughly three years, those figures reflect a genuine institutional commitment rather than a line item on a marketing budget.
The founders see their company as a David in a segment of Goliaths, with their bet placed on economies of scale, format innovation, and a purpose-driven brand. The exclusive supply agreements — first for tequila, now for bourbon and whiskey — are a large part of how they plan to compete against the larger, better-funded RTD players that have entered the space.
A Pattern of Exclusive Sourcing Agreements
The Lofted deal doesn't stand alone. Following the brand's March 3, 2026 announcement of its exclusive supply agreement with Productos Finos de Agave for all of its tequila-based cocktails, the move to align with Lofted Custom Spirits underscores Mission Craft Cocktails' continued commitment to sourcing the finest base spirits for its award-winning line of bar-strength ready-to-drink cocktails.
The pattern here is deliberate and strategically coherent: lock in exclusive, category-specific spirit sources so no competitor can build a similar product using the same raw material. For the tequila SKUs, a third-generation Mexican-owned distillery in Jalisco. For bourbon and whiskey, Kentucky's number-one custom contract producer. The brand is essentially building a moat around its supply chain, one exclusive agreement at a time.
This approach mirrors what higher-end spirits brands have done for decades — securing distillery relationships or long-term barrel contracts that give them both quality consistency and competitive insulation. Applied to the RTD category at this stage of its growth, it's a sharper play than most competitors are making.
National Bourbon Day and the Timing of the Announcement
National Bourbon Day gives cocktail enthusiasts a reason to discover or rediscover America's Native Spirit — a designation coined by Congressman Jim Bunning and adopted by the Senate by unanimous consent on August 2, 2007. That official congressional recognition gives the holiday a genuine historical grounding that most beverage industry awareness days lack. Bourbon wasn't designated America's Native Spirit as a marketing exercise; it was an acknowledgment of the spirit's deep roots in American agriculture, culture, and identity.
For Mission Craft Cocktails to drop its Kentucky supply chain announcement on the eve of that holiday shows a brand that understands how to leverage a cultural moment without cheapening it. The Lofted agreement gives the announcement substance — this isn't just a limited-edition label with "Kentucky" written on it. It's an institutional, exclusive partnership with the state's most scaled contract distiller, tied to two distilleries whose names carry genuine credibility among bourbon drinkers.
What This Means for the RTD Bourbon Category
The ready-to-drink cocktail market has matured considerably since the early days of canned spirits and sugar-laden malt-base imposters. But even as the category has grown in sophistication, supply chain transparency has lagged. Most RTD brands don't specify where their base spirits come from, and even fewer lock in exclusive sourcing arrangements that could be verified and trusted by consumers.
Mission Craft Cocktails is pushing against that tendency. The brand's five-cocktail lineup spans tequila, rum, vodka, rye, and bourbon, with each 375ml bottle yielding four bar-strength drinks. At those alcohol percentages — 40% for the Old Fashioned, 32.5% for the Manhattan — these are not spirit-forward-by-name-only products. They're built to deliver what a well-made cocktail from a competent bartender would actually taste like, which means the quality of the base spirit matters enormously.
Within four months of its launch, the company received double gold awards for its Mai Tai, Margarita, and Old Fashioned at prestigious competitions including the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the SIP Awards. Those accolades gave the brand early credibility in a category where consumers are right to be skeptical. The Lofted agreement is designed to ensure that credibility is structurally backed by the best distillery relationships the company can build.
Bar-Strength RTD: Still a Niche, but Growing Fast
The segment Mission Craft Cocktails occupies — true bar-strength RTD, with ABVs in the 30-40% range — remains a niche within the broader RTD market. Most of the category's volume still flows through lower-ABV canned cocktails and malt-based beverages. But the high-ABV RTD tier is growing as consumers who actually know what a properly made Old Fashioned or Manhattan tastes like demand a ready-to-drink version that doesn't insult their palate.
Mission Craft Cocktails sources ingredients from within 100 miles of where its products are bottled, combining local ingredients with authentic spirits. That dual commitment — hyperlocal for supporting ingredients, nationally sourced for base spirits — threads a needle that gives the brand both regional identity and national aspirational quality. The Lofted partnership extends that logic into the most critical component of any whiskey-based cocktail: the whiskey itself.
The Bigger Picture: Kentucky's Influence on American RTD
What's happening between Mission Craft Cocktails and Lofted Custom Spirits reflects a broader phenomenon in American spirits. Kentucky's distilling infrastructure — built over generations and recently expanded dramatically by private capital — is increasingly powering brands that have no distillery of their own but want genuine Kentucky bourbon in their products.
Lofted Spirits' custom distillation business provides fully customizable, end-to-end whiskey production for brand partners worldwide. The word "worldwide" is worth noting. The demand for authentic Kentucky bourbon as a base spirit in RTD products isn't just an American story — it's a global one. Mission Craft Cocktails, based in Orange County and currently scaling across the United States, is positioned to benefit from that international credibility even as it focuses on domestic retail expansion.
For Lofted, the Mission Craft Cocktails agreement adds another prominent RTD partner to a portfolio that already spans the full spectrum of distilled spirits categories. As the company nearly triples its bottling capacity, having anchor RTD partners with genuine growth momentum — like a brand that went from 2,000 to 81,000 cases in a single year — provides both revenue stability and proof-of-concept for its small-format bottling expansion.
Looking Ahead: Scale, Innovation, and What's Next
The founders' language around the Lofted deal specifically mentions "innovation capabilities" alongside consistency and supply chain strength. That choice of words suggests the relationship isn't simply about securing enough bourbon to meet current demand — it's about what Mission Craft Cocktails can develop next, using Lofted's distilling expertise and blending infrastructure as a creative resource.
Together with the custom distillation program that redefined the industry, Lofted Spirits' mission is to elevate experiences and exceed expectations, fostering a global community united by the art and pleasure of fine spirits. For a brand that got its start when two friends decided the RTD options on store shelves weren't good enough, that shared orientation toward quality over convenience is a meaningful cultural alignment.
Mission Craft Cocktails is projecting significant revenue growth in 2026, with the founders targeting a doubling of the brand's roughly $6.3 million in 2025 sales. Achieving that goal requires not just more retail doors but confidence that the product quality won't slip as volume increases — exactly the kind of assurance that an exclusive supply agreement with the country's leading Kentucky contract distiller is designed to provide.
National Bourbon Day comes and goes every June 14th, usually with little more fanfare than a few distillery promotions and cocktail specials. This year, Mission Craft Cocktails used the occasion to announce something with actual shelf life: a supply chain built on two of Kentucky's finest distilleries, structured as an exclusive agreement that competitors can't replicate, and timed to remind American whiskey drinkers that what's in the bottle matters as much as how convenient it is to drink. That's not a bad way to celebrate America's Native Spirit.
