Whitebox revenue up 100% YOY as new serves debut
Why does this matter?
Fast-growing RTD cocktail startup Whitebox achieved 100% YoY revenue growth to £4.1M while scaling to 8M cans/year production and 1,000+ retailers, providing concrete growth benchmarks for beverage founders.
Highlights
Ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail maker Whitebox has added two full-strength serves to its range: a tiki-inspired Mai Tai and a pre-Prohibition Clover Club. The two new cocktails have been formulated from ‘heritage’ recipes, which are being debuted to the retail market for the first time. The Whitebox Mai Tai has been formulated to stay true to the authentic 1944 Trader Vic’s recipe that made tiki cocktails famous. It is presented at 23% ABV and described as a bold, sunshine-soaked rum-forward classic that is both full-strength and perfectly balanced. Meanwhile, the recipe for the Whitebox Clover Club, which is canned at 22% ABV, has been taken from pre-Prohibition America, and blends gin, raspberries, and lemon juice with a signature foam top to create the first and only canned version of this classic cocktail in the UK market. Ben Iravani, co-founder of Whitebox Cocktails, said: "There is no regulation of cocktail labelling in the UK, so just because a product says ‘Mai Tai’ or ‘Clover Club’, it doesn’t mean you are getting the authentic cocktail. “At Whitebox, our promise is simple – we will always make the cocktails to the classic recipes. We feel it is a worthy mission as the Clover Club and Mai Tai are two of the most celebrated classic cocktails in history. Most people have never tasted an authentic version of these drinks, and now we’re bringing both back in a way that’s faithful to their heritage and ready to be enjoyed straight from the fridge.” The launches come as the UK's premium ready-to-drink cocktail market continues to grow by 10% year on year, with Whitebox spearheading the growth of the premium end of the market with full-strength classic cocktails made by the brand’s co-founding team: Iravani, Pietro Collina, Josh Rennie, Alex Lawrence, and Jack Wareing. Building on this momentum, the brand has increased its production to eight-million cans per year from its Edinburgh production facility. In its last full year of trading (2025), Whitebox saw its revenue increase by 100% compared with 2024, reaching £4.1 million (US$5.44m). Since first launching in 2021, it has expanded to more than 1,000 of the UK’s leading independent wine and spirits retailers, as well as Selfridges, Harrods, John Lewis, Wholefoods Market, and Sainsbury's. Plus, the brand now exports to 10 international markets, making it one of the fastest-growing spirits brands in the UK. In its first six months of trading in the US, Whitebox saw 400% sales growth. Rennie, co-founder of Whitebox Cocktails, said: “Across our retail partners, we’re seeing consumer demand for our authentic full-strength cocktails. So much so that in most of our premium wine and spirits retailers, Whitebox is a top 10 performing brand across all beer, wines and spirits. “The Whitebox Mai Tai and Clover Club are built on the kind of recipes our founding team have spent years refining in some of the world’s top bars, now in a format that fits how people drink at home.” The two new expressions join Whitebox’s growing menu of cocktails, which includes the Pocket Negroni, Freezer Martini, Chipper’s Old Fashioned, Squeezy’s Margarita, Classic Cosmo, Tiny Tee’s Dirty Martini and more. The Whitebox Mai Tai and Whitebox Clover Club will be available from 27 March from leading independent UK retailers, key wholesalers, as well as direct from www.whiteboxcocktails.com.
The Spirits Business
