Ryan Provost - Reinventing Ready-to-Drink with Booz Box Cocktails

On this episode, we’re joined by Ryan Provost, the Co-Founder and CEO of Booz Box Cocktails, a boxed RTD cocktail brand disrupting the spirits industry with bold packaging, craft mixology, and a form factor nobody saw coming.

What started as a pandemic dinner-table idea between roommates in Jersey City has grown into a multi-market brand now sold in six states including New Jersey, Florida, California, and Texas. Booz Box Cocktails are 1.75L boxed cocktails that deliver bar-quality drinks—like the Pineapple Mule and Watermelon Cooler—straight from your fridge tap.

In this episode, Ryan shares how they landed on boxed cocktails as a form factor, why branding for Gen Z was a non-negotiable, and how a co-packer pivot unlocked their go-to-market. We also talk through fundraising challenges, working with a tiny team, and why good taste (literally) is still the most important growth lever.

We chat with Ryan about standing out in a crowded RTD category, refining flavor formulations, convincing skeptical distributors, and lessons learned from a crowdfunding campaign that didn’t quite go to plan.

🎧 Episode Highlights: 🍹 Why boxed cocktails were the winning form factor
📦 What it took to get a co-packer to take a chance
🎯 Branding lessons for Gen Z and millennial appeal
👨‍🍳 From bartending notebooks to scaleable SKUs
🧃 Flavor challenges (and the cucumber misstep)
💡 Form factor as both differentiation and a moat
📉 What didn't go as planned with their crowdfunding campaign
🚚 Building a self-distribution playbook
🌍 Expanding into 6 markets in under 12 months
🔥 Why “taste” still trumps branding

⏱️ Table of Contents
00:00 – Intro & Booz Box origin story
02:30 – Choosing boxed cocktails over cans
06:00 – Form factor, branding & Gen Z appeal
11:00 – Working with their designer, Kyle Perry
13:00 – Recipe formulation & co-packer challenges
17:30 – Manufacturing woes & their redemption story
21:00 – Distribution strategy & key markets
25:00 – Balancing velocity vs. distribution
28:00 – Crowdfunding lessons
30:00 – Where to follow Booz Box & invest

🔗 Links:
Booz Box Cocktails – https://www.boozbox.co
Follow Ryan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanprovostofficial
Crowdfunding campaign on Loupt – https://loupt.co/offering/booz-box

Follow Adam on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg

Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.