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Owen's Mixers Owen's Mixers Seeing a brand you created on store shelves is often a dream come true. Seeing it in hundreds of the biggest sports arenas in the country is a different experience. Cofounders of Owen’s Mixers, Joshua Miller and Tyler Holland, have always had a different approach to making their product visible in all different sectors of American life. Now as Owen’s marks its tenth anniversary, the beverage landscape looks entirely different than when the brand started. But by breaking from the status quo and distributing the product in a way that felt more authentic to them, the brothers-in-law have set themselves up to become one of the most dominant challenger beverage brands created in the past decade. Owen’s is currently experiencing more than 100% year-over-year growth with over 50,000 accounts, the majority of which are on-premise locations. It’s on track to sell more than one million cases of its craft mixers this year. “Everybody told us to get into retail,” Miller tells me. “Our philosophy was really simple. If we can make it in the hardest-to-get-into places without having to pay sponsorships, we can evolve this brand into being a full 360 brand in both retail and on-premise.” Owen's Cofounders Tyler Holland (l) and Josh Miller (r) Owen's Mixers Creating An Experience Ten or so years ago, food and drink culture took on a new life when Instagram became an outlet to showcase the best bites and cocktails at any given moment–accelerating at a pace faster than venues could keep up with, neglecting the importance of carrying certain brands. “You have cranberry juice, orange juice, soda water,” Miller explains. “I just spent all this money and got mixers out of a drink gun. There was nothing that created a unique experience.” MORE FOR YOU Owen's Mixers Owen's Mixers It was most glaring for him at New York’s upscale nightclub, 1 Oak, where Miller would go out often with friends. Moscow Mules, probably because their copper mugs made for the most instagram-worthy of posts, became the cocktail of the moment. But inside the copper mug, the ginger beer, the primary ingredient of any mule, seemed to be an afterthought, creating a lame drinking experience that didn’t match the outside. Miller figured if he could make the most efficient ginger beer for bartenders that patrons wanted to include in their instagram photos, he could actually boost the club’s image. 1 Oak became his first customer. That only happened because Miller worked his charming personality; 1 Oak initially required a placement fee, which he couldn’t afford. ”I had to get creative,” he says, leading him to essentially become a party promoter, getting heads into the club in lieu of paying that fee. 1 Oak couldn’t say no. He started branching out to other clubs too. “I was out five to seven nights a week, meeting with the staff, hyping them up on the product,” he recalls. “One of the venues said, ‘if you get 40 people here tomorrow night, I’ll buy ten cases, and then we'll go from there.’ We had 200 people show up.” Owen's Mixers Owen's Mixers “It’s In The DNA” Owen’s is a family business. Beyond Miller and Holland being brothers-in-law, the brand’s namesake is Owen Woods, Miller’s great-great-grandfather. “He was an entrepreneur himself,” Miller says. “He opened the first general store in Portland, Maine in 1864 when he emigrated from Ireland.” Maine has since become a sacred place for the Miller-Holland family, visiting every year, residing in the same home that Owen’s son, William Woods, built 100 years ago. “The brand we’ve created hits so close to home because we built it within the confines of that home,” Miller says. “We're proud of that family heritage.” Owen's Mixers Owen's Mixers While attending the University of South Carolina, Miller landed a foundational internship that provided the motivation to be relentless in business, working for Elon Musk at Tesla. “It was the structure of my entire life of becoming an entrepreneur,” he says. “I got addicted to the feeling of making sales.” Holland never felt connected to his consulting job after receiving a business degree from Columbia University, so decided to take the leap and join his brother-in-law, who he has known for two decades, with no real business plan other than a pact that nothing would get in the way of their family. “There have been plenty of dark days where we’ve been at each other's throats,” Miller says. “But the grounding force that always brought us back to the vision is the respect for what the other brings to the table.” Miller’s work as EVP of Sir Kensington’s condiments, which eventually sold to Unilever, brought him to New York City and prepared him for starting a food and beverage startup that could challenge legacy brands. Owen's is the official mix of the PBA Tour Owen's Mixers With their savings and some cash from family, the pair bought a lot of ginger and cooked up some spiced ginger beer that they would have to sell to 1 Oak. They combined pure cane sugar and lime to make a Mule Mix, not just a ginger beer, to speed up the process but maintain the highest craft quality they could achieve. "We’re stubborn in our commitment to quality,” Miller says. That stubbornness is genetic–a connection to the Moscow Mule and the inspiration for their perky donkey mascot on the front of each bottle of Owen’s. “My grandmother, a very sassy old Jewish woman, always used to say, ‘don’t be an ass,’” Miller says. “That always stuck with us.” And today, as the official mix of the Professional Bowling Association, Owen’s always seems to go back to its familial roots. “William Woods, my great-grandfather and Owen’s son, was the Maine State Bowling Champ in candlepin bowling,” Miller says. “It's in the DNA.” Owen's Ginger Beer Owen's Mixers The primary problem with remaining solely in the nightlife space is that, as Miller explains, “the average nightclub in New York City lasts 18 months.” 1 Oak shut its doors a few years ago. But still, Owen’s refused to commit to retail. “If you get into retail and fail, you’re in the penalty box for years.” After brainstorming where people drink the most cocktails, Delta Sky Clubs became the next major account. Met's souvenir cup with Owen's-made Moscow Mule Owen's Mixers But in 2018, Miller contacted Vincent Vazquez, Aramark’s VP of Operations, previously supporting food and beverage service at New York’s Citi Field. Fate would have it that the stadium’s previous mixer brand pulled the plug just weeks before Opening Day. “There is a lost art of building relationships as a vendor,” Vazquez tells me. “Josh was aggressive in putting his brand out there.” The same concept that landed Owen’s in nightclubs worked for large stadiums too. “We have an expectation to elevate cocktails, but also have to serve a line of people who need to get back to their seats for the game,” Vazquez says. “When you’re serving 35,000 people a game, you need reliability in your partnerships. Josh doesn’t send a sales rep. He sends himself.” The Moscow Mule with Owen’s Ginger Beer became the featured cocktail at Citi Field, served not in a copper mug, but a Mets-branded souvenir mason jar. “We were selling an exorbitant amount,” Vazquez remembers. “It ended up becoming the number one-selling item in the ballpark over hot dogs and chicken tenders.” Owen's partnership with Dobel Tequila for the US Open's 'Ace Paloma" Owen's Mixers Miller adds, “in 2017 when the Mets went to the playoffs, they sold $45,000 worth of mules. In 2018, when they switched to Owen’s, they sold $225,000 worth.” Owen’s soon became part of the permanent cocktail program at Citi Field, rolling out a new Rio Red Grapefruit for Palomas. “There was something different about the product,” Vazquez explains. “It was crisper, not as sugary. It was a refreshing cocktail.” Now in more than 300 sports stadiums around the country, Vazquez credits Miller’s strategy for shifting the way in which Aramark approaches vendors for its thousands of food service clients. “Josh’s ability to deliver a product has been influential on how we look at our business,” he says. “We don't always need to be just checking a box. We need to find what's pushing the envelope. Owen’s gave us the chance to challenge ourselves.” Owen's Transfusion Mix Owen's Mixers Becoming Ubiquitous Owen’s never stops building. When there’s a need, Miller and Holland are ready to answer with a new flavor. It has grown its visibility to become one of the dominant beverage brands in American sports. And while that was being built, the two rewrote the blueprint for what a mixer can be; not just syrupy margarita mix or a basic tonic water, but liquids that are crafted with creativity and intention, and a brand with a story behind every venue, every placement, from restaurants to music festivals–incorporating that story into every cocktail it’s poured into. Owen's "Mixery" Activation at LiveNation-Backed Music Festivals Owen's Mixers At a friend’s wedding on a golf course, Miller was introduced to the Transfusion, the ginger ale and grape juice cocktail that’s become popular in the golf scene. Naturally, Owen’s then created a co-branded Transfusion mix with Barstool Sports when golf became a reliable pandemic activity. “No other mixer company has a Transfusion mix,” Miller says. “It popped off.” Owen’s Transfusion Mix is now the Official Licensed Mixer of the PGA Tour. In the past several years, Owen’s has started to expand its product line, now with 13 varieties, all of which come in several different sizes and formats. One of its top sellers is its Nitro Espresso Martini Mix, also born out of the pandemic, when people couldn’t go to bars but found the cocktail a bit too difficult to make themselves at home. Owen’s Nitro Espresso Martini Mix just launched in all Chili’s and Applebee’s locations. When Miller and Holland wanted to have more of a presence at music venues, they got in contact with LiveNation through hospitality guru, Dave Grutman. LiveNation wound up leading a round of fundraising. Owen’s has raised $15 million to date and has no plans to raise any more. Country artist Darius Rucker and NBA star Jimmy Butler are significant investors. Investor Darius Rucker with Owen's Owen's Mixers LiveNation now activates Owen’s at many of its music festivals and concerts. The partnership also led to the launch of many new flavors, which LiveNation requested for certain cocktail flavor profiles, like Strawberry Lemonade, Cherry Lemonade, Chilli Watermelon and Prickly Pear. Owen’s just began a new national distribution partnership by Southern Glazer’s, which previously distributed its biggest competitor, Fever-Tree, until it partnered with Molson Coors earlier in 2025, allowing Owen’s to ramp up its retail presence at a time when customers, since the pandemic, had been asking to purchase Owen’s to make their own cocktails at home. On top of its 30,000 restaurant and venue locations, Owen’s is carried in more than 20,000 retail locations including all CVS and BJ’s stores nationwide. Owen’s also now has a presence on all JetBlue flights, at all Lucky Strike Bowling Alleys and events like the Ryder Cup and US Open. Daizy's THC-infused Social Sodas Owen's Mixers Branching Out When Miller interned at Tesla, he quickly picked up that it was much more than a car company. “It was a technology platform that could be utilized across different sectors of business,” he says. “I always wanted to build something that I felt could evolve into many other branches.” As Americans in more recent years become more sober-curious, Owen’s rises as an option that has a home in multiple categories. Miller himself decided to stop drinking too. He’s happy sipping on an Owen’s Transfusion as is, while those around him sip on a hard one. He also likes mixing his Ginger Beer with Lemonade. Daizy's Social Sodas at Total Wines & More Owen's Mixers But he and Holland have found another brand for the business that also provides something of a buzz, launching Daizy’s Social Sodas, the hemp-derived delta-9 THC-infused beverage, in 2024. “Inclusivity is my number one goal…sharing great moments with great people and not being restricted by the substances that they choose to consume,” he says. “It gets people to interact with our brand in different ways.” Miller has thrived in creating a lasting business in the past decade–not because he created a product that no one else could have created, but because he prioritized the importance of his relationships and following his intuition as his primary business tactic. As Vazquez says, “as big as Owen’s has gotten, there’s never a time that one of my accounts can't pick up the phone and get a hold of Josh. In 10 years, he's never changed.” New flavors will inevitably roll out, and new accounts will most certainly be added to make Owen’s a greater household name. There will also be new challenger brands that find creative ways to expand a market too. If they get creative with finding their target customers, they can compete right up there with Owen’s. “There’s never going to be an exact roadmap to follow for success,” Miller says. “I still feel like I have something to prove. Complacency is a disease.” Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
