Tip Top Proper Cocktails and Ivy Mix Honor Brooklyn's Leyenda with Limited-Edition Tia Mia
PRESS RELEASE posted by Tip Top Proper Cocktails
ATLANTA, GA (October 6, 2026) — The best bars do more than serve great cocktails. They change the culture around them. Today, Tip Top Proper Cocktails introduces Proper Establishments, a new series recognizing the establishments that shaped modern cocktail culture through the cocktails that people fell in love with there. The first release is the Tia Mia, developed in collaboration with its creator, Ivy Mix, and inspired by Leyenda.
When Leyenda opened in Brooklyn in 2015, many of New York's celebrated cocktail bars embraced hidden entrances and hushed rooms. Ivy Mix and her partners deliberately went the other way, opening the entrance and windows to the street and making it warm and welcoming to everyone. Leyenda proved that serious cocktails could be inclusive and fun, earning a place on The World's 50 Best Bars in 2018 and 2021 and multiple James Beard Foundation honors along the way.
Like Tip Top's collaborations with Sam Ross on the Paper Plane and Penicillin, Joaquín Simó on the Naked & Famous, and Phil Ward on the Oaxaca Old Fashioned, the Tia Mia was made hand-in-hand with the bartender who created it. Proper Establishments goes one step further, honoring the bar behind people's favorite cocktail memories, including many on the Tip Top team.
“We kept coming back to Leyenda when we were first falling in love with cocktails in New York,” said Neal Cohen, Tip Top’s Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer. “You'd grab a seat at the bar, and the bartender would walk you through mezcals and rums you’d never seen or heard of, then show you what they could do in a cocktail. It was a revelation, never intimidating, just fun. When we started talking about which bars to honor, there was never much debate about where Proper Establishments should begin.”
Mix created the Tia Mia while behind the bar at Lani Kai, and the drink has followed her ever since, from Clover Club to Leyenda to Titán. Along the way, it became a modern classic. A mezcal-driven riff on the Mai Tai, the Tia Mia balances smoky mezcal with funky Jamaican rum, bright citrus, curaçao, and toasted almond orgeat. For the Tip Top team, it’s inseparable from Leyenda—it’s the drink that best captures the adventurous and easygoing spirit that made the bar unforgettable.
“I love that I've been able to have a drink that's in this lexicon of the modern classic, and it's delicious,” said Ivy Mix. “It's fun for me that it's out there and it can go off and have its own existence.”
Although Leyenda closed in 2025, its influence continues to be felt throughout the cocktail world, and Mix's reach extends well beyond it. She is an author, educator, and co-founder of Speed Rack, the pioneering all-women+ bartending competition that has helped elevate hundreds of bartenders while raising more than $2 million for breast cancer research. She now operates Brooklyn's Whoopsie Daisy and Titán and was named a 2026 James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service for her work at Whoopsie Daisy.
INTRODUCING: THE TIA MIA
Tip Top's Tia Mia brings together smoky mezcal and funky Jamaican rum, rounded out with orgeat, lime, and curaçao for a cocktail that's bold, bright, and unmistakably tropical. Like every Tip Top cocktail, it's bar-strength and ready to pour, packed in the brand's signature 100ml can. For the full experience, pour over crushed ice and garnish with lime, mint, and an orchid.
To bring the Tia Mia to Tip Top's bar-strength 100ml canned format, the brand’s recipe developer and MICHELIN-recognized bartender Miles Macquarrie (Kimball House) worked closely with Mix to preserve the cocktail's defining balance. The key, according to Mix, was getting the rum just right.
"In its simplicity, Tia Mia is also tricky. If it's going to be my Tia Mia, I need it to taste a certain way,” said Mix. “The biggest exercise for us was getting the Jamaican rum right, which I love because people think of it as a mezcal drink, but it reminded me that Tia Mia is really about marrying those flavors. It was such a victorious moment when we got the balance right, I knew that this is what it was supposed to taste like.”
THE DETAILS
Mezcal • Rum • Orgeat • Lime • Curaçao
24% ABV (48 Proof)
OK Kosher Certified
Tasting Notes: Smoked citrus, toasted almond, bright lime, and tropical depth
Tip Top's Tia Mia is available for a limited time at select retailers nationwide and online at tiptopcocktails.com while supplies last. Follow @tiptoppropercocktails for future Proper Establishments releases.
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ABOUT TIP TOP PROPER COCKTAILS: Atlanta-based Tip Top Proper Cocktails is an independent, award-winning, ready-to-serve cocktail brand that continues to set the benchmark for excellence in the canned cocktail category. The brand was founded in 2018 by childhood friends Neal Cohen and Yoni Reisman and was built on the premise that convenient cocktails should never come at the expense of quality. With a deep respect for cocktail culture, the founders partnered with James Beard- and MICHELIN-recognized bartender Miles Macquarrie (Kimball House) to develop recipes rooted in classic technique for their bar-strength 100ml cocktails ranging from time-honored classics like the Bee’s Knees, Old Fashioned, and Margarita to modern classics like the Naked & Famous and Paper Plane. Tip Top has earned national acclaim, including major wins at the San Francisco Ready-To-Drink Competition, the New Orleans Spirits Competition, and the Los Angeles Spirits Awards. Tip Top Proper Cocktails are available in retail and package stores, including Total Wine and Target in select states, plus restaurants and bars in over 25 states. Products are also available for shipping to 40+ states nationwide via purchase on the website.
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