The love child of bartending pros and newlyweds Mike and Janell Bass, of Louisville, Kentucky, Ponyboy Slings is an easy-drinking cocktail-in-a-can launching this summer.
This spritz-style bourbon based cocktail, in a can, is made with ingredients like dry vermouth, sherry, bitters, real fruit juice, along with natural flavors. Leaning into the growing trend of lower ABV cocktails, Ponyboy packs a slap rather than a punch at 7% ABV and fully carbonated making it very sessionable for anywhere you enjoy drinking a cocktail.
A premium product using only ingredients Mike and Janell feel proud of (as bartenders for 20+ years) but without any pretentiousness. The 70s retro vibe of the brand reminds people that it should be fun, relaxed, and something you get to share with your friends. The tagline? Chill it, Pop it, Giddy up!
And while it’s a real cocktail at heart, the bourbon is on the back end making it easy to drink, bubbly, and guaranteed to light up the party — just like this couple that fell in love during lockdown, got engaged in Paris, and threw a surprise wedding all within a year!
The Louisville Courier Journal called Mike and Janell the people “so cool and chill you feel like a kid headed to a slumber party at the house of the most fun, most popular kid at school when you’re going to hang out,” and that’s the vibe consumers will channel with a four-pack of Ponyboy Slings.
Janell and Mike developed the recipes Bourbon Pop Star (strawberry and basil), My Cherry Amour (sour cherry and lemon), and Derby Cream Soda (bourbon cream soda) in their Louisville kitchen, building from the intel they had, unintentionally, gathered from event-bartending and cocktail creations they did for large bourbon brands. Who knew people would love carbonated bourbon cocktails? Now, there’s a convenient option for the bourbon lover.
Launching in their Louisville home first, Ponyboy Slings will be available in select bars and liquor stores around July.
About The Ponyboy Team
Janell and Mike founded cocktail consultancy Punchbowl Project in June of 2021, where they combined their 20+ years of experience, bartending, writing menus, consulting, opening bars, and cocktail competitions to develop cocktails for national brands at events and in national restaurants.
Mike is a hospitality specialist with a strong record in the food and beverage industry developing cocktails for national restaurant accounts and brands including Darden, Blooming Brands, Diageo, Brown-Forman, Sazerac Co., Celebrity Cruises and independent restaurant concepts. He competed for three years in national cocktail competitions. Also a force in the music and film scenes, he has DJ’d for almost 30 years and studied film and television in Los Angeles. He formulated the recipes they both created for Ponyboy.
Janell, has bartended and developed cocktails for chef-driven restaurants for the past 15 years. She studied wine under the youngest level 5 sommelier at Spago Beverly Hills and became a certified beer cicerone at Franklin & Company Beer Tavern in
Hollywood. She is also a voice actor specializing in comedy ranging from animation to commercials and even video games! Janell is the expert taste-tester of the Ponyboy formulations.
The bourbon loving pair have traveled abroad extensively, sparking their curiosity and igniting new ideas for fun flavor combinations. Seeing RTDs move into the spirit category with vodka and tequila as the driving forces, they identified the gap of bourbon based “long drinks” and decided to tackle that market from the heart of bourbon country. Giddy up!
For More Information:
https://www.drinkponyboy.com