This year was not an easy one for entrepreneurs in bev-alc or adult alternatives. Consumers and investors are adjusting their relationships with alcohol, and still doubtful of the emerging adult non-alc industry. But the smartest beverage founders are meeting those challenges by digging deeper into their relationships with the industry, the environment and their communities.

We are proud to present the winners of BevNET’s 2025 Best Spirits Awards, a group that is reshaping and reimagining consumers’ experiences with alcohol and its zero-proof alternatives with thoughtfulness, vision and creativity. BevNET honors the companies, brands, individuals, products, ideas and trends that have helped drive inspiration and growth across the industry over the last 12 months.

View the Full List of 2025 Nominees.

Spirits Company of the Year

ISCO

The Industrious Spirits Company (ISCO Spirits) reminds us what craft spirits is all about: imagination, integrity and a deep respect for the environment. Using organic, often regeneratively farmed ingredients from the Northeast, ISCO draws creative inspiration from Rhode Island’s working coastline for many of its spirits. From solar panels on the roof to using oyster shells to create furniture via a partnership with a local maker, to feeding their spent grains to local livestock, sustainability runs through everything ISCO does. But what sets this company apart is their spirit of play – and the female founders made strides this year by joining a major distributor’s book and took New York by storm with the world’s first pizza-flavored vodka.

Spirits Industry Leadership Awards: Brand, Organization, or Person

Mission Craft Cocktails

Food insecurity in America has made headlines this year, but Mission Craft Cocktails has been dedicated to putting food on the table as part of its DNA. This purpose-driven ready-to-pour cocktail brand has donated over $200,000 in less than three years of being in the market through its partnership with Feeding America, and by the end of the year, the company will have funded over 1,000,000 meals at local food banks. At a time when one in four American children suffer from food insecurity, Mission Craft Cocktails is cutting through a crowded category by showing the industry that you can give back while you throw back. On the heels of its 750ml rollout in November, Mission Craft Cocktails is the fastest growing bottled cocktail in California and ranked No. 4 behind three conglomerate-owned brands in its home state.

Best New RTD Cocktails, Spirit-Based

Yoju Hard Vietnamese Coffee

The espresso martini got an Asian-inspired remix from Yoju, which swaps vodka for soju and stirs in Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk. Yoju’s Hard Vietnamese Coffee is one of the few low-alc RTDs that bridges café culture with cocktail hour – and offers a unique spin on a tired trend.

Waste

Waste arrives as the world’s first canned cocktail made from upcycled ingredients. San Francisco barman Thad Vogler has extended his career celebrating the tie between spirits and agriculture into an RTD that’s priced competitively and delivers on a clean-tasting vodka soda with a sustainable twist.

Cooper Spirits Slow & Low Old Fashioned

The original ready-to-drink old fashioned has continued to reinvent itself with a signature edge. This year, Cooper Spirits extended its line of the classic cocktail by sticking true to its bartender roots and partnering with ingredients used by bartenders, such as Luxardo’s iconic Sangue Morocco Cherry Liqueur and Crown & Maple organic syrup.

Best New RTD Cocktail Brands, Wine-Based

Sake High!

At 10% ABV, the sake maker’s White Peach Spiked Tea evokes the adult version of Snapple Iced Tea and that’s a revival of Y2K trends we can get behind. The brand’s other offerings, Matcha Lemon Spiked Tea and Ginger Pear Spiked Tea, take the current sake cocktail and spiked tea wave to another flavor level.

Straightaway Cocktails Seville Spritz

In another hit from Straightaway, this juicy and bitter spritz stands out in a sea of aperitivos by combining sparkling pinot gris, a house made blend of seville orange and citron peel, orange blossom and gentian.

Best New Ready-to-Serve Cocktails

Hoodoo Espresso

This bottled cocktail includes just three ingredients — Cathead vodka, direct trade coffee, and Demerara sugar — but delivers layers of flavor and serious buzz. By skipping the liqueur found in most espresso martinis, Hoodoo offers real coffee notes and a bottle that can be shaken for a quintessential cream-top layered espresso martini or used for other drinks, illustrating that a RTS can be a versatile ingredient as well.

New York Cocktail Company Vesper Martini

The ready-to-serve martini hadn’t quite been mastered, until now. Thank you to award-winning bartender Takuma Watanabe, who has bottled a perfectly balanced vesper with Brooklyn Gin, Chambray Vodka and Mancino Ambranto Vermouth.

Wild Mannered

Wild Mannered relaunched this year with new branding that balances paying homage to the founders’ Asian-American identities and American’s thirst for pre-mixed cocktails. While sparkling canned Soju brands are on the rise, Wild Mannered’s three cocktails offer the Soju-curious an experience more closely resembling a bar-level cocktail that’s still tied to communal Korean drinking culture.

Best New NA Spirits

Little Saints’ New St. Oak

Somewhere between a traditional whiskey replacement and a functional elixir, Little Saints’ third addition to its spirits roster takes a detour from the brand’s clear spirits while still putting mushrooms and tree elements front and center. This is a worthy centerpiece for a non-alc Old Fashioned.

Plaid Circus

The next frontier of adult non-alc products is complex flavor, and Plaid Circus is one of the emerging brands that exemplifies this perfectly. With elixirs like Orange Lush and Bubblegum Fantasy, odes to dreamy childhood treats swirl to life in liquid form, while takes on the smoky Manhattan and Italian bitter are creatively reincarnated with herbs, teas, vinegars and more natural ingredients.

Best New NA RTD Cocktails

The Pathfinder Espresso Tonic

The Pathfinder had firmly placed itself in the bar world until now, but its new Espresso Tonic proves that it can compete in the coffee biz as well, by creating an adult non-alc coffee cocktail that’s balanced, punchy and herbal.

Mockly Citron Café Noir

Mockly provides another tasty example of the complex RTD variations we are beginning to see in adult non-alc, particularly as brands spin off into coffee cocktails. Citron Café Noir is a standout with notes of cold brew coffee, cocoa, fennel, and lemon – and freshly rebranded cans that proudly shout out the New Orleans inspiration.

Stursi

The sister duo behind this brand is unapologetic about offering an indulgent, non-carbonated, bold cocktail with warm and tropical flavors that happens to not have alcohol. As the category expands beyond functional or spirit duplicates, Stursi is leading the way with a fresh vibe and aim for approachability.