Penelope Bourbon, one of the faster-growing premium whiskey labels in the United States, has launched a Blackberry Old Fashioned ready-to-pour cocktail, broadening a canned and bottled cocktail range that the company describes as award-winning. The St. Louis brand positioned the release to capture summer at-home consumption, a segment that has outpaced on-premise occasions in unit volume growth for the past three years.
The new expression combines straight bourbon and rye whiskey with orange bitters and blackberry simple syrup, a formulation the company says preserves a bar-quality profile while eliminating the preparation step that has historically limited Old Fashioned adoption among casual home entertainers. No suggested retail price or pack configuration was disclosed in the announcement.
The ready-to-pour and ready-to-drink spirits category has been among the most contested battlegrounds in beverage alcohol over the past 24 months. According to IWSR data cited in prior industry coverage, RTD spirits volumes in the United States grew at a compound annual rate of roughly 8.0% between 2022 and 2025, with premium-tier offerings — generally priced above $15.00 per unit — accounting for a disproportionate share of dollar-sales gains. Penelope's move to extend its existing RTD line with a fruit-forward variant follows a broader pattern among bourbon houses seeking to trade consumers up from malt-based hard seltzers. For more on the competitive dynamics reshaping this channel, see our analysis of RTD spirits shelf-space battles and the premiumisation trend in American whiskey.
Penelope Bourbon did not provide distribution details, volume targets, or financial guidance alongside the launch announcement. The brand is backed by private investment and does not publicly report earnings. Observers tracking the independent premium bourbon segment will note that summer sell-in windows — typically finalised with retail and on-premise buyers by early June — make late-May launches a standard cadence for limited incremental SKUs rather than flagship rollouts.
The Blackberry Old Fashioned is the latest in a series of cocktail-forward line extensions the brand has pursued as it competes for shelf and cooler placement against larger spirits conglomerates with dedicated RTD divisions. Whether the new SKU translates into measurable market-share gains will depend heavily on distributor prioritisation in key summer markets across the Midwest and Sun Belt.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
