Episode 80: Growing a Subscription Box for Cocktails with Mike Milyavsky and Anna Gorovoy, Co-Founders at Shaker & Spoon
In this week’s episode of Subscriptions Scaled, we speak with Mike Milyavsky and Anna Gorovoy, the Co-Founders of Shaker & Spoon.
We discuss various topics, including how the pair started the company. We talk about communicating with customers, the community around the brand, shipping, the effects of the pandemic, mistakes made in the business, and so much more.
Keep reading to learn more about the episode.
Shaker & Spoon
Shaker & Spoon is a subscription box for cocktails. Every month, three original recipes from some of the best bartenders in the world are provided with the ingredients. The packages are shipped all around the United States.
Everything needed for the cocktails is included in the subscription box, apart from the alcohol. Each month focuses on a different spirit, and the box recommends a brand to go with the recipes.
The team manufactures the products to replicate how the bartenders create cocktails in high-quality bars. Many recipes include specialty syrup cordials with unique grape flavor profiles, made using a small batch production method.
The aim of the subscription box is for people to have the opportunity to create delicious, high-quality cocktails from the comfort of their homes. The goal isn’t to stop people from going to cocktail bars again, but rather to demystify the cocktail experience, educate and deliver, and provide an exceptional experience to customers.
The experience can extend to going out to bars and restaurants. People can feel empowered by their decision-making and understand the cocktail-making process more.
Shipping
Shaker & Spoon doesn’t ship any alcohol, allowing them to ship to all 50 states. Shaker & Spoon also ships to Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and US military bases abroad. The company has subscribers in all those locations, which the team is very proud of.
Another aim of the box is to provide the challenging-to-find, interesting pieces of cocktail recipes that people often have trouble sourcing elsewhere.
The boxes are always designed around a single spirit. Subscribers are to pair a single bottle with whatever recipes they receive that month—whether that’s whiskey, vodka, gin, and so on. So essentially, alcohol is going to be the easiest part of the cocktail for people to buy.
It’s assumed that if you’re subscribing to Shaker & Spoon, you already have a decently well-stocked bar. And at the bare minimum, you likely have a liquor store nearby to purchase your basics.
Starting the Company
When they started the company, Mike and Anna weren’t fully aware of the challenges ahead. The concept of Shaker & Spoon came about in 2015 when the pair would go out to bars and wanted to understand more about the cocktail-making process. It was when subscription boxes like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh meal kits became very popular.
Mike and Anna subscribed to a few meal kits and thought the concept was great. Mike liked that the Blue Apron model specifically taught people how to cook.
While Mike could cook, he realized he wanted to learn how to make certain cocktails, such as a Manhattan.
Mike tried to find a way to make cocktails in a similar way that the meal box deliveries teach people to cook, but he found there wasn’t anything like it on the market. One thing led to another, and soon the idea of Shaker & Spoon was developed.
Anna and Mike both have art backgrounds. Mike was an animator and Anna was a book designer before starting Shaker & Spoon. Those skill sets served the pair very well with their new venture, and Mike and Anna pride themselves on the visual identity of Shaker & Spoon.
The Shaker & Spoon Experience
Shaker & Spoon is designed to be more than a service—it’s an experience. The subscription includes playlist pairings, recommended food pairings, happy hours, and a community to engage with.
While Shaker & Spoon have competitors, they don’t have the same features to compete with the experience.
It takes a lot of work to ensure that the recipes included are delicious and easy to make—the team doesn’t want to put a lot of effort into creating recipes that half of the people making it at home fail to complete correctly.
Shaker & Spoon works hard to ensure that the recipes are easily digestible without being too simple. After all, you’re not just making a cocktail—you’re also learning to make a cocktail.
The cocktail boxes include unique techniques to learn, such as fat-washing, as well as instructions for making the cocktails. There are how-to videos for visual learners who want to go beyond reading instructions.
The Community
There’s a huge Shaker & Spoon community, including a Facebook group with over 16,000 members—something that Mike and Anna are very proud of. A lot of people in the group have even developed relationships outside the FB community.
During the stage of the pandemic when vaccines were rolling out, one member of Shaker & Spoon went on a road trip up and down the east coast. At every stop, she met different Shaker & Spoon members from the Facebook group. They would throw parties where other local subscribers would join, and they’d all meet up.
A lot of the people in the group meet up in various ways, whether that’s over Zoom or in person. There’s a strong Shaker & Spoon community, and it feels like a family.
Mike and Anna are very proud of the work they’ve done to bring joy to people’s lives, especially during a difficult time like the pandemic. The brand brought a lot of comfort to many people over the past few years, providing them with both a hobby and a community.
It seems that Mike and Anna have done remarkably well at growing not just a successful subscription box but also a unique experience and a thriving community. And for that, we agree, they should be very proud.
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