Milwaukee Company Wins Gold at World Spirits Championships

Top Note Tonic sparkling grapefruit soda. Photo courtesy of Top Note Tonic.

Top Note Tonic, a Milwaukee-based brand of beverage mixers and alcohol-free beverages, was awarded a gold medal at the 2023 Beverage Testing Institute (BTI) World Spirits Championships for its sparkling grapefruit soda.

The Chicago-based BTI hosts the annual competition, which is open to all producers, distributors, retailers, agents, importers, ad agencies or public relations offices for beverages from any country in the world.

Submissions are judged in a blind tasting by a panel of BTI judges and industry professionals. Ratings are based on a 100-point scale.

Top Note’s sparkling grapefruit soda received 92 points — the top-ranking score in the cocktail mixer category. In its analysis, BTI noted the soda’s “aromas of orange peels and pith, grapefruit, and salt and black pepper with a full body and a long grapefruit, sandalwood and white pear, and lemon curd finish.”

The beverage, formulated with 15% real grapefruit juice and grapefruit peel extract, can be mixed with spirits or consumed on its own.

“It’s so exciting for us to be recognized again this year by the prestigious Beverage Testing Institute,” said Mary Pellettieri, co-founder of Top Note Tonic. “We designed our Sparkling Grapefruit Soda with just the right amount of real cane sugar and grapefruit juice to mix creatively into so many cocktails. It is a customer favorite, so it is nice to see it rewarded.”

Pellettieri, a 25-year, craft-beer and beverage veteran, co-founded Top Note with Noah Swanson. Fueled by their mutual interest in craft beverages and desire to change the way people think about and enjoy drink mixers, the pair researched and experimented with herbs and syrups until they formulated Top Note’s first product — bitter orange syrup — in 2017.

From there, the brand expanded to include three varieties of tonic water and a non-alcoholic ginger beer sweetened with date sugar. The award-winning sparkling grapefruit soda was released in 2019, followed by the newest addition, club soda no. 1.

Pellettieri is also the founder and president of Top Note’s parent company, La Pavia Beverage LLC, which she founded in 2015.

BTI awarded Top Note 92 points and a gold medal for its classic tonic water in 2019 and its ginger beer in 2018, as well as 87 points and a silver medal for its Indian tonic water in 2018.

Top Note’s products are available for purchase online, as well as in stores in 11 states. Wisconsin stores that carry the brand include Otto’s Wine & Spirits, Outpost Natural Foods, Ray’s Wine & Spirits, Sendik’s Food Markets, Whole Foods, Willy Street Co-Op and Woodman’s.