Our Promise

Elaina vows to always provide her customers with fresh cocktails made from high end fresh ingredients. She will never add juices or fruit purees from concentrate! Her herbs will always be real and she will never incorporate artificial flavors into her blends. Freshness is Simple Sips’s #1 priority.  

To my customers,

Question & Answer

“How did you come up with this?”

Simple Sips was just a mere twinkle in my eye back in the summer of 2017. I was trying to recreate a fabulous craft cocktail I enjoyed when I was out to dinner, yet the ingredients were not easily attainable. Fresh passion fruit was out of season and nowhere to be found, so I settled for a lackluster juice I discovered in the Goya aisle, womp womp. After cooking the fresh syrup for this recipe trial, bottling it and cleaning sticky syrup from every nook in the kitchen, it dawned on me; this is why no one makes fresh craft cocktails at home. Fresh ingredients are not readily available to the average supermarket customer and cooking fresh herbal syrup is such a hassle! Fresh craft cocktails are far superior to all the other mixes on the shelf yet, they are nowhere to be found. I became determined to change how we drink at home.

Just like that, I gave birth to Simple Sips. I began my journey to bring fresh, innovative cocktail creations to market that would be simple for customers to enjoy at home. 

“How did you bring the product to market?”

Simple Sips had been in the works for nearly two years before its launch in May 2019. Our journey began with lots of research and development, my favorite part (wink, wink). I explored and tasted cocktail menus from trendy hipster bars to well established restaurants, in cities across the country. I asked what seemed like a million questions, “What fruit puree’s do you use? Where do you get them? What company makes the freshest juices? How do you cook your herbal syrups?” and so on. 

I took every chance I could to cook up fresh syrups and homemade fruit purees, trying new recipes every week and making my friends and family taste test them all. Not the most strenuous task I’ve ever asked for help with.

Then came the product development phase. I was blessed to have been accepted into the Commonwealth Kitchen’s “Food Biz 101” class, which truly put me on the path to bringing my product to market. Gaining knowledge of how to run a small business from many different experts aided me in sourcing my ingredients and packaging, designing my own labels (thank God for my experience with graphic design!) and working hard to get all the appropriate certifications necessary to open our doors. 

This is such an oversimplification of the process, but it is a snippet of how everything came together. This journey was not easy, but bringing Simple Sips to market has been one of the most rewarding accomplishments of my life thus far.

“What is your background in?”

My background is in fashion design, product development, event planning, catering, fundraising, and above all else- passionate foodie! Simple Sips was created through the lens of a food lover who believes your cocktails should be just as fresh, well balanced and flavorful as your meals. My personal family experiences and those I have had in the hospitality and non-profit event planning industries have shaped so many my business decisions.

From an early age I experienced many of what I always thought were family parties, but in reality were more like catering events put on by my family, for my family. From appetizers, to first courses, to seconds, thirds, fourths, dessert and so on, no one left the house without feeling as if they had just participated in a great Roman feast. I always looked up to my aunt Lynda who prepared the most amazing Christmas Eve dinners, the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” Countless fish, clam, shrimp and lobster dishes barely left room for tables filled with desserts and homemade sausages at midnight. Feast was an understatement. This was the party of the year, complete with a family comedy roast and my uncle Rick dressing up as Santa tossing gifts into the crowd. I learned the importance of a “fun element” in creating lifelong memories from my aunt and uncle and hope Simple Sips helps to bring that into the homes of our customers. Then there is my mother, Celia. My mother was a chef and baker for a good part of her life and although I may be biased, she makes the best food in the world. She taught me the importance of every little flavor in a dish and instilled in me that fresh ingredients are paramount to creating exquisite dishes and cocktails. My personal experiences within my family have influenced so much of what Simple Sips is today.