Yellowstone: stepping out of the traditional Bourbon box
Stephen Beam, Yellowstone Bourbon’s master distiller, addresses the ‘softening’ of the category in the US and why the brand has launched a line of bottled cocktails.
In September 2025, Yellowstone Bourbon made its ready-to-drink debut with a trio of 750ml bottled cocktails.
The Kentucky brand couldn’t ignore growth of the RTD market, master distiller Stephen Beam tells The Spirits Business. “It’s the category within brown spirits in the US that is actually growing at a significant amount,” he says. “So we wanted to put our foot in the ring, so to speak.”
IWSR predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6% in the US from 2023 to 2028 for spirits-based RTDs. In the US off-premise, the segment is now worth US$2.7 billion according to NIQ data.
A desire for bar-quality serves – or a “true cocktail experience” – is where Beam sees an opportunity for Bourbon: “I wanted to bring my expertise and our Bourbon to it, and a quality that I thought was lacking,” he says. “It’s a great way to showcase our Bourbon and also be Bourbon-forward, where we’re high strength [25-35% ABV] and it can really shine through in the cocktails.”
He believes bottled cocktails can open doors for people who might not be keen on trying Bourbon on its own, but a ‘bar-quality’ Old Fashioned, as Yellowstone now offers, could be their way of being introduced to it.
“It goes with the consumer, just the pace that people are doing things, and the fast-paced lives that we live,” he says. “It’s easier, especially if you have a cocktail that tastes as you would expect to get at a bar, and we’re all programmed for convenience and instant gratification now.”
Natural move
Yellowstone’s starting pack comprises Gold Rush, Old Fashioned, and Espresso, which are described as modern twists on classics.
Beam says that while there are more flavours in the works, those won’t appear until around autumn. Although a Paper Plane is one of his favourite cocktails, he wasn’t sure if it was recognisable enough. “We wanted to start with three familiar cocktails that the average consumer would immediately know when they see the name of what it is,” he adds.
Noting the research and development, he says it takes a while to develop what he likes, and then what he feels consumers will like: “I have never been one to release something broad that would please everybody, because I think when you do that you end up with something that’s mediocre. When I’m blending Bourbon I mix to the standard that I like, but we have a tasting panel too.”
Beam and the team worked with Valentina Witkowski, research and development coordinator at Luxco, on developing the range. “I am not a cocktail specialist, so I get it to the bottle and hand it off to the professionals,” he quips, adding: “I knew what I wanted and she was able to put it all together – bringing that bar quality was of the utmost importance, we don’t not want to come in with less than that.”
The Espresso serve relates to the Espresso Martini, which Beam says at its launch was the first bottled Espresso Martini based with Bourbon. He also highlights Bourbon’s complementary nature with coffee. “My friend is a great coffee roaster and we’ve done events where we do coffee and the cuppings of coffee, and the way they do their tastings, I feel there’s a lot of similarities,” he says.
“We use cold-pressed, cold brew coffee, so the recipe is not coffee-flavoured, it’s flavoured with coffee.”
Boasting clear ties to nature having taken its name from the US’s first national park, Beam notes how convenience formats are a natural fit for Yellowstone.
“It plays into our support of national parks where we’ve donated over US$1 million to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) [since 2018],” he says . “I think we couldn’t do that without the support of our customers, of course, but it shows our commitment to the environment and the natural area.”
The bottle – light, spill-proof, fully recyclable, reusable, shareable, and made from aluminium – has been designed to embrace outdoor occasions. “You want something that is not going to break, that you can recycle and reuse again, and you can use these as a water container as well. I love Bourbon neat, but you don’t necessarily want to take a bottle of it when going hiking,” he says.
An ideal consumption scenario for Beam would be having a break in the evening around a campfire somewhere, adding that “one of the great things about Bourbon is being able to share it with people and then stories that come with that.”
He relays a story of his own when he was in Africa last year. “We were on a safari and a bar cart was brought out where a whole bar was set out, cocktails were made and everything else. Not everybody can do that when you’re out in the bush, so this is the next best thing.”
Bourbon drinkers scaling back
Although American whiskey has softened over recent years – emphasised most recently by the main Jim Beam distillery pausing production until the end of 2026 – Beam feels this doesn’t mean people are moving away from Bourbon.
He explains: “I’ve talked to a lot of people about the whole ‘Bourbon is softening’ thing, and people are still drinking Bourbon, they’re drinking about the same amount they’ve always drank – they’re just not out collecting.”
Beam feels consumers are more discerning now when it comes to purchasing Bourbon. “They scaled back from where they used to go in and maybe buy three or four different bottles to have on the shelf, but now they’re buying what they drink and maybe a special bottle here and there,” he says.
To add to that, Beam touches on the Bourbon societies he visits: “I just did two different events, one in Missouri and then one in Charlotte, two different areas of the country with two different Bourbon groups, and everybody is just as excited about Bourbon now as they were before. They’re just not trophy hunting, necessarily. And of course, you always have the people who shift to the newest thing, they migrate in and out.”
Beam also notes that while Yellowstone has a standing as a traditional methodist brand, with a heritage said to date back to 1872, he’s not afraid to get out of the traditional Bourbon box. The line of ready-to-serve cocktails is just the latest innovation the brand has unveiled.
In 2016, Yellowstone released a limited edition toasted barrel finish, which Beam says at the time almost no one else had done before. “When I first got in the business, finishing Bourbon was taboo. At the time of the toasted barrel finish, people were like ‘you don’t mess with Bourbon. You don’t finish it. You don’t do anything’. Scotch has been finishing the whiskies in different casks, so why shouldn’t we do that with Bourbon?”
Beam is always looking to draw new drinkers into the American whiskey category. The brand has since launched its Special Finishes Collection, which has so far seen Bourbon finished for nine weeks in Cuban rum casks.
“I always like to push the envelope a little bit,” he adds. “I tell people at the distillery, day to day, we try to make everything exactly the same because we want the Yellowstone Bourbon that goes in the bottle today to be the same as you got two years ago, or that you’re going to get.
We strive to keep that sameness, which is great, and it becomes routine and pretty easy to do, but it can also become [a bit] boring for me sometimes, so I like to reach out and try different things like these cocktails as well. They’re great because we’ll have the mainstays, but then we may be doing some seasonal rotations in and out too.”
The cocktails are the focus for the foreseeable future, Beam says, but there are other things the brand has planned, such as a 2026 limited edition release and the Recollection series – a throwback to old barback bottles of the late 1800s that launched as a distillery-exclusive last year, “but may be heading out into the market a little bit more this year,” he teases.
“We just try to stay fresh and current without having a flavour of the day, without becoming too much,” he concludes.
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