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Top Note Tonic Wins Gold Medal at 2023 Beverage Testing Institute World Spirits Championships


The American-made beverage brand’s non-alcoholic Sparkling Grapefruit Soda reaches exceptional category with the highest available 92 points awarded


Milwaukee, Wis., Feb. 23, 2022 — Top Note Tonic, the inventive American-made mixer brand creating delicious beverage mixers and alcohol-free beverages since 2017, takes home a gold medal at the 2023 Beverage Testing Institute World Spirits Championships for its Sparkling Grapefruit Soda.


Chicago-based Beverage Testing Institute’s World Spirits Championships is America's oldest annual international spirits competition that awards medals based on a 100-point scale. Top Note Tonic’s Sparkling Grapefruit Soda was awarded 92 points this year in the Cocktail Mixer category in a blind tasting by BTI’s panel of judges and top beverage industry professionals.


Beverage Testing Institute also 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.


“It’s so exciting for us to be recognized again this year by the prestigious Beverage Testing Institute. 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,” says Top Note Tonic Co-founder Mary Pellettieri. Whether the Grapefruit Soda is being used as a stand-in for sugary soft drinks, or as a mixer in cocktails and spirit-free drinks, Top Note formulated this beverage for multiple uses. “It definitely makes for a delicious Paloma,” says Pellettieri.


Top Note Sparkling Grapefruit Soda is made with all-natural cane sugar to balance the tart, fresh citrus flavor of 15% real grapefruit juice and high-quality grapefruit peel extract. According to BTI, the Sparkling Grapefruit Soda is “Light hazy gold color. 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. Subtle grapefruit with delicate citrus flavors, this grapefruit soda will mix wonderfully with clear spirits and soda.”


Top Note’s latest gold medal places its Sparkling Grapefruit Soda among the ranks of the award-winning Top Note lineup. Each of Top Note’s flavored mixers have been awarded in competitions and recognized by industry-leading organizations and publications, including being named Best Craft Tonic Water (2021, 2022, 2023) and Most Unique Ginger Beer (2021, 2022) by Liqour.com. The Spirits Business also awarded Classic Tonic Water and Ginger Beer a gold medal in 2021 and Indian Tonic Water a silver medal in 2021. In 2017, Indian Tonic Water won the Specialty Food Association’s SoFi Platinum Award for Best New Mixer.


Top Note Tonic crafts the most complex and layered beverage mixers on the market. The American-made mixers are favorites of several Michelin Star and James Beard award-winning restaurants, including Chicago’s Oriole and Kumiko, Milwaukee’s The Diplomat and Milwaukee-based Sanford.


Top Note Tonic is now available to ship online nationwide and can be found on shelves in 11 states. Order Top Note’s gold medal winning Sparkling Grapefruit Soda online at topnotetonic.com.


About Top Note Tonic Top Note Tonic has invented the most complex and layered beverage mixers on the market. Co-founded by Mary Pellettieri, who has more than 20 years of experience working in craft beer quality, Top Note’s lineup of award-winning mixers not surprisingly feature unique botanicals, unexpected ingredients, and beautiful flavors that complement the best spirits in the market. Top Note allows consumers to create with confidence and discover complex, but not complicated, cocktails and alcohol-free mixed drinks.


The entire Top Note product lineup, including, Club Soda No 1, Ginger Beer, Classic Tonic Water, Grapefruit soda, Bitter Lemon Tonic and the award-winning Indian Tonic Water, are available online at topnotetonic.com.


About Beverage Testing Institute World Spirits Championships The BTI World Spirits Championships is America's oldest annual international Spirits competition and has been operated objectively for decades. It is a blind tasting, medal-based competition that awards based on a 100-point scale. Spirits are judged by BTI's highly trained staff joined by top drinks industry professionals and buyers from retailers and restaurants using a proven, consistent, proprietary methodology developed in collaboration with Cornell University. The BTI World Spirits Championships distributes its monthly results to consumers and the trade through Tastings.com, a free consumer website with hundreds of thousands of unique users a month, it's content partnership with wine-searcher.com, and via social media @BeverageTestingInstitute.


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