THE NETHERLANDS/INTERNATIONAL. Toorank International Spirits is fast gaining traction for its eye-catching ready-to-drink cocktails brand Coppa in markets across the world, with sales up +600% in the first four months of this year. First launched in 2008, a brand revamp in 2019 has been the catalyst for the transformation in Coppa’s fortunes. The Moodie Davitt Report’s Senior Business Editor Mark Lane spoke to two of the Toorank team – Jan Baljet and René de Gruiter – who are responsible for the strategy of selling the product in travel retail. They say they have only one goal – to make Coppa a world champion brand.
Most great ideas are essentially simple. Dutch drinks producer and distributor Toorank International Spirits came up with one in 2008, when it launched ready-to-drink cocktails brand Coppa Cocktails, the liquids created with the help of a four-time Dutch national bartending champion. It was a bold attempt to capitalise on huge growth in the on-trade drinks channel, with the popularity of cocktails soaring.
The brand – originally comprising seven world-famous cocktails including the likes of Sex on the Beach, Mojito, Piña Colada and Strawberry Daiquiri housed inside distinctive Boston shaker-shaped bottles – took over a decade to gather its current momentum.

Toorank handles both its own and third-party customer products, supplying alcoholic beverages into more than 70 markets worldwide and over the past ten years has won more than 140 medals in international wine and spirits competitions. Its products include gins, vodkas, whiskeys, rums, liqueurs and sake.
The turning point for its Coppa Cocktails brand came in 2019, when CEO Natal da Graça led a brand redevelopment with the support of Dutch craft design company SORS. With the assistance of two award-winning Amsterdam bartenders, the range was expanded from 8 to 15 expressions. The flavours were made using natural ingredients only and the sleeves of the shaker-shaped bottles were redesigned.
“We are investing a lot in the brand in travel retail because we see that the demand is there and it is our showcase to the world. We have put a lot of money and effort behind this brand and we are blessed that we have two guys owning the company that give us all the freedom we need to work to make Coppa Cocktails a success” – Toorank International Spirits Director Business Development Jan Baljet
Most cocktails in the updated range come in at 10%ABV, but some are stronger such as the Espresso Martini, Negroni, Whisky Sour and Amaretto Sour (all 14.9%ABV).
Now, Coppa Cocktails sales are soaring, up +600% in the first four months of 2021 compared to the year ago period and finding their way into markets all over the world, including more than a dozen in Europe. In the heady words of Toorank Director Business Development Jan Baljet: “It’s flying, it’s flying, it’s flying.”
Baljet, well-known in travel retail circles from a long spell working for Dufry in Asia Pacifc and the Middle East, joined Toorank in 2019 to set up a duty free business for the company’s drinks portfolio.

Experienced drinks professional de Gruiter, ex-Red Bull Netherlands, joined the company the same year, taking the role of Sales Manager for Europe, including responsibility for travel retail in the continent.
Baljet and de Gruiter instantly saw the potential of Coppa Cocktails, particularly for travel retail, where they felt the concept was sure to be a hit with travellers.
De Gruiter says: “With the redesign in 2019, we had a good look at some other outstanding visual brands, such as Arizona Iced Tea, which have these bottles with beautiful sleeves. From that, our marketing department came up with this great new design for Coppa. Each bottle for the 15 flavours is different, and when you line them alongside each other they have fantastic visual appeal.
“In terms of messaging on the bottles, we didn’t want the brand to say ‘we are pretending to make fresh cocktails’, we wanted to emphasise the quality of taste and authenticity – put together by award-winning bartenders – and that they are ready to drink.”
After the brand revamp, the distinctive Coppa Cocktails bottles soon began to attract attention, getting an encouraging reception from everybody they were shown to, according to Baljet. “Then we realised we have to expand quickly with this because the moment is now,” he says.

Toorank guarantees consistent premium quality of product and levels of alcohol with each expression of Coppa Cocktails (and having tried a number of them this author can attest to that), the standard one-litre bottles containing 5-6 cocktail servings.
Elaborating on Coppa Cocktails’ appeal, de Gruiter says: “If you take the on-trade, the bar portfolio and you take the top of award-winning hotel bars where these top cocktail shakers are working, there they have all the ingredients.
“But if you take the big volume underneath or at home, people love to drink cocktails but they have no idea how to create them, they don’t have the ingredients and they don’t know what to buy. Even if they have all of the ingredients at home it’s very difficult to create a cocktail to get the same quality or not too strong, so it makes sense to have the work done for you.
“Everybody is at home due to COVID. Normally the growth in popularity of a drinks brand starts in the on-trade and then goes home but with Coppa it’s the other way round – people are at home but still want to drink cocktails as they’re used to.”
With its new image, the Coppa Cocktails concept appeared set for success. But the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, standing in the way of a rapid roll-out of the brand. “For travel retail it was a disaster,” says de Gruiter. “We had several listings with the duty free operators such as Dufry America and Heinemann America and all were cancelled because of how travel retail was affected by the pandemic.”
Fast forward to today, as the world and the travel industry start to look at life beyond COVID, Toorank is laying the foundations for Coppa Cocktails to come into its own as an international brand. The company has its eyes on wide distribution across global travel retail, buoyed by the outstanding sales figures achieved in domestic markets so far this year.

Although their ability to travel to sell the Coppa Cocktails brand has been severely limited for obvious reasons, the concept is now gaining traction in airport retail and making waves in the cruise market, helped by the strong visual materials created to promote the brand.
And now, the huge potential for the inflight market for ready-made cocktails has been unleashed, after a single serve version of Coppa Cocktails launched in April. “Inflight is a natural home for Coppa,” says de Gruiter. “Of course people would love to drink cocktails on flights, but before it was just not practical to make them.
“Now we have the solution for airlines. Only ice is needed! And it makes sense that if you have seen it and tried it on a plane, you will want to buy it when you have landed.”

Baljet has leveraged his industry contracts from his time at Dufry and other roles he has performed more recently in the duty free sector to assemble an experienced travel retail team to represent and distribute Coppa in markets globally. The team is chaired by Toorank International Spirits Group Chairman Henny Tadema and includes among others Nader Ghazzawi, formerly of Dufry and Dubai International Airport, as Sales Director for the Middle East.
“We are investing a lot in the brand in travel retail because we see that the demand is there and it is our showcase to the world,” concludes Baljet. “We have put a lot of money and effort behind this brand and we are blessed that we have two guys owning the company that give us all the freedom we need to work to make Coppa Cocktails a success.
“We have one goal with this product, and that is that it becomes a world champion brand. Everything we do is done with that aim in mind.”