DIY Approach Fuels Craft Cocktail Brand
Chris Harrison says it all started with a single pot on a stove. He and two high school buddies launched Liber & Co., a manufacturer of premium cocktail syrups, with that tiny test batch in 2011 in Austin, Texas.
Fast forward to 2026, and batches are now in 1,500-gallon tanks and sold worldwide to restaurants, bars, and consumers. But the culture remains hands-on, do-it-yourself, and learn-by-doing.
Chris first appeared on the podcast in 2022. In our recent conversation, he shared the company’s origins, sourcing tactics, growth plans, and more. Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.
Eric Bandholz: Who are you, and what do you do?
Chris Harrison: I’m a co-founder of Liber & Co. We make premium non-alcoholic cocktail syrups for bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and home consumers. We’re based in Georgetown, Texas, near Austin, and handle almost everything in-house: manufacturing, warehousing, marketing, ecommerce, wholesale, and even international sales.
Our founding team grew up together in the same small Texas town. We’re the same age, went to the same high school, and came from similar blue-collar backgrounds. We didn’t have a big professional network or capital to outsource everything, so if something needed to be done, we learned to do it ourselves.
We’re also food people. You can’t outsource being a foodie or understanding flavor. Even the best chefs are hands-on in the kitchen, tasting, adjusting, and refining. That mindset shaped Liber & Co. from the beginning. We wanted to be close to the product to understand the ingredients, sourcing, and flavor development firsthand. That do-it-yourself culture became part of our identity.
Bandholz: How did you learn production, moving from a kitchen to a manufacturing facility?
Harrison: It’s a long, incremental journey. We relied on research and trial and error. We started with a small stock pot on a stove, then moved to a 25-gallon pan, then a 200-gallon tank, and now we operate multiple 1,500-gallon tanks.
That gradual progression was critical. You can’t attempt too much without putting the business at risk. If we had jumped straight from a kitchen setup to our current scale, we would have made far more expensive mistakes. Iterating step by step gave us time to understand what worked and what didn’t. There aren’t many shortcuts when you’re building something physical.
Our product category also made things harder. Unlike breweries, which often follow well-established scaling paths, there wasn’t a clear blueprint for cocktail syrups. That meant a lot of independent study, testing equipment, ordering samples, and experimenting with processes. We made mistakes along the way, which were part of the learning curve.
Manufacturing your own product limits capacity. You can’t sell more than you can physically make. There’s no co-manufacturer to absorb demand — you are the bottleneck. That was especially true in the early days.
Early on, we did whatever it took to fulfill orders. I spent 18 hours straight in the kitchen more than once to fill large orders for H-E-B, the grocery chain. It was manual work: long days, minimal breaks, and just pushing through. Thirteen years later, we’re grateful we no longer have to operate that way.
Bandholz: How do you find ingredient suppliers?
Harrison: Most of our sourcing has come from research. That includes a lot of Googling, using ChatGPT and Gemini, and contacting suppliers directly. We typically send a detailed request for proposal outlining who we are, what we need, and our product specifications. Then we ask if they can meet those requirements, provide documentation, and send samples. From there, we test and evaluate.
We cast a wide net geographically. With ginger, for example, we looked at suppliers across Africa, China, Vietnam, and Hawaii before ultimately choosing a Peruvian source. Some leads come from word of mouth. Someone might say, “I saw great ginger in Peru.” I’ll track down the producer through Google or LinkedIn. That actually happened.
It takes persistence. My background is in biology, so I enjoy getting into the weeds, so to speak. We also try to maintain backup suppliers. Fresh produce is unpredictable; pineapple crops suffered globally this year, driving up prices. A frozen backup supply helped smooth costs, but sourcing is never easy or guaranteed.
Bandholz: Is frozen produce better than fresh?
Harrison: In many cases, yes, frozen can be better. Farmers can wait until fruit reaches peak ripeness before harvesting. For something like raspberries, they’ll test sugar content the day of harvest using a refractometer. They literally crush the fruit and measure Brix, the dissolved-sugar level. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration even publishes approved Brix ranges for various fruits, such as peaches, pomegranates, and raspberries.
Farmers aim to hit those targets because that’s where flavor, aroma, and sweetness are best. But it comes from ripening on the vine. Once harvested, the fruit must be used immediately or preserved. Freezing is one of the best ways to lock in that peak quality.
Frozen storage requires capital. Cold storage and refrigerated transportation are expensive, but the tradeoff is consistency and quality. The frozen supply chain has expanded significantly. We’re seeing more investment in large-scale frozen facilities across the country. Even in central Texas, companies are building new frozen warehouses. We use one in North Austin.
If you’re serious about sourcing high-quality food ingredients, the frozen cold chain is often the best option.
Plus, we typically purchase small portions. Large companies such as Smucker’s buy in massive bulk. We like buying from cooperatives of many smaller, independent farms. Certain regions grow crops naturally well. For raspberries, that’s the U.S. Pacific Northwest, parts of Washington and Oregon.
Those regions have family-run farms, often third-generation operations, managing anywhere from 20 to 200 acres. Around them are many similar farms, all growing the same crop in the same climate. That creates a strong network effect: consistent weather, shared knowledge, and reliable quality across the region.
Because these farms remain independent, you avoid some of the downsides of large, consolidated operations. There’s less pressure to cut corners, harvest early, or sacrifice quality to maximize margins. In our experience, the cooperative model prioritizes long-term quality and sustainability.
We might buy one or two truckloads of fruit per year — roughly 40,000 to 80,000 pounds. A cooperative, by contrast, may handle 400 or 500 truckloads in a single harvest. Being a small buyer reduces risk. If we relied on a single farm for everything, we’d be far more vulnerable to supply disruptions.
Bandholz: How do you plan to evolve the brand?
Harrison: We don’t feel limited. We’ve explored packaging formats beyond bottles, which we currently use for syrups. Cans are a natural extension for cocktails, mocktails, or even cannabis beverages. From a formulation, sourcing, and food safety perspective, we could make those products. Packaging is often the most expensive part of goods. It can feel like a constraint, but it’s more about investment and logistics than capability.
At our scale, outsourcing packaging formats is possible. Specialized manufacturers can handle canning at scale. The primary considerations are unit economics and lack of control. That’s a philosophical question as much as a business one.
Overall, we see opportunities to grow both vertically and horizontally. We can deepen what we already do with syrups or expand into new formats, product types, and channels. Brand evolution is more about strategy, resources, and willingness to experiment while maintaining quality and authenticity.
Bandholz: Where can people buy your syrups and get in touch?
Harrison: Our site is LiberAndCompany.com. I’m on LinkedIn.
