Milk x Whiskey
Building an Outdoor Brand From the Ground Up.
Founder / Brand Builder / Creative Direction / Product Development / Operations
Milk x Whiskey started with a problem we understood personally.
Becoming a parent changed a lot—but it didn't change our desire to get outside. Most baby products weren't designed for the way we actually lived, and most outdoor brands weren't thinking much about parents.
We saw an opportunity between the two.
Build outdoor gear for people whose greatest adventure suddenly included kids.
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Building the Brand: Identity, Website & Creative Direction
Adventure Doesn't End With Parenthood.
The outdoor industry is full of products designed around specific activities and athletes. The parenting industry is full of products designed around convenience.
There was room between them.
Milk x Whiskey was built around a simple idea: create thoughtful, durable outdoor products for parents who still hike, camp, travel, ski, bike and explore—just with more stuff and smaller people.
That became the foundation for the brand and every product that followed.
Designed With Parents: Consumer Insight, Ambassadors, Product testing & Community
Parents aren’t just our customers. They are our ambassadors, product testers and clearest source of insight.
Their experiences help us understand what outdoor families actually need—not what a traditional baby brand assumes they need.
That perspective shapes the products, messaging and community behind Milk x Whiskey: real families helping more families spend meaningful time outside.
From Screen to Product: Product Design, Materials, Features, Prototypes & Development
Building Milk x Whiskey pushed my design experience beyond brands, campaigns and digital experiences.
Translating ideas from the screen into physical products—learning how materials, fit, construction, features and manufacturing decisions shape the final experience.
Moving between creative direction and practical execution: reviewing prototypes, refining specifications, testing fabrics, balancing durability with comfort, solving production issues, and managing packaging, pricing and margins.
The result was the simultaneous launch of three distinct product systems:
The Modular Adventure Proof Backpack
The Tumbler Grid Fleece Hoodie
Each developed around the real needs of outdoor families.
Building the Right Team: RFPs, vendor selection, onboarding and partner management.
Building the company required finding the right outside expertise at every stage.
This included developing and sending RFPs, interviewing prospective vendors, evaluating capabilities and selecting partners across product development, manufacturing, ecommerce, marketing and creative.
Once selected, each partner was brought into the Milk x Whiskey brand; aligning them around the vision, customer, voice and standards. From there, the work required clear direction, ongoing communication and active management to keep different vendors moving toward one consistent brand and business goal.
From Concept to Factory: Sourcing, sampling, production, logistics and quality control
International manufacturing came with a steep learning curve and very little time to climb it.
Bringing three product systems to market simultaneously required quickly learning how to manage sourcing partners, technical specifications, materials, minimum orders, costing, production schedules, freight, tariffs and international logistics.
It also meant understanding where problems could happen and putting systems in place to catch them early. Sample reviews, material approvals, production checks, quality standards and vendor accountability became essential to protecting the products, the investment and the brand.
What began as unfamiliar territory quickly became a working knowledge of how to move products from concept through production and into customers’ hands.
Validation
The Market Gets a Vote.
The Adventure Proof Backpack has traveled through airports, hikes, beaches, campsites and everyday family life. Those experiences validate what works while revealing opportunities to improve organization, materials, comfort, features and construction.
“I’m loving this bag so far. It’s truly the jack of all trades.”
— John K, Utah
“This backpack was made for adventurers like us.”
— Kristin, Parenthood Adventures
Customer reviews, ambassador input, product returns and direct conversations with parents are collected and carried into future versions. That feedback helps refine existing products, guide new features and identify what outdoor families need next.
The Chaser was also named an Editor’s Choice sun hoodie by CleverHiker—outside recognition that helped validate its comfort, performance and positioning within the outdoor market.
The goal isn’t simply to launch products. It’s to keep learning from how families use them and make every version better.
The Result
Building the Whole Thing Changes How You Think.
Milk x Whiskey gave me something agency life never fully could: responsibility for the entire equation.
Not just whether the brand looked good.
Whether the product worked. Whether customers wanted it. Whether the factory could make it. Whether the margins worked. Whether inventory sold. Whether marketing performed. Whether retailers bought it.
And ultimately, whether the business worked.
Idea → Product → Factory → Brand → Market → Customer → Business.