30 Queer-Owned Food and Drink Businesses to Support All Year Long

18.21 Bitters, founded by married couple Missy and Kristin Koefod, gets its name from the Prohibition Era, specifically the 18th Amendment that first banned the sale of liquor and the 21st Amendment that then ended America’s dry spell. The company sells a range of unique syrups, tinctures, shrubs, tonic waters, and, of course, bitters in flavors like Japanese Chili and Lime, Lavender Sea Salt, and Blackberry Peppercorn.

Bokksu is here to satisfy your Japanese snack craving, whether you want to get a subscription box of surprise treats every month or pick and choose your favorites in the online market. If you go the subscription box route, each month (or each season, depending on your plan) you’ll get a box packed with snacks from family-run businesses in Japan, including things like Hiroshima Seaweed Tempura Chips to Kyoto Matcha Chocolate Cake.

“Cannabis-infused social tonic” Cann is a THC- and CBD-spiked sparkling beverage for when you want to feel buzzed without alcohol, and should be available at your local dispensary. The brand has limited-time flavors for every season—right now Ginger Lemongrass is on the menu—and has recently released a line of Pride-inspired “Lite” cans in flavors like Honeydew Mint and Tangerine Hops. What a refreshing change of pace to see Pride products released by a company actually run by queer people.

Another company run by spouses, Coolhaus is the brainchild of Natasha Case and Freya Estreller, who started the ice cream business in 2009 out of the back of an old mail truck at Coachella. These days you don’t have to travel through a desert to get their desserts—the ice cream sandwiches, cones, and pints are available at retailers like Whole Foods and delivery services like GoPuff.

Sue Conley and Peggy Smith (now married, according to The Advocate) spent their formative years in San Fransisco’s restaurant industry in the 1970s then decided in the 1990s that it was time for a change and dedicated their lives to cheese. Cowgirl Creamery now offers cheese clubs, allowing you try different cheeses every month, or you could just stick to the tried-and-true favorites: the triple cream Mt Tam; versatile, aged Wagon Wheel; and the Devil’s Gulch topped with dried chiles.

Just in case you weren’t sure if Couplet Coffee was LGBTQ+-friendly, look no further than the company’s mission statement: “Inclusivity is at the core of what we do, which is why we make coffee for the girls, theys, gays and everyone.” Couplet’s goal is to make coffee less pretentious, and they do so with not only colorful and fun packaging but with straightforward descriptions of the flavor and of the farms that grew and harvested the beans in each bag.

Diaspora Co. was founded in 2017 with just one spice: Pragati Turmeric. Now the company sources 30 single-origin spices from 150 farms across India and Sri Lanka, all in an effort to dismantle the systemic processes put in place by the colonial spice trade hundreds of years ago. Not only does a fair rate go directly to the farmers, but a fresher, more vibrant and authentic spice ends up in customers’ kitchens. Once you’re done loading your cart with delicious spices, check out the company’s Queer Business Manifesto, a great guide for all businesses to consider.

Equator Coffees has some big names supporting it: the brand has specialty coffee collections from Tyler Florence, Brandon Jew, and Dominique Crenn, and the sales from each specialty collection benefit a different charity. Founded in 1995, the company was the first coffee roaster in California to become a certified B Corp and the first Certified LGBTQ-owned company to win the SBA’s National Small Business of the year award. And with a robust catalog, they truly have a coffee for everyone.

Don’t just pop open a bottle from Explorer Cold Brew Co. and start chugging—what you’re actually getting is a cold brew concentrate, and each bottle contains 10-20 cups of cold brew. You can get your concentrate with no caffeine, low caffeine, regular caffeine, or extra caffeine (maybe stock up on one of each, depending on the day), and for a little pizazz you can also throw in a flavor elixir, either Madagascar Vanilla, Himalayan Sea Salt Caramel, Roasted Turkish Hazelnut, or Crushed Candy Cane.

The Gay Agenda is best served in a steaming hot cup—at least when it comes to Grinding Coffee Co.’s version. Along with a variety of beans, all of which are roasted to order to maintain freshness, you can Grinding Coffee in K-cup form. The company is a Black- and queer-owned business run by Zoomer gamer best friends Oso Holley and Liyah Snider, who started the company in the middle of the pandemic as a way to create community and give back. “We want you as safe as possible and as happy as possible,” the About Us page reads. “What better way to have all of the above than getting some fantastic gay coffee delivered straight to your door?”

Chances are if you’re reading this, you already have some GT’s Living Foods kombucha (a drink that in itself has queer origins) in your fridge—I know I do. The company’s founder, GT Dave, got his first SCOBY (a Himalayan Mother) in the 1990s and never looked back. Now the fermented food empire has grown to include yogurt, kefir, mushroom elixirs, and more and more flavors and styles of kombucha.

Lagusta Luscious promises sweets that are not only ethically sourced and totally vegan, but produced by a queer founder and predominately queer staff. You can get bars and barks and bonbons (oh my!), not to mention specialty packages like the S’mores Kit or the Strawberry Box and the subscription-based Chocolate of the Month Club.

The recipe that inspired Maxine Heavenly is prominently displayed on the company’s About Us page, a typewritten recipe for oatmeal Toll House cookies on an index card. The company’s mission was to replicate that same comforting homemade taste but with all natural ingredients, and the business now sells not only the oatmeal cookies but chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, walnut banana bread, and more. This year for Pride, Maxine Heavenly is teaming up with a handful of other queer-owned businesses (several of which are on this list) to give away a bundle of snacks, drinks, and accessories.

NONA Vegan brings you Italian pasta sauces—think carbonara, alfredo, bolognese—that are just like your grandma used to make, minus any lactose or gluten. If you’re not sure exactly how to mix the sauces into your everyday meals, worry not: NONA has pages and pages of recipes from the NONA team and home cooks alike to guide you, including this colorful recipe for Rainbow “Pride” Focaccia.

The name of this company is inspired by the Vietnamese phrase “om sòm,” meaning noisy, riotous, and rambunctious. While the founders (sisters Kim and Vanessa Pham) of Omsom say it was a term used to scold them when they were kids, they’ve reclaimed it a positive affirmation with their pantry starters featuring bold Asian flavors and ingredients for dishes like lemongrass BBQ, larb, and sisig. And over on the company’s TikTok (where you can get a discount code) the Phams aren’t shy about posting their go-to recipes, introducing the team, and sharing personal stories about embracing their identities.

Before Peanut Butter & Co. was shipping all kinds of nut-based spreads nationwide, it started as a sandwich shop that only sold peanut butter sandwiches. Now the company makes its own peanut butter, almond butter, hazelnut spread, peanut butter powder, and more with crops from a family- and LGBTQ+-owned 119-acre peanut farm in Northeast Arkansas. The days of the sandwich are long gone—Peanut Butter & Co. would rather encourage folks to just grab a spoon and dig right in.

Pink House Alchemy is quite literally named: all the company’s syrups, bitters, and shrubs were conceived of in an actual 100-year-old pink house. Flavors range from classics like ginger and simple syrup to new concoctions like blackberry sage and pumpkin butternut spice. You can also buy cocktail kits complete with gorgeous dehydrated fruit garnishes—this month sales of the Dancing Diva Cocktail Kit benefit The Trevor Project.

If Pipcorn sounds familiar, that may be because it was featured on a 2015 episode of Shark Tank—Barbara Corcoran invested $200,000 for 10% of the company. Seven years later and the snack brand built on using heirloom corn (older, open-pollinated corn crops) is still going strong, and along with its flagship product now sells different flavors of corn dippers, crunchies (think Cheetos), and cheese balls.

Another company going all-in on heirloom products is Rancho Gordo, an heirloom bean company. Along with selling beans, grains, corn, and spices to spread the joy of heirloom beans, Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando started the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project, which provides support to farmers in Mexico growing the heirloom produce. Though it was founded in 2001, it wasn’t until recently that Rancho Gordo was recognized as a queer-owned business, to the surprise of some customers. In response Sando tweeted: “you’d think all the Ethel Merman references would have been a clue!”

Republic Restorative is the largest crowdfunded distillery in the country, selling bourbon, brandy, whiskey, vodka, and rye. That’s to say in the truest sense it is booze by the people, for the people. The distillery itself is based in Washington, D.C., and the company’s CEO and founder, Pia Carusone, previously worked in politics, most notably with former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords. When she left the Hill to move into the world of spirits, it was important to her as a queer business owner to be inclusive and make community outreach a part of the business model.

In 2013, Shaquanda was asked to perform at Bushwig, a New York City–based drag celebration. She said she’d only do it if she could perform with food, and so the Bushwig hot sauce blend was created. Since then Shaquanda’s Hot Pepper Sauce has been in high demand, with flavors like the citrusy Mx. Green Sass and the earthy Oooomami entering the rotation. The bottles are sold at select markets in California, Florida, and New York, but can also be purchased online—grab yourself a signature bottle hankie while you’re at it.

This brand’s name is reclaiming a phrase that cofounder Tim Chan was afraid of hearing when growing up. “Being called ‘so gay’ in high school and college was a negative thing, and I was mortified every time someone told me that my outfit was ‘so gay’ or that my love for Mariah was ‘so gay,’” he says on the About Us page. “After struggling with self-love and acceptance for years, I finally realized that there’s nothing worse in life than not being able to celebrate who you are — and the people you love.” Now he’s canned sparkling rosé and chardonnay under the names So Gay Rosé and So Gay Chardonnay as a celebration of the phrase, now a stand-in for “so great!” Be sure to pick up the special Fire Island Summer Edition inspired by the Hulu romcom.

Some cannabis companies focus on their products’ ability to help you sleep or relax. Sonder, on the other hand, wants to provide cannabis products specifically to be used as a tool for creativity to open your mind. And the business has certainly gotten creative with how they serve up the THC—along with oil cartridges you can now also get Space Crystals, a Pop Rocks–esque weed candy in flavors like Peachy Passion and Pineapple Party.

What started in 1991 as a small table at a New Hampshire farmer’s market has since grown to be a full family of gourmet food-related brands. While it might be assumed that Stonewall Kitchen was named for the historic riots that prompted the gay rights movement, it’s actually just kind of a coincidence. According to Passport Magazine, founders and partners Jim Stott and Jonathan King were inspired when they needed to come up with a name for their jam business on the fly and looked out to see a stone wall. Now the name stands as a beacon of a queer-owned business.

Supergay Spirits lets you know right away with its name what it’s all about. Forget farm to table—this vodka is promoted as farm to disco, and founders Aaron Thorp and Tom Jackson got into the craft cocktail business to keep it as fun as possible. All ingredients are ethically sourced, each bottle is handcrafted from small batches made in upstate New York, and the brand frequently looks to Dolly Parton and other icons for inspiration. Most recently, the brand created a signature Fire Island cocktail for New York City bar Jeffrey’s Grocery in honor of Pride.

Couple Sam Butarbutar and Wenter Shyu started Third Culture Bakery as a single shop in 2016, a place where they could share the pastries they loved from their childhoods in Indonesia and Taiwan. The bakery became famous for its Mochi Muffin and blew up from there—there are still only two physical locations in California, but a wide variety of Mochi Muffins plus signature matcha, oolong, and other merch is shipped all across the country. Butarbutar and Shyu also set aside a chunk of their profits to give back to various organizations like The Trevor Project, The SF LGBT Center, and the San Fransisco AIDS Foundation.

W*nder is all about getting you the right CBD drink for every part of your day, with an ’80s-inspired name for each flavor: Breakfast Club gives you energy, Born to Run helps with recovery, Fast Times helps you focus, and Night Moves will calm you down before bed. It was recently reported that W*nder founder Tanisha Robinson is teaming up with a Jay-Z-connected cannabis company, so get ready—this stuff is about to be everywhere.

Spouses Roger and Justin Branon Rodriguez had a dream to elevate the taste of maple, which led to the creation of Sacré, Woodnose’s signature nonalcoholic aperitif made from fermented maple syrup and artisanal coffee. Shake it up and strain it into a martini glass with a couple of espresso beans and you’ve got yourself a booze-free Espresso Martini. Not only is the product organic, gluten-free, vegan, and sustainably farmed, but Woodnose earned recognition from the National Audubon Society for farming its maple in a bird-friendly way.

Cookie company Wunderkeks was created by Luis Gramajo and Hans Schrei in 2012 as a way to (quite literally) feed their inner children. “We make cookies because they make us happy,” the About Us page reads. “And, sure, who’s not happy with a cookie? But for us, coming from a... not so LGBTQ-friendly place like our home country, the joy a cookie could bring was, at certain times in our lives, literally life-saving.” Their cookies and brownies—which come in flavors like Amazing, Life Changing Snickerdoodles and Fudgiest Brownies Ever—are favorites of Tori Spelling.

Before starting Yeah Dawg, founder Marina Benedetto worked as a chef at a homeless youth shelter, where their goal was to recreate American classics and fast food staples that many of the kids were used to with some added nutrition mixed in. That eventually led to them veganizing hot dogs, brats, and bacon bits, complete with Yeah Dawg’s colorful, kid-friendly packaging. Plus, the cursor on the website is a tiny hot dog—what’s not to love?