Golden Eagle Vodka, currently served locally at Mastro’s, The Park Club and Pendry Newport Beach, has signed a new distribution deal with Breakthru Beverage Group to take its product nationwide, starting in Arizona.
“This will be the most notable starting point and redirection for Golden Eagle as it relates to our distributor representation nationally,” founder Dakota Blaze Rader told the Business Journal.
Since Golden Eagle officially went to market in 2024, the brand managed its own distribution in California, overseeing the logistics of sending the bottled products to its restaurant and liquor store partners.
This action drew the attention of the second-largest distributor in the U.S., Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC), which signed a deal with the Lake Forest-based vodka maker at the start of 2025.
Rader said that a few months after, RNDC unexpectedly pulled its operations out of California completely.
“It was a massively negative impact on our business operations, but we were able to quickly adjust from RNDC to go back to our independent distribution model” without losing orders or customers, the founder said.
Since then, Golden Eagle has almost tripled its footprint in California, both in terms of volume and account expansion.
Rader is targeting a 400% increase in sales volume in California next year, focusing on Palm Springs, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County. Cumulatively, the company will increase sales volume by 300% companywide.
The brand also entered Nevada, Arizona and Texas this year.
It works with boutique and state-level distribution partners in Nevada and Texas, and as of September, Breakthru manages the delivery of Golden Eagle Vodka to a network of premium resorts, stores and restaurants in Arizona.
“This is sort of a moment where, if Golden Eagle’s efforts in Arizona prove successful, we will continue to align the brand with Breakthru Beverage Group nationally,” Rader said.
Within the first few weeks, the vodka brand landed in over 50 locations across the Grand Canyon state and is on track to reach 300 placements by year-end.
Once its efforts prove fruitful, Rader said Breakthru could grant Golden Eagle access to other “growing and aggressive markets” the distributor services.
Twice as Fast, Twice as Aggressive
The company has eight new markets slated for expansion in 2026.
“The reason we got this opportunity is because we already proved to do this in California and Nevada successfully,” Rader said. “So, at this point, it’s just about duplicating the route to market that we’ve already established works in Arizona. We’re trying to do that twice as big, twice as fast and twice as aggressive.”
“We want to make a pretty positive impression as an operation, not as a brand, not as a product, but operationally.”
Rader said Golden Eagle increased production by 300% in 2025 compared to last year and expects another significant bump in 2026. The goal is 12,000 cases.
“It’s not really ‘if’ it materializes successfully, it’s a matter of when,” Rader said.
The 24-person team is also looking to expand its current Lake Forest operations by twice its size next year.
Though consumption is down in all alcohol categories, Golden Eagle has still found growth.
“We’re really servicing a premium restaurant clientele. And people who participate in premium restaurant clientele, regardless of the economy state, they’re still going to Mastro’s,” Rader said.
The founder added that he invests 90% of the company’s marketing dollars into training brand ambassadors who “are going to result in consumer awareness and in restaurant sales.”
“The consumer responds to experience, and we drive that experience by investing in people who can go duplicate the brand experience at scale and high frequency,” Rader said.
“Golden Eagle is a character vodka distilled once, meant to have a lot of flavor when everything else is a neutral vodka distilled 10 times and meant to have no flavor. So, the fastest way for somebody to understand that the product’s unique, different and worthy of buying is to do what? To taste it.”
