Meet the founder of Pilt Persuasion, a rising Black-owned liquor brand looking to shake up the Chicago market • The TRiiBE

“[Woodruff’s] a guy who was a bartender and made his own drinks and made it better than drinks he could buy, and decided to make that a business,” Rosen said. “Pilt Persuasion was in that category of a guy who made his own path and wanted to create his own brand.”Although Woodruff did not win the ‘Pitch Day’ competition, he said he was grateful for the experience. He was the only Black-owned, Chicago-based brand to compete in the fall 2024 cohort. The competition taught him a lot. He now understands the ins and outs of distribution and the importance of relationships with distributors. Woodruff is currently working to find a distributor to get his product on shelves. “I’m not officially in the market yet, so what I do is, whenever I have my product, I hand out samples to increase my brand engagement with people,” he said.In addition to finding opportunities for professional development, Woodruff said he partners with local artists and participates as a vendor at local events where people can sample his product to get acquainted before he goes to market. Woodruff began bartending in 2018 as a traveling bartender and then found the opportunity to serve his mixes on a larger scale at the start of the pandemic, just two years later. He created the ready-to-drink alcohol brand while attending Eastern Illinois University, starting off just making it for family and friends. “I got a large container, and I started putting together my own recipes because that was always my dream,” said Woodruff. ” I started putting everything in mason jars, and I kind of let that do the bartending for me.”The name is also a term that Woodruff coined for how people feel after drinking his cocktails, akin to the word tipsy. 



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