Surfside Brand Guidelines: The Vodka Iced-Tea Rocket

Surfside turned vodka iced tea into a phenomenon.

Surfside is a lesson in an independent riding a wave. Made by Stateside — an independent, bootstrapped vodka distiller in Kensington, Philadelphia, founded by the Quigley and Pappas brothers — Surfside launched in 2022 and became the #1 fastest-growing alcohol brand in the US in 2024, exploding from a regional favourite to millions of cases.

Its hero is not a seltzer at all: Surfside is made with real vodka blended with brewed iced tea and real lemonade, around 4.5% ABV — and the flagship teas and lemonades are still (non-carbonated). Its look is unmistakably East Coast / Jersey-Shore: sunny, retro, beachy cans with clear per-flavour colour-coding.

(Honest notes: Surfside is made by Stateside and is independent and bootstrapped, not a conglomerate brand; it is real vodka, not malt; and it is iced-tea-first and non-carbonated, so calling it simply a “seltzer” is inaccurate — it rode the vodka-RTD / “hard tea” wave alongside High Noon. No official brand hex is published.)

Surfside lives in retro-shore colour. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Surfside’s identity is sunny, retro and coastal — a Surfside navy, a sunset orange, a sky blue, a warm cream, and an ink. The palette reads like a day down the shore: navy and sky, warm sunset tones, bright per-flavour accents. It signals easy, nostalgic, East-Coast summer. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a place and a mood can be the palette. Surfside’s world is the Jersey Shore in a can — “sunshine in a can.” For designers, it is a reminder that a specific, nostalgic sense of place can make a drink feel instantly familiar and likeable, especially in its home region. The takeaways: root the palette in a place and season; keep flavours clearly colour-coded; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using the navy for small text so the shore tones stay warm.

The wordmark spirit is a bold sans — sunny and confident.

Surfside’s identity carries a sunny, confident, shore-town spirit — a bold “Surfside” wordmark on retro, beachy cans. A bold, slightly rounded sans captures the mood: it is friendly and assured, the register of a hometown brand that became a national rocket. Set against navy and sunset tones, the bold type feels warm and easy — exactly the nostalgic, coastal personality Surfside carries. It is upbeat rather than precious, mirroring a can made for the beach. (Surfside’s real wordmark and cans are trademarks and trade dress we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not published, so we don’t assert it.) Because the specific mark is not ours to use, the honest description is “a bold sans spirit,” not the Surfside logo. The type behaves like the brand: sunny, bold and easy.

Surfside stands for the shore.

Surfside is a lesson in an independent catching a trend perfectly. A bootstrapped Philadelphia distiller read the shift from malt seltzers to real-vodka RTDs and hard teas, wrapped it in an authentic Jersey-Shore identity, and rode a regional base to national scale — becoming the country’s fastest-growing alcohol brand in 2024. The differentiator is authenticity plus timing: a real place, a real product, a real trend.

For designers and brand-builders, Surfside offers a clear takeaway: authenticity of place scales. The lessons: build from a genuine local identity (the shore); pick the product truth on the rising trend (real vodka, iced tea); and keep the palette and voice warmly regional even as you go national. It is also a reminder to stay accurate: Surfside is Stateside’s independent, real-vodka, iced-tea-first (non-carbonated) drink — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Surfside rode the wave — proof that an authentic place can be the difference.

Keep Surfside’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.