Luba Libations expands with in-progress distribution facility

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

August 10, 2026

DOOR COUNTY – As Luba Libations’ customer base and product line continues to expand, Co-founder/owner Christiana Trapani said so, too, is its physical footprint in Door County.

As previously reported in The Business News’ Feb. 9 issue, Luba Libations and Wisconsin-based liquor distributor Badger Liquor formed a partnership earlier in the year, which Christiana said helped the nonalcoholic beverage company “really start to see a lot of growth.” 

“We signed on a lot of new partners and accounts,” she said. “We’re also expanding distribution to Michigan and Minnesota, so there was a lot of growth happening, and we needed a lot of space.”

Recognizing the path Luba was on, Christiana said her husband and fellow co-founder/owner, Nic, began planning an addition to their existing facility – shared by their other company, Door County Candle Company – to accommodate the increased production requests.

“Nic is very good at thinking ahead, way more ahead than I think,” she said. “He kind of has always had [building the distribution facility] in mind and was planning this.”

Because she and Nic “like to be in as much control” as they can regarding Luba’s supply chain, adding to their current property made the most sense.

“We were [thinking], ‘All right, we need the space for a finished product,’” she said. “We kind of looked at each other and [decided] it’s time. Luckily, he, early on, had a plan. We executed that plan and started building, and it couldn’t [have come] at a better time.”

Just a taste

Christiana said after Luba Libations’ first year in business, “things really started to move.”

“Our partnership with Badger Liquor has been incredible,” she said. “They’re just a phenomenal partner, [as is] Frank [Beverage Group] in the Madison area. They’re [both] phenomenal; they believe in what we’re doing [and] they believe in our product.”

As of her interview with The Business News, Christiana said the zero-proof, precanned NA beverage is available for purchase in more than 250 locations “in Wisconsin alone.”

“Having the right partners, such as Badger Liquor, and the right supply chain partner really makes a difference,” she said. “Now that we’ve been around for a year, people have heard of us and things are really, really moving.”

Christiana said Luba’s ambassador program is also growing as they increase the number of tasting events to put the product in front of as many customers as they can.

“We’re building our ambassador network,” she said. “We have about 40 ambassadors in Wisconsin alone right now, and we are expanding into different states to keep doing tastings, [because] that’s a big part of our growth, too.”

With additional production runs of their existing flavors already in the works, Christiana said she and Nic are expecting to pack their new distribution facility very soon.

“We will be filling it up right away,” she said. “[Luba’s distribution] has always been from our location here. Now, we’ll have loading docks [and] it’ll be a lot easier… [to] respond quickly when orders come in to our distributor partner.”

With an anticipated completion by the end of August, Christiana said Luba lovers can expect more of their favorites to hit the shelves – with a location finder available on their website, drinkluba.com – in addition to three new flavors next year.

“Which will bring us to seven in total,” she said. “Between the new flavors, the big accounts we are in talks with right now, [there are] a lot of exciting things [happening] and people are really loving Luba. It’s been great to see.”