From the Fight Cage to the Cocktail Business: How Jordan Raulston Built Deviant

Jordan Raulston's journey to entrepreneurship did not begin in a business classroom or corporate office. It began in the world of mixed martial arts, where discipline, competition, and persistence became defining parts of her life. When she started fighting in 2013, MMA quickly became one of her biggest priorities. Supporting that ambition, however, required a job that could accommodate demanding training schedules, fight camps, competitions, and recovery.

Bartending provided that flexibility. It also became the foundation for a career that would eventually lead Raulston to establish Deviant Cocktail Club, a Nevada based cocktail and zero proof experience company and licensed food manufacturer. What began as a way to support her fighting career evolved into more than a decade of experience in hospitality, customer behavior, beverage purchasing, cocktail development, operations, and management.

Behind the bar, Raulston learned that a memorable cocktail involves more than its ingredients. Customers may spend $18 or $35 on a drink because of the flavor, presentation, atmosphere, service, and experience surrounding it. Understanding those expectations helped her recognize an opportunity to bring the creativity of a cocktail bar into people's homes.

Today, that idea is becoming a business with ambitions beyond a monthly subscription box. Yet the story behind Deviant is not simply about cocktails. It is about pursuing an unconventional path, returning to school to create new opportunities, navigating personal loss, and continuing to build something meaningful when several parts of life demand attention at once.

The Idea That Started Behind the Bar

The original idea for Deviant Cocktail Club emerged in 2018. Raulston was working alongside a fellow bartender when a customer repeatedly asked questions about a cocktail because they wanted to recreate it at home. Her colleague became frustrated with the questions. Raulston saw the interaction differently.

To her, a customer wanting to learn how to make a drink she had created was a compliment. The person enjoyed the experience enough to want to reproduce it independently. That moment helped her recognize a gap between enjoying a craft cocktail at a bar and making something similar at home.

Recreating specialty drinks can require multiple full size bottles, syrups, bitters, and garnishes, even when someone wants to prepare only a few cocktails. The cost and unused ingredients can make experimentation inconvenient. Raulston wanted to simplify that process while preserving the creativity and satisfaction of making a drink from scratch.

“If someone loves something I created enough to want to recreate it at home, what an honor,” she says.

The concept was straightforward: provide original recipes, specialty ingredients, and carefully measured portions so customers could create distinctive cocktails without purchasing every ingredient in a full retail size.

However, the idea did not immediately become a company. MMA continued to occupy much of Raulston's attention, and bartending remained the practical way to support her athletic goals. Deviant stayed an idea while she continued pursuing that chapter of her life.

Eventually, she realized that if she wanted to expand her earning potential and build opportunities beyond bartending, she needed to return to school. Years later, while attending classes, she discovered Launch Nevada. The opportunity gave her a reason to revisit the idea and determine whether it could become a viable business.

From Startup Competitions to Licensed Manufacturing

Deviant Cocktail Club earned first place at Launch Nevada, won the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, and became a top ten finalist in Reno Startup Week’s regional Startup World Cup competition, selected from more than 75 applicants.

Beyond these milestones, founder Jordan Raulston worked to establish a licensed food manufacturing operation, allowing Deviant to produce its own syrups, dehydrated fruits, garnishes, bitters, and specialty cocktail components. Through hands on product development, financial planning, and manufacturing preparation, she is building a company designed to grow beyond subscription boxes into a broader cocktail and hospitality brand.

Building Through Grief and Personal Challenges

The development of Deviant has taken place during some of the most difficult years of Raulston's life. She lost her father three years ago and her mother 11 months ago. As an only child, she experienced these losses while trying to balance school, work, entrepreneurship, and the practical demands of establishing a manufacturing operation.

After her father, Avery, died, Raulston spent a long time caught in grief and questioning why the loss had happened. Losing her mother, Sheila, changed her perspective. She began reflecting on the sacrifices both of her parents had made to give her opportunities and the importance of making those opportunities count.

While attending school full time, working, developing Deviant, and competing in the four-month Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, she repeatedly reminded herself that Avery and Sheila’s efforts should not be in vain.

“My parents worked too hard to give me opportunities for me to let their sacrifices go in vain,” she says.

That motivation did not eliminate the demands of building a company or make personal loss easier to navigate. Instead, it gave Raulston another reason to keep moving forward. The experience influenced how she thought about time, ambition, and the freedom to pursue a path that might not look conventional from the outside.

Her story also reveals a less visible side of entrepreneurship. Progress does not always happen when life is calm or when every responsibility fits neatly into a schedule. Sometimes it means working on financial projections at night after a day of product development, attending classes while preparing for a competition, or finding the energy to continue after a personal setback.

For Raulston, these experiences have become part of the meaning behind Deviant. The company reflects a decision to keep building despite uncertainty rather than wait for the perfect circumstances to arrive.

Why Deviant Means More Than a Name

The word deviant means departing from usual or accepted standards. For Jordan Raulston, it reflects her unconventional journey from MMA and bartending to entrepreneurship, where each experience helped shape her vision.

“There are no clear guidelines for how you are supposed to live your life,” Raulston says. “If something out of the ordinary is pushing you in the right direction, I think that should be celebrated.”

That philosophy drives Deviant Cocktail Club, where each monthly box features three original recipes and ingredients for 12 drinks. Customers can choose The DEVIANT, which requires adding their own spirit, or The ALIBI, a completely alcohol free experience. With new flavors each month and members voting on future collections, the company aims to make staying home more creative, social, and memorable. Its first collection, Agave After Hours, features three original tequila based cocktail experiences and is scheduled to ship in November 2026.

A Vision Beyond the Subscription Box

Although the subscription model provides the foundation for Deviant, Raulston's ambitions extend beyond monthly deliveries. The company's manufacturing capabilities create potential opportunities for standalone syrups and ingredients, retail products, hospitality partnerships, premium experiences, and future beverage products.

That vision depends on developing the business beyond its initial launch. Product consistency, production planning, customer relationships, and thoughtful expansion will all matter as the company works to establish its place in the market.

Still, the underlying idea remains connected to the experience that inspired Raulston in 2018. She wants people to discover new flavors, learn techniques, and create something memorable themselves. The recipes and ingredients are the starting point. The real value lies in giving people the confidence to make something they might never have tried otherwise.

For Raulston, building Deviant is also a way to challenge the assumption that professional success must follow a predictable sequence. Her journey has moved through fighting, bartending, education, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship. Each chapter has helped prepare her for the next, even when the connection was not immediately obvious.

Readers can explore the company's products and upcoming collections at deviantcocktailclub.com. They can follow new releases and behind the scenes developments on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Raulston also shares her professional journey on LinkedIn.

The story of Deviant Cocktail Club is still unfolding. Its first subscription collection represents a new chapter for a business that began with an observation behind a bar and grew through years of work, education, competition, and personal change.

“Life is short. Never be afraid to defy the ordinary,” Raulston says.

For her, the message is not that every unconventional choice will lead to success. It is that people should be willing to explore possibilities beyond the expected path. In business, as in life, the next meaningful opportunity may begin with an idea that waits years for its moment.

And when it comes to Deviant Cocktail Club, there is no such thing as a basic cocktail around here, either.