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About
The idea arrived on a back deck on a hot night in 2017: a popsicle would be good, a boozy popsicle would be better. What followed is a regulatory story as much as a consumer one. B.C.'s liquor laws meant the product could not be sold in the province, so the two North Vancouver founders raised a pre-seed round of about US$800,000 and took the business south. It worked: Hardpops has been sold in more than 140 retail locations across North America, gained traction in Los Angeles, became the official boozy ice pop of the NHL's Florida Panthers with a branded bar in the arena, and is now stocked in H-E-B stores across Texas. The brand sits under Pilothouse Brands, which Mustapich and Price founded in 2019 and which also runs 1983, a premium ready-to-drink line that signed a Canada-wide distribution agreement with Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits of Canada in November 2024. Price earlier founded Klasses.co, a Vancouver marketplace for booking in-person classes, which she demonstrated on the TechVancouver stage two weeks after launch.
Backers
The founders raised a pre-seed round of about US$800,000, reported by BC Business. No investor is named in the sources read and no later round is claimed.
Quick answers
What is Hardpops?
An alcoholic ice-pop brand — boozy freezies made with minimal ingredients — sold across North American retail, including H-E-B stores in Texas.
Who founded it?
Sheereen Price and Gabrielle Mustapich, in Vancouver. It is the flagship brand of their company Pilothouse Brands, founded in 2019.
Why did the business move to the United States?
British Columbia's liquor rules meant the product could not be sold in the province. The two founders raised a pre-seed round of about US$800,000 and took the business south.
Who from Hardpops is in this directory?
Sheereen Price, its co-founder, who demonstrated Klasses.co on the TechVancouver stage in March 2016, two weeks after that marketplace launched.