In the land of puffy jackets and cool, craft beer, of course there’s a business brewing in Bend that blends the two: puffy jackets for your favorite beverage.

The choices run the gamut from a red plaid flannel to a fly fishing vest that wraps around a cold one.

Puffin Drinkwear, the Bend-founded company, not only produces drink covers, or koozies, that are stylish, but they also have been tested to keep drinks cool.

Like most creative products, the idea behind Puffin Drinkwear sprang from a conversation around a campfire while having a beverage or two, said Tyrone Hazen, the president and founder. A friend tossed him a drink koozie that was hand-made, which sparked his creative juices.

Today, the company not only makes drink koozies in the red buffalo plaid, it also makes them shaped like hoodies and sleeping bags for wine bottles. Recently a gift shop in Cape Canaveral, Fla., ordered spacesuit koozies with he NASA logo on the breast pocket, Hazen said.

“We’re in Bend and we’re about beer, “ Hazen said. “I went to town. This is the land of the puffy jacket. It seemed like a natural.”

It’s that kind of thinking that is unique to an entrepreneur, said Todd Laurence, Oregon State Univeristy-Cascades adjunct lecturer of business.

“We all have fleeting ideas that we don’t act on,” Laurence said. “But it’s the key characteristic of a entrepreneur. There’s a willingness to chase something that seems hard to do and an entrepreneur sees the opportunity when regular people see barriers.”

From that campfire chatter, Hazen and his co-founders toyed around with other product ideas, only to settle on the niche of can koozies. The first product was a sleeping bag bottle koozie.

They drew up a concept design and found businesses overseas to manufacture a sample of koozies and took them around town to stores to see if there was a market for a beverage can covers designed to look like a puffy jacket or a hooded parka. Selling to stores made more sense and was a strategic move at the time rather than going direct to consumer sales, he said.

The first store just took 10 items and wasn’t sure they’d sell, he said. The next day the owner ordered 36 more. A week later, 100 more.

“It was at that moment we realized we had a thing here,” Hazen said. “If we could sell this many to one little store, we realized that we had a winner.”

That was in 2019. Sales totaled $275,000 for the items that retail for anywhere fro $12.95 to $29.95. Last year the company reported $5.2 million in sales a figure he expects to double this year and double again in 2023, Hazen said.

“Staying fresh is the key for us,”Hazen said. “We have about three years worth of additional upcoming products we want to develop.”

The concept is simple: we miniaturized something that people identify with. It makes sense for people.

“We speak to an identity that’s fun and fresh and sparks joy.”

The products seem to strike a chord with customers who find them whimsical and fun, Hazen said. Hazen and his two cofounders have found a niche in the gift shop arena. The products can be found in Dicks Sporting Goods, William Sonoma, souvenir shops and REI, he said.

Outdoor products companies have a big stake in protecting the environment, said Geoff Raynak,Oregon State University-Cascades director of the Outdoor Products degree program.

“The people have a real connection,” Raynak said. “They love to enjoy the outdoors and that’s something we’ve all looked at as the world has gone sideways in the past couple of years.

“There are no outdoor products without the outdoors.”

In fact, Puffin Drinkwear collaborated with the department as students completed a sustainability audit of the products they make, Raynak said. That audit helped the company ensure it was sourcing material that was sustainable, which is part of the company’s core mission.

The pandemic was a dark time for the company that experienced supply chain issues, delayed shipments and soaring shipping costs. One order that was supposed to arrive in August 2021 didn’t arrive until six months later. That meant lost sales and a disruption in the growth. As a debt finance company, that meant a lot of risk, he said.

The products are made overseas in Asia and in Mexico and distributed from a warehouse in Bend, Hazen said.

“The pandemic was horrible,” Hazen said. “And it’s still horrible. We’re still dealing with it. We had to make adjustments and take on costs that we didn’t plan on. “

Bend is a supportive community to start a business, he said. Often other outdoor product companies are just a phone call away for any kind of advice, he said.

In fact, Hazen takes his story to the OSU campus frequently sharing how he started the business with students, Laurence said.

“This town is go good, all the entrepreneurs want to support the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

“We speak to an identity that’s fun and fresh and sparks joy.”

Tyrone Hazen, Puffin Drinkwear president