Have Your Cake and Drink It, Too

This article is published in partnership with The Food Section.

In the Bible, angels often appear in dreams, bringing divine commands and insights to trembling mortals. So, to Angel Louis, daughter of a pastor and someone who says she “knows her Bible,” it’s no surprise that dreams are the vehicle of inspiration for the alcohol-infused cupcakes she sells under her brand, Boozie Bakes.

“All these cupcake flavors come to me in a dream,” said Louis, a mother of three and former social worker. “God gave me this vision. He speaks to me!” 

The heavenly mandate serves as a tidy rebuttal to people who regard the combination of baked goods and alcohol as sinful—a demographic that’s still fairly common in Louis’s home state of North Carolina, where, until its shutdown in September for financial reasons, the Christian Action League regularly lobbied the statehouse with a teetotaling agenda. 

But the more meaningful rejoinders are the cupcakes themselves, moist and richly flavored, their sticky frostings and boozy drizzles no afterthought but instead seamlessly matched in such flavors as Driving Me Coconutz, White Bourbon Bliss, and Strawberry Daiquiri Crunch. 

Alcohol-infused desserts aren’t a new trend. Baba au rhum, postre borracho, and Trinidadian black cake are firmly rooted in traditional culinary arts, while contemporary companies like New York’s Tipsy Scoop have offered more novel spirituous treats for years. And teetotalers aside, North Carolinians in general enjoy a good drink, consuming about 2.3 gallons of alcohol per capita each year. But Louis says she still encounters a surprising amount of pushback from people who fear cupcake-induced tipsiness. 

“Nine out of 10 people do not understand. Most people won’t try it, if I’m really being honest,” she said. “People often think they’re going to get drunk off a cupcake and not be able to drive home.” 

The yellow-and-purple trailer that travels to festivals and events reads “options for all ages,” a motto Louis made good on when she supplied cupcakes for her daughter’s third birthday at daycare. Since Boozie Bakes only offers original, wine-infused recipes, that claim can confuse customers, so team members explain it by comparing their treats with more common foods.

“Any type of fine dining Italian restaurant, they’re going to put wine in the spaghetti sauce,” Louis said, noting that all of the alcohol in her cupcakes evaporates during the baking process, just as it would in a chicken marsala. 

Still, Louis has lost business over her refusal to bake cupcakes without the booze. “People have been like, if you make it without wine, I’ll order 2,000 cupcakes,” she says. “I’m not willing to change my product. That’s a hard truth that I’ve stood by.” 

A Pandemic Pivot

Founded in 2021, Boozie Bakes was born from a pandemic pivot. Louis had been managing a wedding venue when the world shut down in March 2020. Like many, she found herself at home, unable to work, guiding her children through online school and trying to figure out what to do. “I felt like I needed to reinvent myself,” she said. “I was talking to my husband, and he said, ‘Just watch TV, and maybe it’ll come to you.’ Well, I didn’t. I went in the kitchen, and I started baking.”

Louis enjoys a good drink and often plays the role of mixologist at social gatherings. “I’m the one who brings the sangria,” she explained. So, stuck at home, she often sipped as she baked, and one evening that led to a moment of curiosity. “What if I just put this whole glass of wine in the batter? Would it be watery, runny, would it change the texture? What would happen?” Louis tried it one night and found that it yielded a moist, tender cupcake with richer flavor. “I might be onto something,” she recalls thinking.

Louis began developing recipes, trying different types of wine and spirits with familiar cake flavors. The first one she perfected: a chocolate cupcake infused with cabernet sauvignon. “I’m not a chocolate person, so if I’m going to make a chocolate, it’s going to have to be a chocolate that I like,” she said. The flavor is so popular, she thought about stopping there. But its counterpart, French Vanilla Bliss, baked with white wine and drizzled in bourbon caramel, now equals it in sales. It received a Best in Taste Award from the NC Specialty Foods Association in 2023.

The Spirit Moves You

Louis’ lineup of recipes is now vast, ranging from Cookies & Cream and Funfetti to the banana-flavored Awww Puddin and margarita-infused Better With Tequila. Most of the cupcakes are made with wine, though a few incorporate spirits like rum, bourbon, and triple sec. 

And while the cakes themselves are sober-friendly, customers have the option to “make it boozy” by adding a $2 “shooter,” a plastic syringe filled with about half an ounce of wine or cocktail, to any cupcake. (For folks who don’t imbibe, or kids who insist on doing everything just like the grownups, Louis offers mocktail shooters.)

Boozie Bakes operates out of Raleigh’s Little Blue Bakehouse, which also serves as a retail location. The trailer hits the road most weekends, traveling around the Triangle, across the state, and as far afield as Baltimore to wineries, food truck rodeos, and events such as the North Carolina State Fair. 

There’s also a budding online business, and soon Louis will expand into wholesale as a major Southeastern grocery chain plans to offer Boozie Bakes products. If the initial rollout into the company’s 15 Raleigh stores goes well, additional growth could be in the cards.

It would be meaningful validation, and a great boost, for the scrappy business. But the ultimate reward, Louis said, comes when she watches customers bite into a cupcake—especially the doubters.

Her church once asked her to make cupcakes for them, minus the booze. She turned them down. 

“This is what I do—it’s what I stand by,” Louis said. “There’s a million bakers out there, but there’s only one me.”