Tepper School Alumnus Expands Hard Cider Business

James Bucki, MBA ‘24, is turning his passion for crafting unique beverages into a thriving business. After a decade of home-brewing, expanding into hard cider ignited his entrepreneurial spirit.

After brewing cider for 10 years, Bucki began bringing his home-brewed cider to parties, and the positive reception encouraged him to move from hobbyist to professional cidermaker. During his time as a Part-Time Online Hybrid MBA student at the Tepper School of Business, he partnered with Derek Luke, a fellow brewer, to launch Voyager Cider.

Bucki and Luke began their venture in 2021, working with local orchards and using heritage apples to create a cider with the complexity of wine. The product focused on the character and quality of the apples, their ciders tend to be quite dry.

With an eye for business and armed with the knowledge he was gaining as a Tepper School student, Bucki and his team spent 2022 and 2023 building a production facility, procuring the necessary licensure, and releasing their first batch to the market.

For Bucki, the network he built at the Tepper School and across the university served as an invaluable resource.

“In our planning phases, being able to talk with professors and alumni helped us to understand best practices for launching a business,” Bucki said. “The Carnegie Mellon network served as thought partners as we worked through customer discovery and product development in a way that is data-driven, but still customer-centric.”

In a retail partnership with Coen Markets Markets across the Pittsburgh region, Voyager Cider has introduced its distinctive dry ciders to a wider audience. For pop-up events, Bucki and Luke serve their six varieties of cider from a vintage 1977 VW Bus, a veteran of a long road trip before starting the company.

Over the past year, Voyager’s ciders have become available at several Pittsburgh locations, including Iron Born Pizza and The Dog Penn in the Strip, De Fer Coffee and Cocktails and Square Cafe in the East End, Mercurio’s in O’Hara, Carnegie Beer Outlet, Beer Town locations in Dormont and Greenfield, and Lilith in Shadyside. Voyager Cider is also available at six Coen Market locations.

Bucki emphasized Pittsburgh has been a great home for his business, with the area’s ethos of being adventurous and innovative directly echoing Voyager’s mission.

“Pittsburgh is a great place to start any sort of craft consumer company,” he shared. “We have been able to build a network of people who never say no to giving us advice, and are always interested in trying new things.”