In this episode, Vince and I explore how hospitality can become a space for creativity, community-building, and playful experimentation. Vince shares his journey from Chicago to New Zealand, how a background in music and creative problem-solving shaped his approach, and why he sees hospitality as more than a job — it’s a way to bring people together. We dig into the role of community in Auckland hospitality, the importance of creating third places where people can connect, and how events like Auckland Cocktail Week can make hospitality feel more inviting, collaborative, and fun. Vince also talks about how creativity thrives within boundaries, why play matters for adults just as much as it does for children, and how atmosphere, design, and storytelling can add real value for both guests and hospitality teams.The conversation closes with Vince’s thoughts on leadership, finding people’s strengths, and how small, intentional actions can help make hospitality more meaningful for everyone involved.

Key themes

• Creativity as a practice, not a personality trait

• Community-building through hospitality

• Playfulness and imagination in bars and events

• Creating value for guests through experience

• Leadership through facilitation and support

Notable moments

• Vince on how travel helped him reconnect with hospitality

• The story behind Auckland Cocktail Week’s energy and growth

• Why boundaries can actually make creativity easier

• The idea that hospitality spaces can feel like “third places”

• Vince’s belief that giving others space to shine builds stronger communities

Be sure to like, share and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.

This is whisky with a side of fun, which is something desperately needed. That’s what comes to mind looking at, tasting and seeing The Lord of the Rings™ Ringbearer Single Malt Whisky released to market this week, released by Pōkeno and made in collaboration with Syzygy Forge. But it’s also something to take very, very seriously in the whisky stakes.

There is perhaps no greater evidence for the power of a well-loved brand than what happens in a licensing deal. And making something in collaboration with Syzygy Forge is a big, Big Deal. There are few brands loved with the devotion of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/JRR Tolkien fans. The epic film franchise is a masterclass in the depth, spending power and spinoff opportunities that a fandom can create, and why wouldn’t a whisky brand want in on that? You are essentially negotiating access to someone else’s devoted fandom, where quality, alignment and execution all multiply brand trust — and sales, when done well. And this is why big licence deals are complex, challenging and expensive.

Often the bigger the brand, the more guidelines to follow, the more can go wrong and as a producer you have to make compromises along the way—while hoping you don’t lose your way—while bringing the brands together. And usually, it’s the licensed brand that rules them all. Unless you’re Taylor Swift and Toy Story (IYKYK - Taylor rules everything).

A brand pays for the license to put a famous name, movie franchise or TV show on a label, and the retail price of the base product can triple based on absorbing the licence fee alone. Most importantly, you have two groups of ardent fans to get it right for.

Can You Break A Targaryen Curse?

Does anyone remember the Game of Thrones whisky series? Let me fill you in on how bad a marketing campaign with a side of whisky can get. They managed to annoy almost everyone.

A licensing deal that mostly started in travel retail, before finishing on the retail clearance floor, the Diageo/HBO Game of Thrones series matched a distillery to each of the Houses represented in the rocketship series. They said “we get to bring some of Scotland’s best whiskies to the world.”

Somehow, they managed to disappoint both fans of the show and of the distilleries involved. A rolling wave of cynicism struck even the most sympathetic of reviewers, with most bottlings labelled average to below-par for the distilleries involved and questions looming on integrity, intention and whether Diageo were simply looking for ways to move large amounts of otherwise unusable stock in a highly lucrative collectibles market. It was, after all, at the peak of collector’s fever and high-stakes whisky commodities.

Even the whisky writers who defended the range started with the assumption it was a gimmick, not a serious whisky venture. And as far riling a devoted fan base: some of the actual pairing decisions did the sceptics' work for them: giving the southern, rose-and-thorns House Tyrell a whisky from Diageo's northernmost, coldest distillery is the kind of detail that instantly discredited the thoughtfulness of "each dram matched to its house".

Pricing told its own story too — the Cardhu bottling was sold at roughly 20% above the standard release for the same liquid, while the Royal Lochnagar was priced identically to its standard edition. A new label and a 20% premium over the exact same liquid in its regular packaging. Ask me to name the most passionate fans on the planet and I’ll give you sci-fi/fantasy fans, followed by whisky enthusiasts/whisky bros. Lack of attention to the most obvious details and charging more for the privilege is the fastest ticket to a fight you’ll ever get.

One Ring To Rule Them All

So when Matt Johns told me how the Ringbearer project started, with an approach from the licence holders, I wanted to know how a distillery that has built its reputation on singular focus around the liquid holding their brand values close, navigates something as big as a Warner Bros. Lord of the Rings deal. What follows is our conversation, with a little unlicensed opinion from me on the side.

None of this happens by accident. Matt and Céline Johns spent 20-plus years in Scotch and spirits before launching Pōkeno to market. From the beginning, they’ve had clear ideas about what they wanted the whisky (and the brand) to be and do. He’s been generous with that broad whisky knowledge, sharing it with other New Zealand distilleries as invited, rather than guarding it. So from one of the NZ whisky industry’s strongest voices, this execution is a masterclass for those paying attention.

Pōkeno has long been creating a beachhead for New Zealand whisky offshore, in part with the bold packaging that leans so heavily into flora, fauna and culture of its place alongside explorations of native timber. At times, I’ve wondered how far the boundaries can be pushed before toppling over into appropriation, but in Ringbearer, Pōkeno answers the question with a stronger argument.

Pōkeno have been building brand love at home through approachable, accessible spirit, ongoing local beer collaborations and cask plays showing the versatility of their sweet, fruity spirit. But Matt is not a Lord of the Rings superfan (at least, not up til now) and definitely skipped that class in his New Zealand residency exams. But I think Matt and the Pōkeno are the only New Zealand whisky brand who could have tackled this opportunity with absolute clarity of vision, keeping both fans front and centre and with a quality of liquid to take Middle-earth back to a global stage. Here’s why:

Is this just a golden marketing opportunity to align with a powerhouse fandom? How did you stay true to your values as a company and a whiskymaker?

This is the question Johns kept coming back to, asking himself several times. I asked him too.

Matt: I’m still not quite sure how it all happened, to be honest with you. This has been going on for about a year and a half, and it started with a visit to the distillery by a couple of American guys. Apparently they were on their way back from Hobbiton. They’d come in, tasted our whisky, loved our whisky, and then said to Gareth — our head distiller — “Are you interested in producing a whisky bottled in Middle-earth?” Gareth called me up: “You interested in doing that?” And I’m going, “What? Lord of the Rings? I’m really not sure.” I suppose I’d taken it at the start as being only half serious.

The underlying thing for me is we’re not a marketing company. My big resistance at the start was that I’m never going to do anything which is only marketing. It has to add value to the product, and I have to be able to stand up and defend it. I’m not going to get dressed up in a hobbit costume and run around saying I’ve got a Lord of the Rings bottle just because it’s Lord of the Rings.

Tash: Although some people may pay good money for that, as a bonus with the bottle.

Matt: Some people may pay good money for me running around in a hobbit costume, yeah. But we went on this journey with these guys, and it worked out that they were from a creative agency (Syzygy Forge) in the US who are licensed by Warner Bros. to produce collectibles for Lord of the Rings — and they also hold the licence for spirits from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. They are the only people in the world to have this licence. Which is crazy, because you have to go through this complex and complicated thing — Warner Bros. has part of the licence, there’s a group in Sweden which has another part, and everybody has to agree. Even Hobbiton does not have a licence to sell spirits, which is why you cannot buy a bottle of spirits at Hobbiton. They can do their beer, the stuff they do out of the Green Dragon Inn, but not spirits.

So gradually, over the course of about six months, we went: okay, they want to license us. We’re the only whisky distillery in Middle-earth [Pōkeno is about a 1hr 15min drive from Hobbiton, in the Waikato region — Tash] — okay, we get that. But can we make this fit with our philosophy of producing creative and innovative whiskies which are a true reflection of our culture and climate? That’s our underlying thing, that’s almost the means test.

Is it innovative and creative? Well, it’s creative because it’s Lord of the Rings — that I get. And I can make the whisky innovative. Middle-earth is intrinsically associated with New Zealand. There are 650,000 people a year who come and visit Hobbiton in the Waikato. We’re in the Waikato.

So I can make this fit within my philosophy of what I’m trying to do, providing I do something special enough with the product that it’s not just about the marketing, and providing I position the product at a price point which fits with our philosophy — whiskies people can go and buy, taste, and buy again. We’re not hitting this $800 collectors thing, which doesn’t fit with what we’re doing. It took about a year before we actually pushed the button and said, yep, we’re willing to go. All of the commercialisation of the product is done by ourselves. We are controlling the route to market, we’re controlling the price points, we’re controlling everything. That was really important to me.

Two key elements worth underlining here: Pōkeno kept control of commercialisation — meaning instead of the licence holders picking up pallets of Ringbearer to sell wherever they like, the whisky goes primarily to whisky lovers first. And the price has held with Pōkeno’s philosophy: Ringbearer lands at $229, deliberately still accessible. The other standout is that this wasn’t a simple selection of casks that already existed. Sure, they have an amazing bond store of stock, but this project was thought through from the get-go with the brief of what a Middle-earth whisky should represent and include.

How do you actually put Middle-earth in the glass?

The answer is sweet and strong, in literal and figurative layers. Matt went back to what tourists flock to New Zealand — Middle-earth — for, and some of the key flavours people associate with it.

[Note: small tighten on the setup sentence, meaning unchanged.]

Matt: This is going to sound a bit poetic now, but this is the way we did it. Lord of the Rings is all about strength — the strength of the Fellowship. So it had to be a whisky which is robust and strong. Okay, I’m going to add an element of virgin cask in there — that’s where the virgin cask came from.

In cask maturation, virgin oak refers to casks that are previously unused. When new make spirit meets virgin oak, the interactions are intense, pulling bold flavours quickly. Typically in American oak this means oodles of vanilla, caramel, coconut, some baking spice and nuttiness, depending on levels of toast or char. Often use of virgin oak can also give a textural element from barrel spice and freshness. — Tash

Matt: And you’ve got a whole mixture of personalities in the Fellowship, the nine companions. So we wanted to give the whisky different personalities. And especially, I wanted to give it a real touch of Middle-earth. What is the biggest thing associated with New Zealand for people around the world? Mānuka honey. So I had it in the back of my mind for a while: I need to play around with something with mānuka honey. Which becomes challenging, because you obviously cannot flavour your whisky with mānuka honey.

We actually found a local honey company who wanted to do barrel-aged mānuka honey. So we lent them barrels to age their mānuka honey in for six months. Then they drained the barrels — which is actually quite complicated, because when you’re draining mānuka honey out of a barrel, you have to heat the barrel to get the honey liquid enough to tip out.

Tash: Otherwise it’s very sticky.

Matt: Otherwise it’s very, very sticky. And we rinsed the barrels with hot water, because we didn’t want honey residue in the barrel — we really wanted the wood to influence it. We also seasoned some mānuka honey casks ourselves, by buying some very expensive mānuka honey, mixing it with new-make spirit, and rolling it around in barrels for six months. Then we put whisky in there to finish for a year — stock which is four and a half, five years old, to see how it came out. And it’s pretty incredible how much impact that honey has on the product. Anything more than about five or six percent in the blend is too much. So there’s only a small percentage in there, but on the finish especially, you really get those mānuka honey notes.

The final cask bill: mānuka honey casks and full-maturation muscat, both firsts for the distillery, alongside virgin oak and first-fill bourbon. The blend took six days and fifty or so attempts to balance.

Matt: We started off with fifteen different cask types when we did this product, and some of them just didn’t work together. Some stuff I thought was going to work didn’t. I was convinced an amontillado cask was going to work with mānuka honey. Didn’t at all.

Does it stand up in the glass — and does it taste like Middle-earth while still being Pōkeno?

[Note: small merge — you had this as two questions (”does it stand up” / “does it taste like Middle-earth while still being Pōkeno”), reading them as one keeps the section headers consistent in length and rhythm with the others. Split back out if you want the double-barrelled version.]

I tasted it on camera with Matt, first pour, no preview. You can read the tasting notes all day, but then you go: okay, let’s see how we go.

Matt: On the nose, you’re always going to have a bit of our — Pōkeno’s signature — citrus and tropical fruits, and you’ve got almost a bit of a herbal thing going on from the honey. Then you’re going into a robust middle palate from the virgin casks, where you’re getting the creamy vanilla bean, the stuff you’re expecting. And then it just seems to launch into this almost hot-toddy-like mānuka honey citrus ending, which I find really interesting.

Tash: Immediately in the mid-palate, it gets into that really chewy sweetness. Citrus, there’s grain happening, but there’s also some really condensed, quite intense fruit character. And then it starts to pull through that hot toddy quality — when it’s viscous with honey and whisky and lemon juice.

Matt: The crazy thing is it’s almost textural. Which is strange, because this product has been filtered through our systems like everything else. There’s no turbidity, nothing any more than our normal products, but you’ve got this real chewy, textural thing going on.

Tash: Every whisky has texture, but I don’t necessarily think about Pōkeno traditionally being texture-led, because it has that lightness, that sweetness, that fruit-forward component — the spirit underneath is a really elegant backbone. But here the texture is coming to play, and in a really exciting way. The virgin oak is definitely adding structure right from that first sip.

A note on the honey, because a common assumption is that the primary notes and impact are sweetness: mānuka is herbal, floral, spicy, almost minty, with the sweetness arriving only at the finish. The muscat cask is doing a lot of sweetening in this whisky — that zesty orange roundness sits right in the middle of the nose and balances the honey out, along with the robustness of that virgin cask.

Matt: We did a tasting at a Liquorland about three weeks ago. Twenty people there in the evening, and I pulled a bottle of the Lord of the Rings out at the end and said, “Guess what you’re going to taste — you’re the first people in the world.” Everybody between about 50 and 70, everybody sipped, and out of 20 people, 16 pre-ordered a bottle. And that wasn’t done on the basis of Lord of the Rings, because they couldn’t care about Lord of the Rings. It was done on the taste profile. That for me was important.

Where does this take New Zealand whisky next?

For me, the mānuka honey seasoned cask reads like a maturing of our technical sensibilities around mānuka as an ingredient — smoke, honey, the lot. It’s almost the next step on from a mead cask: getting really focused in on the ingredient itself. When I put that to Johns, he went one further.

Matt: Imagine a mānuka honey seasoned cask with a mānuka-smoked malt in it. Watch this space. That could be even better.

Tash: Those are words I almost never thought I’d hear you say, Matt Johns.

Matt: I know, but it’s fun. For me the product is fun. We’ve managed to keep this at a price point which is really good for the level of product it is, and the collector’s item it will become. So again: the idea is get out there, drink it, enjoy it. Don’t just put it on the shelf. Be a shame not to taste the whisky.

Watch the whole interview here, including first tastes:

Mānuka can be decisive in whisky, particularly in mānuka smoked malt, which creates a radically unique flavour profile that is both herbal, floral, sweet and smoky. But while New Zealanders think nothing of a mānuka smoked bacon butty or drizzles of honey, thinking comprehensively about how else we might treat the base ingredient with respect while pursuing new techniques and influence has required ongoing evolution for NZ whisky makers.

While mānuka honey doesn’t carry the same spice as rye grain, there are similarities in the menthol, bush mint and gentle floral profiles. And New Zealanders are really embracing rye whisky right now, which opens yet more possibilities.

So where are we left on the big question — does a licensing deal like this challenge your integrity as a whisky maker? Only if the liquid doesn’t match both brand promises and here, I think it’s clear it delivers clarification, that Middle-earth, specifically Pōkeno, is making great whisky, true to their values. And they are taking it to the world stage at volume. The personality, boldness and depth of complexity is there with genuine roots in LOTR mythos and lore. The core of New Zealand whisky making is there — and from there...

”The greatest adventure is what lies ahead."*

*This isn’t a Tolkien quote. It’s actually from “The Greatest Adventure” (The Ballad of the Hobbit), a song written by Maury Laws and Jules Bass for the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit film. It gets attributed to Tolkien constantly online (Goodreads, AZQuotes, all the usual quote-mill suspects), but it’s not his text. Still holds true though.

The Lord of the Rings™ Ringbearer Single Malt Whisky — $229. In New Zealand now, direct from Pōkeno online and through selected Liquorland stores, plus duty free at Auckland Airport. Australia via The Whisky Club, with the US and other markets to follow.

From Tash: AI was only used to transcribe this interview and spell-check this article. For less AI and only my spelling capability, please consider upgrading your subscription — I’m only 14 subscriptions away from my next goal.

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The Job That Trained My Palate

I’ve spent years tasting wine.It comes with the territory. I worked in wine with my whānau at Astrolabe Wines in Marlborough as their national sales manager, before starting Wag & Co in 2018, and tasting has been a pretty constant part of my working life ever since.

When you’re trying to sell a wine, train a restaurant team or explain to someone why one Pinot Noir is worth $55 and another is $25, “it’s delicious” doesn’t really cut it. You need to understand what makes a wine unique and more importantly, communicate that point of difference without disappearing too far down the wine-bullshit rabbit hole.

Thousands of glasses, countless tasting notes and enough vineyard visits later, I’ve learnt that tasting isn’t really about whether you like something. It’s about observation. Structure. Balance. Learning to separate what your pre-conceived ideas and expectations are from what you’re actually experiencing. That’s the crucial shift from subjectivity to objectivity.

My wine tasting brain had become pretty well trained. I’d work through aroma first, then fruit, acidity, tannin, texture, length and finish. There was a familiar framework to it. Taste a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and I knew roughly where to start looking. Taste a Pinot Noir and I’m thinking about red and dark fruit, tannin, acidity, oak, savoury characters and how all of those things sit together.

Then I started bringing more premium New Zealand spirits into the Wag & Co portfolio and suddenly needed to be able to talk and write about those with the same confidence.

I thought those skills would transfer seamlessly. Newsflash: they didn’t.

Getting Past the Heat

The first thing I had to learn was to stop focusing on the alcohol.

It sounds ridiculously obvious now, but when you go from regularly tasting wines at 12-14% ABV to putting your nose into a glass of gin, rum or whisky at 40% and above, your first reaction can simply be: alcohol.

With wine, alcohol is usually one component among many. In spirits, the heat dominates if that’s all you’re looking at. It took time to realise that alcohol isn’t the flavour. It’s carrying everything else — aromatic compounds, esters, botanical oils and congeners that can give you everything from fruit and florals through to spice, earth, smoke and savoury characters.

I had to almost consciously tell myself: get past the heat. What’s actually in there?

Once I did, an entirely different world opened up.

Texture, Reconsidered

Texture obviously exists in wine — tannin, acidity, alcohol, lees influence and residual sugar can all completely change how a wine feels on the palate — but in spirits, it seemed amplified. A spirit can feel incredibly light and clean, or viscous, oily and mouth-coating. Some have this almost creamy weight through the middle of the palate before finishing completely dry.

Vodka was probably one of the best examples of challenging my assumptions. I’d always thought of vodka as being intentionally neutral, and therefore not particularly interesting to taste. Working with ChiChi Vodka, made by Mikey Ball at Woodward Street Distilling, changed that. It’s made from wheat, coconut and koji, and there’s a creamy, almost cereal-like texture to it that made me realise texture can actually be one of the defining characteristics of a spirit, even when the flavour profile itself is deliberately restrained.

Then there were the aromas.

Instead of primarily fruit-driven profiles — berries, citrus, stone fruit, passionfruit — or more savoury-driven profiles with smoke, earth and mushrooms, I found myself looking much further afield for descriptors snd language: citrus peel, fresh herbs, resin, native botanicals, spice, florals, earthiness and subtle savoury notes. Every spirit seemed to tell a different story depending on what it was made from, how it was distilled, what botanicals were used and, where relevant, how it had been matured.

Relearning Flavour, Spirit By Spirit

Gin taught me that juniper is only the beginning of a complex story.

I’ve spent a lot of time tasting New Zealand gin now and that’s probably where the botanical side of spirits really clicked for me. Juniper might provide the essential resinous framework, but what’s happening around it can completely change the experience — citrus can lift it, roots can add earthiness and dryness, florals can add perfume and native botanicals introduce entirely new directions. Even how much of something you use matters. More botanicals doesn’t necessarily mean more flavour or complexity. Sometimes restraint is what gives everything else room to show itself, because too much of one ingredient overpowers the others.

Whisky (and bourbon) taught me that oak contributes far more than vanilla and caramel. Nowhere Bourbon, imported and finished by South Street Imports, has been a super interesting example for me. It spends more than five years in heavily charred new American oak barrels, before being shipped to New Zealand and being finished in Decibel Pinot Noir barrels. Coming from a wine background, that immediately caught my attention and made sense to me — but tasting how it actually changed the bourbon was completely unexpected.

The American oak brings those familiar dark sweeter notes, caramel, spice and charred character, while the Pinot Noir barrels add another lifted layer of red fruit, subtle brambly savouriness and texture. It challenged me to start thinking about oak less as a flavour and more as an ingredient — something that can fundamentally change the shape and character of the spirit.

Applying the same tasting protocol to rum showed me that sweetness isn’t always sugar. Something can smell incredibly sweet — molasses, caramel, tropical fruit, vanilla — while actually finishing relatively dry. Separating the perception of sweetness from actual sweetness was another adjustment for a palate so used to residual sugar in wine.

Learning to Slow Down

The biggest lesson, though, has been learning to slow down.

A spirit doesn’t reveal everything in the first sniff or sip. In fact, attacking a glass the way I might attack a wine is a pretty good way to smell nothing but ethanol.

I’ve learnt to give it some space. Nose from a little further away. Go back to it. Take a small sip. Let the initial alcohol settle. Add a few drops of water where appropriate and see what changes. Revisit the glass five or ten minutes later.

Sometimes something that initially seemed incredibly spirituous suddenly gives you citrus, spice or florals that you couldn’t find at all when it was first poured.

Writing About How A Spirit Tastes

Writing tasting notes has changed too.

With wine, I was used to leaning on familiar descriptors and following a fairly established order.

(From the Editor: A typical savvy blanc wine note would run: pale straw, water-white rim, high intensity, youthful. Nose — passionfruit, gooseberry, cut grass, a flick of capsicum, no oak influence. Palate — dry, high acidity, medium-minus body, flavours mirroring the nose, medium length, clean finish. Then the summary judgement: good quality, drink now, ready for the export market or the wine list at the door.)

Spirits have forced me to expand my vocabulary and, probably more importantly, trust my own senses.

Now I’ll generally start by trying to ignore what I know about the product/brand. I’ll nose it, think about the first aromatic impression, then start pulling it apart. What’s bright? What’s earthy? Is there spice? Fruit? Florals? What happens when I taste it? How does it feel? Where does the alcohol sit? What stays behind after I’ve swallowed it?

Sandymount’s Tī Kōuka Forest Gin, made by Richard Wilson at Sandymount Distillery, is a good example. Rather than simply writing “juniper-forward gin,” I can start thinking about what the other botanicals are bringing to the spirit. In this case, the use of six native botanicals. Learning about what these do and how they change the aroma and flavour profile. Is there freshness? Earthiness? Something resinous? How does the texture change the way those flavours present themselves? And what is still there 20 seconds after I’ve swallowed it?

That’s become far more interesting to me than trying to produce a shopping list of flavours.

There’s also no single correct answer. If you genuinely smell green cardamom, fresh lemon myrtle or toasted almond, that’s worth exploring rather than second guessing yourself. Someone else might find something completely different, and that’s fine.

Still Learning

Perhaps that’s what’s made the journey so enjoyable.

Learning to taste spirits hasn’t replaced what I know about wine. It’s added another layer. It’s also reminded me that tasting is a skill that never stops developing, no matter how much experience you think you have.

For anyone wanting to get better at it, I’d start by tasting things alongside each other. Two gins. Two whiskies. Two rums. Don’t worry about whether you can name every aroma. Ask simpler questions first. Which is heavier? Which smells brighter? Which feels sweeter? Which has more spice? Where do you feel the alcohol? What flavour is still there 30 seconds later?

Then go back and try to work out why.

One of the things I’m still learning is how much balance can come from what isn’t there. Particularly with gin, I’ve started noticing that throwing another botanical into the mix doesn’t necessarily make something more interesting. Sometimes the clever bit is knowing when to stop.

Wine taught me to look for complexity.

Spirits are teaching me that complexity and intensity aren’t the same thing.

Sam Waghorn-Wright
sam@wagandco.nz

Editor’s Note:
Guest posts and submissions are always welcome here at More Good Drinks. Whether it’s a personal experience, an opinion of the day or a story worth sharing, from time to time (when I think people will appreciate a fresh perspective or opportunity), I’m happy to open the writers panel. Feel free to send me a message with your contribution, story idea or who you’d love to hear from. - Tash

When two Americans wandered into the Pōkeno distillery on their way back from Hobbiton and asked whether Matt Johns wanted to bottle a whisky in Middle-earth, he assumed they weren’t serious. But they absolutely were: a US creative agency holding the world’s only spirits licence for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films — a licence so tightly held that even Hobbiton can’t sell you a bottle of spirits.

Eighteen months later, Ringbearer is the official Lord of the Rings 25th Anniversary Edition, and this episode is the story of how it came together and what you’ll taste if you purchase a bottle. Matt walks through the means test he ran the deal through (”we’re not a marketing company”), why Pōkeno insisted on controlling commercialisation, route to market and price, and how the whisky itself carries Middle-earth: mānuka honey casks (barrels lent to a local honey company for barrel-aged mānuka honey, and casks seasoned in-house with honey and new-make spirit) alongside full-maturation muscat, virgin oak and first-fill bourbon. Fifty blending attempts over six days.

Tash opens the first pour on camera — no preview — and finds a chewy, textural whisky that extends from Pōkeno’s fruit-forward house style, finishing like a hot toddy. Plus: elevenses at the distillery, and a tease about mānuka-smoked malt that suggests this is only the beginning.

Ringbearer launched today at $229 — priced to be opened, not just collected.

Topic breakdown

• 00:01 — Introduction: the 25th anniversary Lord of the Rings edition, Ringbearer

• 00:34 — How it started: a distillery visit on the way back from Hobbiton

• 01:53 — “We’re not a marketing company”: the resistance, and the hobbit costume he won’t wear

• 02:30 — The licence nobody else has: Warner Brothers, a Swedish rights holder, and why Hobbiton can’t sell spirits

• 03:21 — The means test: creative, innovative, true to culture and climate — and no $800 collector’s bottle

• 04:19 — Keeping control: commercialisation, route to market and pricing stay in-house

• 04:47 — Discovering the fandom: Gandalf’s pipe, Sting, and 650,000 Hobbiton visitors a year

• 05:45 — Designing the whisky: strength of the Fellowship, virgin oak, nine personalities

• 07:02 — The mānuka honey idea: New Zealand’s most famous ingredient, and why you can’t just flavour whisky

• 07:37 — Building the casks: barrel-aged honey with a local honey company, heating barrels to drain them, seasoning casks in-house

• 08:31 — Small percentage, big impact: why more than 5–6% honey cask overwhelms the blend

• 08:54 — Unboxing: the leather-textured box and the map of Middle-earth

• 09:59 — The cask bill: mānuka honey, full-maturation muscat, first-fill bourbon — and why mānuka honey isn’t actually sweet

• 10:58 — Six days, fifty blending attempts

• 11:16 — Tasting: citrus and tropical fruit, herbal honey notes, robust virgin oak mid-palate, hot toddy finish

• 12:19 — The texture mystery: chewy and viscous despite standard filtration

• 13:34 — The Liquorland test: 16 of 20 pre-orders from people who couldn’t care less about Lord of the Rings

• 14:21 — Mānuka maturing as an ingredient: the next step on from a mead cask

• 15:06 — Watch this space: mānuka honey casks meet mānuka-smoked malt

• 16:37 — What didn’t work: fifteen cask types on the bench and the amontillado that failed

• 17:25 — Where to find it: NZ online and selected Liquorlands from 7 August, Australia via The Whisky Club, US to follow, Auckland Airport duty free

• 18:11 — Elevenses at the distillery, 8 August — Matt’s been reading the books

Episode details

• Guest: Matt Johns, Pōkeno Whisky Co

• Release: Ringbearer, Lord of the Rings 25th Anniversary Edition — $229,

• Availability: Pōkeno Whisky online, selected Liquorlands, Auckland Airport duty free; Australia via The Whisky Club (ballot);

A few moments worth your listening time.

The first whisky distilling licenses were issued in Australia, long before Scotland. Why that industry was shut down in 1838, and why it stayed shut for 153 years, is a story about export sales as much as temperance. I’ll let him tell it.

The barrel is a filter, not the author of a whisky’s fate. Robbie’s response to the old “the barrel gives it 80% of the flavour” line: if that’s true, you’re not drinking whisky, pal. The spirit does the talking; the barrel strips what’s not needed and gives what is. Whether you agree or not, it explains why Derwent’s signature is mouthfeel rather than any single flavour, and why the Botrytis Cask remains my baseline for the style.

We talk about the case for Australia and New Zealand claiming their own category on the world stage instead of being filed under “new world whisky,” and the forthcoming risk… Scotch unity was forged by crisis, and Australasia’s opportunity is to build it without one. But can we?

Pour something Tasmanian and press play. This is one for the whiskylovers and the curious.

From there, the conversation moves through Robbie’s apprenticeship at Lark, the grain-to-glass years at Redlands (later Old Kempton), and the batch of botrytis casks nobody else wanted that became his signature release — the one Tash brought home from her last Tasmania trip and now uses as her benchmark for the style. They get properly into the science of it too: why a wine barrel behaves nothing like a spirit barrel, what “the Jerry” (the fog rolling off the mountain behind Derwent’s bond store) is actually doing to alcohol content day to day, and why Robbie thinks the 80/20 barrel-versus-spirit flavour argument has always been the wrong argument.

There’s a proper detour into the history most drinkers don’t know: Tasmania and the mainland states issued the first commercial distilling licences in the English-speaking world under the 1823 Excise Act — years ahead of most of what’s now considered “heritage” Scotch — before Westminster shut the whole industry down in 1838 to protect export sales back home. Robbie picks up that thread as a founding-brand story for Derwent Distillery, named for the second licence ever granted in Tasmania.

Robbie is one of the third-wave of Tasmanian whiskymakers now. Someone who apprenticed and has worked in some of Tassie’s most well regarded brands and is now elevating the category, building on top of everything he’s learned along the way. Robbie’s take on second and third-fill barrels, sustainability certification, and why he thinks Australia and New Zealand deserve their own category on the world stage rounds it out.

Be sure to come back for Pt.2, as we go further into an industry that’s finding it’s legs and building on history.

In this episode:

• How a Burns Night haggis and a walk-up meeting with Bill Lark changed the course of Robbie’s life

• Grain-to-glass distilling at Redlands/Old Kempton, and what “Team Red” learned the hard way

• The Botrytis Cask release: why nobody was using botrytis barrels for whisky, and what nearly went wrong

• Texture and mouthfeel as the real signature of a spirit, not tasting-note flavour lists

• “The Jerry”: how daily fog cycles at Derwent’s site are doing the maturation work usually credited to “terroir”

• Tasmania’s forgotten first: the 1823 Excise Act, the world’s earliest commercial distilling licences, and the 1838 shutdown

• Robbie’s case for Australia and New Zealand as their own recognised whisky region

• 100% recycled glass, rainwater, solar power, and winning Australia’s Clean Conscience sustainability award two years running

Main Topics:

• The journey of Hawthorn Lounge from inception to 20-year milestone

• The art of creating a consistent customer experience and staff culture

• Challenges of pricing, licensing, and industry economics over two decades

• The significance of authenticity, storytelling, and community in hospitality

• Adapting to industry shifts and maintaining longevity in a competitive market

In this episode:

• Justin recounts how the bar was originally intended as a two-year project, which turned into a 20-year journey

• The influence of family, nostalgia, and storytelling on Hawthorn’s unique brand

• How Hawthorn maintains its essence through staff engagement and careful control

• The impact of industry trends, licensing laws, and economic pressures

• Practical advice for small operators on long-term sustainability

• Justin’s reflections on the importance of responsible service, pricing models, and community engagement

Timestamps:
00:00 - Celebrating Hawthorn’s 20-year journey
02:13 - The original concept and early ambitions
04:07 - The importance of atmosphere and storytelling
05:47 - Consistency in design and staff approach
07:28 - How staff are selected and cultivated
09:25 - Responsible service measures and customer care
11:00 - The qualities of successful Hawthorn staff
15:01 - Industry challenges over recent decades
16:10 - Adjusting to economic shifts and costs
20:24 - Industry history: Wellington’s iconic venues
23:10 - Industry regulation and licensing issues
26:49 - Costs, waste culture, and sustainability
30:57 - Menu innovation, iconic drinks, and cocktail evolution
37:13 - Pricing strategies and economic sustainability
44:13 - Industry trends, gentrification, and community role
50:55 - The future of hospitality and staying authentic
55:14 - Origins of signature spirits and collaborations
58:48 - Nostalgia, storytelling, and creating memorable environments
66:39 - The importance of authenticity in customer experience
70:32 - Community involvement and industry advocacy
74:16 - The essence of Hawthorn’s culture and tradition
77:48 - The joy of crafting perfect drinks and staff enthusiasm
78:07 - Closing thoughts and toast to continued success

But if you actually want to understand what makes a Toastie Takeover entry work, don’t start with the sandwich. Start with the drinks match - exactly what will balance all that cheese and acidity?

Shining Peak Brewing usually enters the competition always as a brewery first: toastie on one side of the pairing, beer suggestion on the other. This year they’ve gone one further, building a full drink to match rather than just a suggestion, and the drink might be the more interesting creation of the two.

A brewery that thinks in matches, not menus

Shining Peak’s whole operation celebrates pairing. Every beer comes with a suggested food match as standard, which head brewer and co-founder Jesse Sigurdsson says has been core to the place since it opened. It’s partly practical — a genuinely enormous range of beer styles and flavours gives you far more to play with than the traditional wine list — and partly a deliberate play for people who wouldn’t otherwise order a beer. “It’s trying to capture people from all walks of life,” Sigurdsson told me on More Good Drinks this week, not just the beer-drinking crowd that would find the brewery anyway.

The toastie itself leans hard into that pairing instinct rather than sitting on the sidelines of it. It’s built on pickle-studded bread, layered with smoked beef and smoked cheddar, caramelised sweet onion and pickle relish, finished with pickle aioli and served alongside a beef consommé for dipping — a nod to the traditional beef dip. Sigurdsson tried for the first time in Vancouver last year and has become a fan of the richness and depth of flavour it delivers.

Why there’s a margarita involved at all

The brief to the bar team was simple: everyone online is mixing pickle juice into Coke and Pepsi, there’s clearly an appetite for pickle-forward drinking right now, so what happens if we take that seriously? Restaurant and bar manager Luke landed on a margarita almost immediately (sorry cola & pickle, this is not your time to shine) — tequila, triple sec, lemon juice, McClure’s sweet and spicy pickle juice, rimmed with pickle and chilli salt — reasoning that a margarita’s citrus-forward brightness was already halfway to pickle territory.

It’s a good instinct. Pickle brine and a well-made margarita are chasing the same thing: a clean, high-acid hit that resets your palate rather than filling it up. Put it next to a toastie that’s rich with smoked beef, caramelised onion and a consommé dip, and the drink is playing a key role in delicious balance and leaving you begging for more, instead of bloated and full.

Sigurdsson’s own explanation of what makes a beer work with food doubles as a pretty precise account of why this pairing succeeds: it comes down to balance, and to matching texture as much as flavour. A rich, fatty dish wants something with genuine acid cut, he says, in the same way a bitter IPA can work brilliantly against pork belly. The margarita’s job here isn’t to complement the toastie quietly. It’s to argue with it a little, in exactly the way a good pairing should.

There’s experience and passion behind the philosophy and execution. Sigurdsson has been brewing for close on fifteen years, starting out scrubbing floors and cleaning kegs at Whitecliffs Brewery north of New Plymouth in exchange for the chance to learn. Fifteen years later, his conversation keeps coming back to drinkability and inviting people into a great beer experience the same way chefs develop tasting menus. It also fits a brewery that’s built its identity on very local, very specific storytelling — beers named for Taranaki eccentrics like the Citroën-obsessed Mad Max, another local hero now celebrated.

How to get amongst it

Toastie Takeover runs 24 June to 5 August, with finalists announced on 5 August and the Supreme Winner revealed on 20 August. Every entry has to sit between two slices of bread, include cheese (or a vegan alternative), be eatable by hand, and feature McClure’s Pickles — the Detroit-founded, now globally stocked pickle brand behind the whole competition, distributed here by Cook & Nelson. Judging runs on presentation, preparation, eatability, taste, provenance and innovation, with a People’s Choice vote running alongside the judges’ picks, so turning up and ordering the thing genuinely counts for something.

If you’re anywhere near New Plymouth — or Christchurch, once Shining Peak’s new site is open — this is the entry worth ordering as a pair rather than picking apart. Get the toastie. Get the margarita next to it. Notice how much work the drink is quietly doing. Then go find the venue near you doing the same thing badly, so you know the difference when you taste it.

Full entrant list and voting at toastietakeover.com.

Ryan Oliver is warm, gentle, and often finds himself a watcher before he’s a participant. This episode goes behind that reserve: an OE that started with forensics and ended in a London events agency, four formative years at Deadshot under Ali and Heather, a stint running Caretaker that taught him as much about people as it did about cocktails, and where he’s landed now — Panacea’s batch-built, whisky-forward bar, where the focus is the welcome. Along the way: an annual pilgrimage back to a European fencing club, a hostel night in Vienna that turned into an impromptu spirits tasting, a Prague bartender baffled by the very idea of batching, and the vintage Manhattan that’s about to disappear from the menu because the vermouth ran out decades ago.

In this episode

• On learning bartending from Ali and Heather at Deadshot: the technical skill turned out to be secondary to learning how to get a guest to tell you what they actually want when they say “I don’t know.”

• On the difference between fresh service and batch service: it’s not a downgrade in craft, it’s a different lens — creativity moved from the guest’s hand guiding you in the moment to designing for a much wider frame beforehand.

• On travel: an annual fencing reunion in Europe going back to his OE years anchors a month of travel every year, built around visiting old teammates from Belgium, Spain, Italy and the US.

• On hospitality across cultures: the standout memory is a Hungarian father, house-sitting for his daughter’s hostel in Vienna, sharing four bottles of his own homemade spirit with a handful of strangers at midnight.

• On regulation: a Prague bartender’s disbelief that Panacea can batch and store cocktails at all — in the Czech Republic, mixing has to happen in view of a camera in the walk-in.

I interviewed Becs from Good Sh*t Soda on the podcast last week and it’s really had me thinking. Listen here to the Interview.

Remember when the idea of a functional drink was simple? It meant mainlining coffee or energy drinks until you got the jitters, perhaps a cup of sleepy tea and occasionally dropping a fizz-bomb Berocca or electrolytes into a glass of tap water. As we hit the 2000s, vitamin loaded water and smoothies loaded with extra green or ginger shots started to multiply in the drinks fridge. But now? Squeezing as much function as possible into everything that passes your lips is the food trend of the moment. Whether it’s the rise of GLP-1s and an incessant need for protein, or a symptom of the starving rich - we’re making every morsel of food over-deliver in nutrition. In the irony of the wellness age, UPFs (ultra-processed foods) are in high growth mode as we continually reach past the whole foods on our plate for a beverage that is loaded with added benefits.

You can’t ignore the GLP-1 effect

If you are a woman aged 30 - 55 years, according to those I know, we’re being targeted with GLP-1 ads, supplemental beverages and a variety of protein shakes, smoothies and everything-in-one-pouch ads every twice for every three minutes we spend on social media. Sure, it’s an anecdote but I woke up the other morning actually wondering, ‘is the Algorithm trying to sell to me or is it actually trying to heal me? Maybe I do need that (insert supplement here).”

If you’ve seen those ads, then you already know the wellness (cough, weightloss) world is all about protein and nutrientmaxxing, minimal calories and maximum input. GLP-1s tell your brain you’re full before you’ve actually eaten much. Appetite drops, portions shrink, and so does nutritional intake. Overseas, restaurants are running ‘smaller appetite’ or bariatric menus for patients, bars are shrinking drinks because of reduced alcohol tolerance. And one look at the beverage aisle tells you that if you’re eating less, everything you do eat or drink has to work harder.

In the US, GLP-1 usage climbed from 2% to 18% of the population from 2019 to 2026. It’s still climbing, and it’s about to get a lot bigger once oral GLP-1s and softer pricing bring the entry point down from eye-watering to merely expensive. To give you a reference point, in Australia and New Zealand, we are sitting right at 2% of the population and growing each month. So buckle up, because the drinks list is about to get to work.

Form and function

I cracked open a can of Good Sh*t Soda with co-founder Becs Caughey and the orchard-fresh apple aroma hits you upfront. It’s their newest flavour and it’s right on the money. Good Sh*t Soda has always obsessed over perfecting the nose as well as the palate, because the nose is what draws you in, regardless of whether you’re drinking it for your health.

For a long time, health drinks and fizzy were two different things. The treat lived in one fridge, the virtue lived in another, and you picked your fridge depending on the kind of day you were having. Soda, proper soda, belonged firmly to the treat fridge, a small bit of fun in a can. Nobody opened a Coke expecting it to do anything for their gut.

Now, you can open a can of Good Sh*t Soda Cola and feel just as refreshed, with the added benefit of knowing you’ve just put a ton of fibre into your gut. Which is important, if you’re needing more than just fun and flavour from your beverage choice.

Appetite-suppressing weight loss drugs are rewiring how a meaningful chunk of people experience hunger and think about constructing their daily macros. It’s not just personal, but the concept of appetite and nutrition is changing shape in public, in real time, in a way that will inevitably bleed into how large parts of the population eat and drink, based purely on how the food and beverage industry will change to absorb and meet this new version of a consumer. And that consumer wants their drinks to be more efficient at being good for us, in the same breath as wanting them to be more delicious than ever. Not instead of fun. As well as fun.

There’s another false wellness-morality creeping in too, I think. Particularly those of us sitting in the right demographic for the algorithm. We’ve stopped being satisfied with a drink that’s simply not bad for us and we’re increasingly programmed that everything needs to be doing something extra. Not just makeup, but skincare! Not just water, but added protein! It’s one more step in the 5am Club protocol or the 10-step Korean skin care routine.

Wellness used to mean restraint. Now it means more and more and more. More actives, more vitamins, more nutrients and powders. More performance, even in a can of fizzy. You’re choosing the version that’s supposed to be working on your behalf while you’re not looking, fixing something, building something, fending something off. That’s a lot to ask of 330ml of bubbles, and yet here we all are, asking it, and meaning it.

We’re Fizzy for Fizzy.

We’ve always had a soft spot for good soda that borders on the sentimental, the kind of loyalty that turns Foxton Fizz and Karma Cola into genuine institutions. Watching that same fizzy obsession quietly absorb a wellness brief, rather than get replaced by one, makes sense here. Especially when it suits our trademark cheeky humour with a ‘poop-on-the-can’ logo. But this isn’t about supplements dressed up in a soda can. I’m not sure anyone really wants to drink a supplement.The whole point of Good Sh*t, is that the fun and the function have to arrive in the same sip or it simply doesn’t hit the mark of what we want. You can have all the fibre and probiotics in the world sitting in that can and it will not matter one bit if the second sip isn’t just as fun and delicious as the first.

I’ve been saying this in booze for the last 18 months. The world is a pretty bonkers and occasionally dark place these days. And when people walk down the beverage aisle, the scan data tells us they are looking for fun, looking for fizzy and looking for approachable flavour. If it comes with a side of ‘oh, I can feel less bad about things’, that’s a real bonus. Most of the beverage aisle is having a hard run. Beer’s been soft for years now, RTDs are slowly correcting (which no-one is talking about), wine’s fighting for attention to grasp a new generation of drinkers. And then there’s this pocket of fun and functional drinks, that just keeps growing, here and overseas, while everything around it goes flat or backwards.

So no, this column isn’t really about appetite drugs, or gut bacteria, or any of the science-y stuff (although Good Sh*t are very careful to be transparent about the nutritional content only and to let you and your bathroom tell the impact story) sitting on the can.

For most of fizzy drink history, the job of a soda was singular: be a treat, taste good, full stop. Good Sh*t’s whole proposition rests on something Becs puts plainly: wellness doesn’t need to be beige. It doesn’t have to come in a powder. The question of why Fizzy-and-functional is the one growing pocket in this market begins to answer itself. It’s the fun part.

Fun-ctional.

Not all functional beverages are created equal. And if we’re honest, really, the idea of drinking our way to health is largely because it’s perceivably the easier option. Need your greens? Don’t eat them, that would take forever. Just put’em in a smoothie and sip them down.

There are plenty of examples of green powder, mood powder, protein powder, vitamin powder and even supplement powders promising to correct your hormones. Lots of them New Zealand owned and operated. Then there are the nootropic beverages (again, we’ll talk about what you can and can’t say on the label another time). But suffice to say, as long as all you put on the label is the nutrition content, you can imply almost anything else in your marketing. Of course, more powder = more processing. But powder seems to be the one UPF that everyone is okay with right now.

I think the closest to fun they get is the promise of a sleepytime hot chocolate. But that’s going to have a hard time competing with my nightcap, sorry. When it comes to competing for buzz, it ain’t cutting it.

Which brings me to the other functional beverages pushing growth offshore and unlikely to be viable opportunity for producers (or consumers) here anytime soon.

In the US and UK, CBD beverages sit on open shelves: hemp-derived, low-dose, parked next to the kombucha. You can’t buy a CBD soda or iced tea at a dairy in Auckland, and you can’t import one for personal use either. That’s a regulatory wall that appears pretty solid, despite substantial growth and research bases overseas. Proof we really are on the conservative side of innovators. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve roadtested a bunch of these and honestly, left me uninspired.

Mushroom and nootropic beverages are a different story and we’re maybe actually behind on. Lion’s mane for focus, reishi for stress, cordyceps for energy: overseas mushrooms are moving out of powder tins into ready-to-drink cans and shots at serious pace. There’s minimal regulatory hurdles and nobody’s built the definitive Australasian version of that category yet, it’s all still sitting on health store shelves or stalls at your local Fieldays or Home & Garden show. Maybe room for innovation? Maybe not. A month of mushie alternative coffee didn’t do much for me. Where’s the fun? Caffeine is fun.

So what

The deeper point here isn’t about a drug class, a social impact or that Good Sh*t is delicious. It’s not about who will be next to add a macro-nutrient to their fizzy (or their mushroom coffee). It’s not even about who will win commercially in the beverage aisle because there are so many functional beverage niches, there’s almost room for everyone. It’s more that hey, who can blame us for wanting a little fun and fizz in our health choices. If it means I don’t have to feel bad about that fizzy fridge cigarette, in fact, maybe I can feel a little bit good about it – then yeah. Tonight, I’m trading the broccoli.

And when I pour a whiskey-and-apple tonight, I will smile sweetly to myself that it came with added fibre.

In this episode:

• The origin story: a stalled shipping container, a tiny American brand and a decision to build something local

• Why the prebiotic fibre matters as much as the probiotic — “it’s like a dog with a bone”

• The science behind an ambient, non-refrigerated probiotic that “wakes up” on your tongue

• Designing a can that’s colour-blocked, uniform, and built to make the ingredient list the hero

• Apple flavour development: nostalgia, orchard-fresh aromatics, and getting the granny smith/braeburn balance right

• GLP-1 drugs, shrinking portion sizes, and what that’s doing to restaurant menus and bar pours overseas

• Why Good Sh*t makes zero claims on pack — and the food lawyer reality behind that decision

• Distribution: where to find it in NZ, and the early export push into Australia and Asia

Key topics

• Mark Teague’s whisky journey and connection to Tasmania

• The real history of distilling in Tasmania

• How Tasmanian whisky has matured and diversified

• Volume, cask strategy, and production changes

• Tasmanian Whisky Week and its signature events

• Community, tourism, and the culture around whisky lovers

Notable moments

• Mark explains how he became involved in Tasmanian whisky through events and tastings

• Tash and Mark unpack the myths around Tasmania’s whisky history

• The discussion turns to how distilleries are now building for scale and distinction

• Mark shares what makes Tasmanian Whisky Week such a unique destination event

• The episode closes with excitement around upcoming festivals, previews, and awards

Why listen

If you’re interested in whisky, Tasmanian food and drink culture, or how a regional industry builds identity over time, this episode offers a thoughtful and well-informed look at the people and ideas shaping the scene.

Mentioned in this episode

• Tasmanian Whisky Week

• Bill Lark

• Casey Overeem

• Sullivan’s Cove

• Belgrove

• Old Kempton

• Greenbanks

• Hunter Island

• Derwent Distillery

• Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania

Devan’s path runs through Matterhorn and Hawthorne Lounge to name just a couple and a slice of iconic Wellington bartending compressed into one conversation. A business degree that didn’t finish. A Negroni he’d never heard of. A pact with a mate that turned into a career pivot.

They get into the ice. Specifically: why ice is the most important ingredient in any bar, what a Hoshizaki cube tilted just off-centre does to the drinking experience, and why Tash has never had a cold nose problem at Dee’s. From there: vermouth blending as house philosophy, the slow conversion of single malt loyalists to American whiskey, and what seasonal produce-led menus actually look like when you don’t have a rotovap.

Also: milk punch, the Remember the Maine, Chattanooga Bottled in Bond, and why the staffy drink is a Michelob Ultra. Maybe a whiskey. Depends on the weekend.

In this episode:

• How Matterhorn and Hawthorne shaped a generation of Wellington bartenders

• Why Dee’s was designed around the bar, not the tables

• Ice as the most considered ingredient in the glass

• The American whiskey conversion programme, and how rye is usually where it starts

• Seasonal menus without the fancy equipment

• On mentorship: teaching fundamentals without the kitchen militia energy

• Outstanding Bartender of the Year, and why it still comes back to service

Adam Chapman of Sunshine & Sons in Australia, joins the More Good Drinks Podcast to dive into his unique approach to rum distillation, safety, and education. With over 30 years in winemaking and a passion for teaching, Adam shares profound insights into spirit craftsmanship, sensory evaluation, and industry challenges.

Why Adam? Well - he has a unique ability to call a spade a spade, and an unerring drive for accuracy and understanding. There’s plenty here to examine by way of inspiration, attention to craft and just a good bloke having a bloody good time and trying to stay alive doing it.

He’s not afraid to call out what craft distillers could be doing better and to share his rich knowledge. So listen in, you’ll benefit.

In this episode:

• The transition from winemaking to rum distillation driven by climate change and a passion for spirits

• How wild fermentation and organic molasses create a full-bodied, muscular rum profile

• The importance of texture, mouthfeel, and structure in spirit evaluation and how Adam measures these aspects

• An overview of his innovative tasting scale from 1 to 5 across various characteristics

• His approach to blending, maturation, and experimenting with fermentation processes to develop signature styles

• The critical role of safety equipment, including pressure relief valves, in small-scale distilling

• Emphasizing industry safety, compliance, and the importance of education in spirits production

• Adam’s perspective on Australian rum’s potential and the influence of terroir

• The value of sensory education, understanding compounds, and how to communicate complexity to consumers

• Insights into his ongoing training contributions and plans to influence the industry positively

• The significance of respecting cultural traditions like Baiou and indigenous ingredients in spirit innovation

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction: Rum innovation and Adam’s background

02:00 - Transition from winemaking to rum distillation

05:15 - Wild fermentation and organic molasses as signature elements

08:30 - Texture, structure, and sensory evaluation in spirits

12:45 - The unique tasting scale and scoring process

16:10 - Maturation styles and blending strategies

20:20 - Safety practices: pressure relief and distillation equipment

24:00 - Industry challenges and safety standards

28:30 - Australian rum: terroir and style evolution

33:20 - Cultural influences: Baiou and indigenous ingredients

39:00 - Education: training, sensory analysis, and industry standards

43:30 - Future trends and innovation in spirits

48:00 - Final thoughts and Adam’s passion for safety and education

In the world of drinks, for the better part of a decade, “made in New Zealand” or “made in Australia” functioned as a shortcut to premium. Provenance was positioning. The story of the place, the founder, the water source, the native botanicals — that was enough to put a $90 - $130 price tag on a bottle and expect it to move. And for a while, it worked, because consumers (we) were curious and the craft story was still novel.

That novelty has worn off.

Consumers haven’t become less interested in provenance — they’ve become more sophisticated about what it provenance actually means. Origin is a qualifier now, not a differentiator. It tells you something about what’s in the bottle; it doesn’t tell you why you should choose this bottle over the twelve others next to it on the shelf, several of which are also local, also handcrafted, also have a lovely founder story on the back label.

So when Meg Raynor, my former colleague in the big, bold world of brand, comms and marketing, gave a brilliant answer to the question of establishing value—I immediately asked if I could share it with you, as consumers and producers.

What Meg articulates here — and why I wanted to share it — is the thing sitting underneath that problem of value, especially in a cost-of-living crisis etc et al. Pricing is perception. Perception is built by everything a brand does, consistently, across every touchpoint, long before someone picks up the bottle. If your price says premium and your brand behaviour says uncertain, inconsistent, or just a bit beige and inauthentic, we feel the dissonance and mismatch even if we can’t name it. We put it back on the shelf.

If you’re looking for the TLDR; read this. Then read it again if you own a brand with a price tag you know you’re defending on the shelf.

Whatever your pricing is, has to be believable. If your pricing is premium, your brand had better be living up to it in every way.

In the drinks category specifically, “every way” means your bartender relationships, your off-premise shelf neighbours. Your social presence. The tone and consistency of your marketing comms. The way your rep shows up, if you have one. Whether you show up at all. The confidence — or lack of it — in how you talk about what you make. Consumers are reading all of it, all the time, and pricing it accordingly in their heads.

So enough from me (for now)… here’s another expert to help you navigate it and think about what you choose buy, why and what it means for your products.

Here’s why pricing is about the vibe

The price vs conversion conundrum.

Meg Raynor

May 17, 2026

This is all about PosITionINg baby ✨

In your question, you’ve said: “for the value something actually is”. The thing is, people don’t pay the price it actually takes to produce or do something. They pay what they think it is worth. In other words, they’re paying for perception, not objection.

And the way to create the perception is through brand positioning.

For the non-marketing inclined, positioning is what you decide you want your brand to be associated with – and everything you do to reinforce that association.

Positioning answers the question of why you choose one product over another, when underneath the branding, they’re probably the same. For example, Apple vs basically any technically comparable product.

Apple has positioned itself as sleek, premium and innovative. Top of the class. Especially for creatives.

They do this through branding, product experience (even the unboxing feels lush), marketing, visuals, tone of voice, education about their benefits/tech (v important), and the in-store experience. All elements work together to make the product feel premium and therefore worth the price.

Not to get confusing, but even their pricing is part of the positioning strategy - by pricing Apple products at a premium, it implies that they’re of high value. They don’t even do sales.

Whereas if they started pricing on the lower end, people would distrust the products. Cheap pricing can actively undermine a premium perception.

This is why two near-identical products can exist side by side with wildly different pricing, and both still sell. They’re targeting their positioning to different audiences, and having the price to suit.

To try to distil this down into one simple piece of advice, if your pricing is premium, your brand had better be living up to it in every way. (sidenote: including customer service, though I know the asker has this nailed, so this advice is for everyone else)

There’s actual research behind this, too. Kantar found that 49% of pricing power comes from positioning. As marketing professor of Mini MBA (p.s would recommend), Mark Ritson puts it, positioning “gives you the ability to charge more as we harvest that demand.”

In short, as soon as people can’t tell the difference between you and the cheaper option, price becomes the deciding factor.

And if the value of your product or service isn’t perceived before the purchase happens, OR your positioning is not aligned with the price you’ve got on it, it’s an issue.

Capiche?

P.S. Some people will never ever ever (ever!) see the value in your offer or product. They are not your audience; it’s not worth trying to convince them. They can choose another brand.

Right, back to me. (Yes, Meg and I do make a good team).

Summary + Practical Applications

Meg’s framework is clean: positioning creates perception, perception justifies price, and price that outstrips perception loses every time to the cheaper option once consumers can tell the difference has disappeared. Kantar’s finding that 49% of pricing power comes from positioning isn’t surprising if you’ve spent any time watching premium craft spirits struggle at retail while a globally recognised but non-premium brand sits comfortably at a lower price point and turns over steadily. Here’s the shock: it’s not just price point that means people are flooding back to mid-priced and mainstream products. It’s decades of consistent positioning and consistent performance. The decision-making becomes effortless.

So what does this look like practically, in the drinks context?

For starters, it’s not just your price that has to be believable, but your brand too. Your brand needs a personality that consumers can actually feel — not just a story, a personality. Whether it’s fun, irreverent, elegant, authoritative, warm, a bit provocative - preferably somehow it draws you into actual engagement. Something consistent enough that a consumer who’s had one interaction with you could predict how you’d behave in another context. The brands that are winning right now — and this is as true in Australasia as anywhere — are the ones that feel like a genuine relationship, not a transaction. Consumers want to be in on something. They want to feel like the brand chose them back.

It also means your price point needs a support structure. Premium pricing without premium execution at every touchpoint isn’t bold, it’s just expensive. And what producers perceive as valuable is often miles apart from what consumers care about. The lush wooden boxes left scattered in the backroom of duty-free are testament to the example. And in a market where consumers are making increasingly careful choices about where their discretionary spend goes, “expensive without a reason” is a fast track to dusty bottle shoulders on the shelf and a conversation with your distributor about margin support.

For brand owners: the diagnostic question isn’t “is our product good enough to justify this price?” It probably is, I hope. The question is whether a consumer who has never tasted it could tell that from every other signal your brand sends. The trouble is, most people don’t understand the cost of a barrel, but if you’re going to ask them to spend hundreds on aged spirit, you need them to believe something in that bottle is worth it. If the answer is uncertain, that’s where the work is.

I want to know — how does your favourite drinks brand make you feel? Is it the confidence of a brand that knows exactly what it is? The elegance of one that never has to try too hard? The sass of one that makes you feel slightly in on the joke? Tell me in the comments — and if you’ve got a brand that you think is genuinely nailing this, name them.

For brand owners: Honest question: does your positioning and brand behaviour match your price point at every touchpoint? Not just the liquid, not just the label. Everything. And if you’re never considered that question before and you want to think it through when positioning is more important than ever? You know where to find me. And I know where to find Meg too.

Dive into a compelling conversation with Mikey Ball, a product development expert at Woodward Street Distillery, as we explore what genuine innovation really means in the drinks industry. Discover how ancient techniques, authenticity, and storytelling shape truly original products, and learn practical insights on navigating the balance between tradition and modernity.

You’ll also hear a sneak preview of what he’s up to at Auckland Cocktail Week.

In this episode:

• The difference between copying techniques and building original flavors

• How ancient traditions inform innovative product development

• The importance of deep foundational knowledge and context

• Recognising superficial “innovation” versus true originality

• The role of storytelling and narrative in product positioning

• Examples of misleading terms such as “ultrasonic distillation”

• Authenticity as a marker of genuine innovation

• Practical approaches for elevating industry standards and consumer experiences

• The parallels between product creation behind the bar and in distilleries

• How to embed culture, technique, and authenticity into branding and packaging

In this episode:

• Evolution of advocacy and community engagement in the spirits industry over the past decade

• The importance of authentic, safe spaces for bartenders and trade and how to foster them

• The significance of education — from upskilling trade to empowering consumers

• Navigating the misconceptions around whiskey and diversity in the industry

• Addressing mental health, safety, and industry shifts towards healthier habits

• How societal changes influence drinking culture and social interactions

• Alice’s travel routines and personal rituals for grounding and recharge

• The future of hospitality: creating meaningful connections and community

This episode highlights the importance of authentic connection, ongoing advocacy, and the delicate balance between professional passion and personal well-being in the vibrant, demanding world of hospitality.

But first the big news: lots of award wins in for NZ distillers like Clarity, Awildian, Roots, Sandymount, Cardrona and Pōkeno… but right at a time when the fragile homegrown distilling industry is in more flux than ever before.

Tune in to celebrate our smash hit Kiwi success stories before the NZ awards season kicks off and learn all about Auckland Cocktail Week, coming up June 22 - 28th.

There’s plenty to be optimistic about for those of us who love celebrating the best of the industry.

Connal Mackenzie has been Sales Director at Ardnamurchan and Adelphi for eight years. He was in the warehouse the fortnight they didn’t see daylight, picking the casks that became the inaugural single malt. He came through Christchurch last week, back to the country his daughter holds a passport in, back to Whisky Galore where he used to work before he went home to Scotland. We sat down at the Howff to talk about adventures in whisky.

Ardnamurchan is four hours from Edinburgh. Four hours from Glasgow, four hours from Inverness. “Ardnamurchan is four hours from Ardnamurchan,” Connal says, because anyone who’s driven the single-track road out to the peninsula understands what exactly what the geography means and costs. But it also gives back in delightful ways. Lorries come and go on roads really better suited for sheep. Power, when it goes, doesn’t come back quickly.

What the geography gives back is the freedom to start the way you intend to continue. Ardnamurchan started distilling in 2014, released their inaugural single malt in 2020 (listen for more shared trauma). We talk about pricing and structures for understanding earning trust with whisky lovers.

Twelve years in, the things they decided early are the things that now look prescient. Solar in the warehouse, hydroelectric off the river, a Swiss biomass boiler that cost 1.2 million pounds and is quietly delivering a cost-per-litre of alcohol that’s, in Connal’s words, “maybe quite sharp” compared to the rest of the field during an oil crisis. He isn’t boasting but you can’t help noting that the ROI on a sustainability decision made for the right reasons in 2013 looks different in 2026. A clipboard person told them last year they could go off-grid if they wanted to. For a site Ardnamurchan’s size, that’s an extraordinary achievement.

The blending team is made up of four or five noses across different backgrounds: a single Master Blender can be a brand asset, a face and a consistency of vision, and that’s a real thing. It’s also a narrow filter on what gets into a bottle. The committee model is less heroic but it produces whisky that passes the compounding demands of groiup assessment, which is what you want when you’re trying to become someone’s third bottle on the shelf after their favourite Islay and their favourite Speyside. That’s Connal’s stated ambition for the brand. The reliable Highland coastal dram that needs replacing when it runs out.

We talk about cask provenance in one of the most interesting cask programmes currently operating. Most distillery sales directors, asked about cask provenance, will give you the line. Connal gave the actual breakdown. Around 75 to 80 per cent of fills are ex-bourbon, mostly from Old Forester, direct relationship. Sherry casks come direct from Jerez, one of the best suppliers plus a small bodega, bought in Spain and not (and this is the aside that earns its keep) imported via France, which apparently is a thing some distilleries now do because the maths works out and the geography evidently doesn’t matter to them. Paul Lanois Champagne casks, fifteen to twenty-five barriques a year, bought direct from the family.

Port, Madeira, Mizunara, Tokaji, Mezcal. They know the cooperages and the people moving the wood, as much as possible. But we’re also in a long, gentle inflection where transparency to that degree isn’t something we talked about as aggressively twenty years ago.

This matters because the new-distillery marketing playbook of the last decade has been to lean very hard on provenance language while quietly running the same broker calls everyone else runs. Ardnamurchan saying “we have direct relationships on the casks where we have direct relationships, and we don’t pretend on the ones where we don’t” is a more useful kind of transparency.

Cask costs, while we’re here. Bourbon barrels peaked at 250 US dollars last year and Connal calls that frightening, rightly. The relief, eight years in, is that Ardnamurchan is now reaping the second-fill, third-fill, sometimes fourth-fill yields off the casks they bought in the early years.

The 2020 balloon, and what it cost the industry to mistake it for growth

If there’s a single argument worth carrying out of the conversation, this is it. Connal and the Adelphi team were in Christchurch for Dramfest in March 2020, then crossed to Australia. Cancelled cricket games, a phone call from the chairman, last flight out via Dubai, house-bound for two and a half months. Standard 2020.

What happened next is what matters. Furlough money, locked-down consumers, bored, cashed-up. Every new release sold out instantly, anything new an instant seller, anything new an instant seller. The entire industry read those numbers as a category in ascent. It wasn’t. It was a balloon.

The reasonable thing, and Connal’s word here is “potentially”, would have been to base next year’s gross-profit forecast on 2019, not on the spike. Plenty of brands didn’t. Plenty built capacity, built inventory, built marketing budgets and crowdfunding rounds against numbers that were never going to repeat. Then Brexit landed for the UK side. Then two wars affected barley pricing and freight. Then UK duty went up twice. Sure, the calculation shifts at different volumes and price points, and global premium-spirit demand isn’t dead. But for a lot of mid-range single malt brands trading on that 2020-21 hockey stick, the curve they’re now trying to explain to a board is the curve of a normal year against an abnormal comparable. That’s a different conversation than a downturn, it’s a correction.

Ardnamurchan kept production flat. Same volume they made three years ago, same volume they made last year. The bet is that there’s a stock lull eight to ten years out and the boring decision to keep distilling through the wobble pays off then. Whether that’s right is unknowable. What’s defensible is that the call was made on what was actually happening in 2020, not on what the spreadsheet wanted to be true.

Price discipline, in a category that’s lost its head about price

Forty-five pounds in 2020. Two and a half UK duty increases later, still under fifty quid. Ninety-nine dollars on the shelf at Whisky Galore. No relabelling, no relaunching, no “now with extra story” repricing.

For a category that has spent five years aggressively premium-positioning everything in sight, including a lot of nine-year-old single cask releases priced like they’re surely crafted from solid gold, Ardnamurchan’s pricing discipline is … disciplined. The proposition is liquid to dollar. The bet is that a drinker who buys the bottle at a reasonable price three times comes back for the cask-strength, comes back for the Tokaji release, comes back for the Mezcal cask when it lands. Loyalty is built on the second purchase, not the first.

Most of the loud premium-launch playbook of the last few years has been built on the opposite assumption. Extract margin on the first bottle because there might not be a second. The honest answer is what Ardnamurchan has done, which is run the core range honestly and let the limited releases (quarterly, 8,500 bottles across 48 markets, gone fast) do the storytelling.

What he’s drinking

Ardnamurchan Cask Strength, when he reaches for his own stuff. The new Tokaji, which has “real funkiness to it” and lands here in the next couple of months. And outside whisky, because anyone who works whisky knows you don’t always pour whisky on a Friday, a Negroni with Old Raj Navy Strength gin from Cadenhead’s at 55.4 per cent, because if you’re making a Negroni you may as well really make one.

Listen to the whole chat for a solid dose of whisky business, banter and Scottish brogue.

There’s a particular pleasure in the slow drink. The one you sip before dinner, or after, or sometimes instead of dinner but with copious amounts of charcuterie. The bottle on the back bar with a label you don’t quite recognise. The vermouth poured neat over a single big cube of ice, with a twist of orange. This is the world of aperitivo and amaro — bitter, herbal, wine-based, spirit-based, sweet, dry, weird, traditional — and it is one of the most genuinely people & place corners of the drinks landscape.

It’s also a world New Zealand has been building, quietly and with real craft, for longer than many people realise. I’ve tasted my way through a lot of what’s being made here over the last few years: winemakers, distillers and brewers approaching this category from their own angles, using native botanicals, local fruit and giving small-batch attention that produces drinks you won’t get anywhere else in the world. I champion the people making these bottles, and I champion the consumers who fall for them — because the more curious we are at the back bar and the bottle shop, the more producers can keep making interesting things.

Which is why I couldn’t wait to invite Jules van Costello to share his own passion and expertise with you. Jules has spent seven years making his own vermouth, and he’s now pulled together the first event in the country dedicated to celebrating the breadth of what’s being produced here. If you’ve ever wondered what a New Zealand vermouth might actually taste like — or if you didn’t know they existed — read on.

— Tash

Aotearoa Vermouth is something to be proud of…

Vermouth, a key ingredient in some of the world’s most iconic cocktails, has been overlooked for too long, with even highly experienced bartenders using the same handful of imported ingredients almost interchangeably. Aperitivo Aotearoa is here to change that… And don’t even get me started on bars storing vermouth unrefrigerated.

As well as a cocktail ingredient, vermouth is a phenomenal drink on its own or simply mixed with soda or tonic. As a low ABV option it thrives and aligns well with industry trends. For example, a 50ml pour of 16% vermouth is about 0.6 standard drinks, considerably less than half the alcohol that is in a 12% 150ml glass of wine or a 5% can of beer.

For context, I have been making vermouth for about seven years and since covid we have seen interest in the product skyrocket. While I’ve done my best as a self-proclaimed vermouth evangelical, most of the time I’m trying to convince people (consumers and professionals) to drink my vermouth, where Aperitivo Aotearoa is more about looking at New Zealand produced examples of these drinks more broadly and showcasing both the quality and diversity of these amazing beverages. As a world class producer of both wine and spirits, there is no reason New Zealand shouldn’t be proud consumers of beverages that combine these components.

That’s why I drove Aperitivo Aotearoa as a project. It was originally conceived around 2023 and it has taken a lot of collaboration and patience to get there, with the first event happening in a couple of weeks in Auckland on the 27th of May at Panacea Bar. Don’t worry, we’re already planning a Wellington event!

Showcasing the quality and diversity of New Zealand Vermouth, Aperitifs (largely wine-based ones) and other similar drinks (we’ll also have Vino Amaro, Sherry-styles and more), it features seven producers of these fantastic beverages (my guess is there are about a dozen producers making these regularly). Most of the producers are either wineries that dabble in vermouth, however there are also distilleries, breweries and even a dedicated vermouth producer taking part.

Like vermouth generally there is also a huge range of styles from relatively traditional expressions which clearly resemble the classic named-brand vermouths of Italy and France to new-world vermouths with vibrant, intense flavour that are often inspired by the creativity and innovation that comes from brewing and distilling. As well as recognisable international styles, many producers are also using native NZ botanicals to make vermouths and aperitifs that are wonderfully terroir-driven and could only ever be made here in New Zealand.

What should you expect from Aperitivo Aotearoa?

First off it’s a chance to taste 15+ products from some of the best producers in New Zealand to discover what you like and what makes craft vermouth and aperitifs different from mass market ones. You’ll also get to talk to the producers to discover how they make these products and how they can best be enjoyed. You’ll also get to meet and chat with other vermouth and aperitif lovers, enjoy food matched to the vermouths and you’ll be able to finish up the event with a vermouth based cocktail made by the amazing Panacea team.

The event starts at 5pm on Wednesday 27 May and all of the producers (and the Panacea team) would love to see you there. Tickets are $40 (+booking fee) and are available on Humanitix. If you work in the trade there is an event earlier in the day, email me wine@knownunknown.co.nz for a trade registration link.

The seven producers

144 Islands (Auckland / Bay of Islands) — Winemaker Jake Dromgool works from a vineyard planted 300m above sea level in the hills outside Kerikeri, farmed organically and without irrigation. His vermouth range is the closest thing in New Zealand to a literal taste of place: Vermouth #1 is built on Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris and Chardonnay, fortified with distillates of Kerikeri lemon, kawakawa, kūmarahou, tarata, mānuka and kānuka flowers; Vermouth #2 uses a Syrah base infused with Kerikeri orange, tōtara, kahikatea, matai, kauri and northern rātā — essentially Puketi forest in a glass. There’s a rosé-based floral #3 and a coastal Vermentino #4 with horopito, olive wood and kelp. Hyperlocal.

Duncan’s Brewing Co (Kāpiti) — A brewery best known for pastry stouts, raspberry-ripple sours and a Japanese yuzu lager taking up bench space at a vermouth event might raise an eyebrow, but it shouldn’t. Duncan’s has spent a decade making it their whole personality to drag flavour out of unexpected places, and the same instincts of layered sweetness, big aromatics, no fear of the ridiculous translate naturally to aperitivo. If you want to see what happens when brewing brains get loose with botanicals and fortified wine, this is your stop.

Known Unknown (Taranaki) — My own project. A garagiste winery in Ngāmotu New Plymouth working exclusively with organic grapes since 2023, wild-fermented, unfined, unfiltered, minimal sulphur. Vermouths and aperitifs sit alongside the wines as part of the same lo-fi philosophy: process the fruit intuitively, let it tell you what it wants to be. Honey It’s Thyme dry vermouth is the one most trade people have come across; there’s usually something more experimental in the cellar door on rotation.

Mr Mug Sweet Vermouth (Auckland) — New Zealand’s first business solely dedicated to vermouth. The sweet red is built on Hawke’s Bay Pinot Gris, infused with mugwort, wormwood and chamomile, sweetened with local honey. Cleanly traditional in shape, distinctly Aotearoan in detail.

Mount Edward Winery (Central Otago) — The original. Mount Edward made what they (and most of the industry) credit as the first commercially produced new-wave vermouth in New Zealand, inspired by a trip to the Rootstock natural wine fair in Sydney. The current expression is Riesling and Chenin Blanc based, dry, with the dominant note being elderflower picked from the gardens at Felton Road. Organic, restrained, and a useful reference point for what wine-led vermouth made by people who actually know wine looks like.

Reid + Reid (Martinborough) — Brothers Stew and Chris Reid have been making gin in Martinborough since 2015, and their vermouths are essentially what happens when distillers approach the category. The dry is built by blending their native gin with Wairarapa Chardonnay and aging it in French oak with 13 botanicals including kawakawa and horopito. The red uses 100% Martinborough Pinot Noir, aromatised with a longer list — wormwood, manuka, horopito, juniper, star anise, orris and angelica root. Recommended use case: a New Zealand Martini that doesn’t taste like a compromise.

Terra Sancta (Central Otago) — Bannockburn pinot specialists with some of the oldest vines in the sub-region. Their Aperitivo Botanical is built on Central Otago Pinot Gris with sixteen botanicals — kanuka, horopito, rosehip, elderberry, yarrow, thyme, sage, hawthorn, artichoke — fortified to 18.5% and built around a bitter-orange backbone. The shorthand is “Aperol-esque” but that undersells it; this one has more depth, more energy, and is the closest thing in the country to a serious answer for a properly NZ Spritz

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About the author

Jules van Costello is the ringleader behind Aperitivo Aotearoa and is the wine and vermouth maker at Known Unknown, a garagiste winery based in Ngāmotu New Plymouth that is known for its fun, delicious, organic and lo-fi wine, vermouth and aperitifs. He is a vermouth evangelical and semi-retired drinks writer, having penned three books about wine and beer in New Zealand. As well as working in his own business he helps hospo, food and beverage businesses get the most out of their digital marketing budgets.