New Zealand Finally Has A Cream Liqueur Worth Putting On The World Stage
How Remarkable Cream are making cream liqueurs pride of place again, and why you don't want to miss out on their Christmas release.
Every great dairy nation has one. Now we do too.
Ireland has Bailey’s. South Africa has Amarula. The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Canada, the USA—every major dairy country in the world has a premium cream liqueur that people recognise and reach for. New Zealand? We’ve been missing from that conversation.
Wills Cameron thinks it’s time we joined it. And after understanding what he’s creating at Remarkable Cream, I’m inclined to agree.
To be fair, Bailey’s is fairly ubiquitous in family liquor cabinets around the country. And up til a few years ago, the New Zealand options were always under-priced to compete and consequently, under delivered on flavour and quality of ingredients. But in a very Kiwi way, Remarkable Cream is turning it all around diligently, purposefully and—up til now, quietly.
Why New Zealand Deserves This
Think about it: we’re one of the best dairy countries in the world. We export cream and milk powder globally. Our pastures, our climate, our dairy quality—it’s all world-class. So why wouldn’t we have a cream liqueur that stands alongside the international icons? Why shouldn’t we be just as proud of our cream liqueurs as we are of our butter and lamb exports?
“Ask anyone in the world what is the New Zealand cream liqueur and they’ll give you a blank look,” Will tells me. “If you ask them what’s the South African cream liqueur, they’ll say Amarula. Irish one? Bailey’s. If we can convince some portion of the world that, oh yeah, Remarkable Cream, that’s that New Zealand cream liqueur, and if we can be the first mover on that... I think the valuation would, in hindsight, by then, look pretty good.”
It’s not about nationalism or tall poppy syndrome. It’s simply about taking something we’re already exceptional at—dairy—and creating a premium product that showcases it properly. What we’ve been guilty of is underselling our own ability to make and enjoy, something delicious.
What Makes Remarkable Cream Actually Remarkable
Will’s approach starts with understanding what actually matters in a cream liqueur.
“The big thing about the product, and what you talk about in terms of quality, is that texture and mouthfeel is such an important part,” Will explains. “I think in cream liqueur, it’s almost more important than flavour, because it’s the aftertaste and the after effect that lasts longer and longer.”
They use fresh New Zealand dairy cream—no powder, no shortcuts—combined with high quality spirits. Everything is gluten-free, made with all-natural ingredients. No artificial flavours or colours. Just quality ingredients doing what they do best—showcased by the top gongs they picked up at the NZ Spirit Awards in 2025.
They started with traditional flavours: butterscotch and dark chocolate, familiar territory. But then Wills started thinking about what flavours could feel distinctly New Zealand. “It wasn’t going to be kiwifruit, or feijoa,” he says, laughing. And even I can’t imagine that working. So he went botanical—kawakawa, horopito, slightly floral profiles, combining Thomson whisky and mānuka honey. “That’s probably turning into our flagship product.”
But the breakthrough that really changed things? The keto range.
Last November, Remarkable launched their low-lactose, keto-friendly range. “We did like $340,000 in 30 days,” Will says, still sounding a bit surprised by it. “So it was a big uptick for us.” Low sugar options are all the rage.
Since then, they’ve launched two more keto products and gotten the process down to create fully lactose-free options. And while you’d be right to hold a certain skepticism about health food labelling claiming ‘keto-friendly’, a brief five minute dive into the process showcases the recipe skill and process behind everything Remarkable are doing.
And that Keto Irish Cream they developed? It foams beautifully—something cream liqueurs typically can’t do well because the alcohol inhibits foaming. “But the Keto recipe that we’ve done, it’s very high protein, very high fat, so it foams very well.”
Cafes in Shanghai, Ningbo, and Zhujiang already have samples. They’re interested not just because it’s keto-friendly, but because Wills has unintentionally solved a problem in bar and coffee service.
The Christmas Eggnog Worth Your Attention
Which brings us to this year’s exclusive Liquorland launch, available from November 10th: a Christmas Eggnog.
Traditional eggnog is already rich and indulgent—all that cream and egg yolk luxury with warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. The kind of family recipe that sits in a grandmother’s handwriting. Remarkable’s version (proudly not low in lactose or sugar, it is Christmas after all) takes that festive warmth and indulgence but refines it by their obsession with texture and mouthfeel. Made with fresh New Zealand cream and extremely drinkable. A Christmas miracle, if you will, now you don’t have to slave in the kitchen.
The packaging embraces our summer Christmas reality. Will describes it as having “pohutukawa instead of mistletoe”—that distinctly New Zealand Christmas vibe rather than trying to replicate a Northern Hemisphere winter.
It’s exclusive to Liquorland’s 170 stores, representing something Will’s been working toward for five years: getting core range distribution with a retailer who understands what he’s building.
Where This All Started: A Father’s Dream, A Son’s Determination
The story behind Remarkable Cream makes it more than just another craft beverage. Will’s father tried this exact business. Twice. Both attempts failed.
“Five, six years ago, he was totally broke, living in a caravan,” Will says. “And for the last 15 or 20 years of his life, he really beat himself up. It was all for nothing. Two businesses down the drain, lost the family home and everything.”
But Will grew up in this world, putting caps on bottles at age eight, watching his father make cream liqueurs in Otago for 20 years. When his dad arrived in Auckland with nothing but some nearly-expired bottles and the recipe, Will decided to try selling them.
Will had noticed something: the quality was always there. “With all his failures, I saw lots of lessons in there,” he says. The product was good. It was the business model needed work.
So Will took his father’s production expertise and combined it with tools his dad never had: e-commerce and digital advertising direct to customers.
“The two biggest things that have changed is e-commerce, so Shopify for us, and then advertising, paid advertising, like Facebook,” Will explains. “If my father had that 20 years ago, maybe it would have worked to an extent.”
The other critical difference? Will refused to compete on being the cheapest option. “He always went to undercut Canterbury Cream. It was like, cheaper than cheap.”
Will went premium instead. At $55-60 a bottle, his own father thought he was crazy. The Kiwi perspective on cream liqueurs needed to be challenged - no one blinks twice at paying that for imported Bailey’s.
And it worked. Because the quality justified the price.
Today? “It’s kind of redemption for him and that it was a truly great idea,” Will says of his father. A three-generation story that went from failure to failure to finally finding success, a lot of which is due to the people, the customers who have fallen in love with the product.
The People Who Believe In It
Will didn’t build Remarkable Cream alone. He built it with his wife Jay, who’s been running marketing and digital full-time. “For three, four, six months at a time, sometimes we didn’t make any progress. But even when the online sales are slow, she doesn’t stop,” Will says.
Together, they built an online customer base of over 15,000 people. Real people who bought the product, loved it, and keep coming back.
One of those early customers became their second-ever investor. “He came to us from being a customer,” Will explains. “And then I thought, well, if one of our customers will invest, maybe 100 of them would.”
A few months ago, Will and Jay decided they needed capital for factory expansion and Australian growth. (Australian customers were already dropping $400-500 at a time buying bulk online—a big chunk of their e-commerce revenue was suddenly coming from across the Tasman.)
They could have gone to institutional investors. Instead, they went to their customers through equity crowdfunding.
It came down to the wire—literally the last three hours—but they hit their minimum. Then closed at nearly 20% over target, raising roughly $480,000.
That’s hundreds of people saying with their wallets: we believe in this product. We believe New Zealand should have a world-class cream liqueur.
Additional investors have expressed interest in coming on board after the crowdfunding round, wanting to be part of what Will’s building without seeking publicity or influence—just believing in the product and the vision.
When hundreds of customers become investors, when Australians are bulk-buying online before there’s even proper distribution there, when a major retailer like Liquorland finally commits to 170 stores after five years... that’s validation. That’s proof the market is there. That’s a signal this isn’t just a nice idea—it’s working.
New Zealand has the premium quality product, it’s just time the world hears all about it.
Why This Matters
We have incredible dairy. We have the capability to make world-class products. And now we have someone actually doing it with cream liqueurs—not apologising for being local, not competing on being cheap, but creating something premium that stands up against the best in the world.
Wills isn’t asking you to lower your standards or buy something out of patriotism. He’s made something genuinely excellent and asking you to give it a shot. And I’m telling you: this tastes good. From the business model to the aluminium bottles that are easy to open, lightweight and reducing carbon footprint to the silky mouthfeel and bright, vibrant flavours. When Grandma asks for Bailey’s on ice this Christmas, pour her this instead.
So when you see that Christmas Eggnog at Liquorland, wrapped in pohutukawa-festive Kiwiana, remember what’s behind it: three generations of work, thousands of customers who already love it enough to buy regularly, hundreds of investors who believed in it with real money, and a genuine attempt to put New Zealand on the map for something we should have been known for all along.
That’s worth raising a glass to.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Christmas shopping to do. And possibly some eggnog to sample.
Remarkable Cream’s Keto Christmas Eggnog is available at Liquorland stores nationwide from November 10th. Find your nearest stockist or purchase your new favourite cream liqueur at remarkablecream.nz