Meet the Mixologist

meetthemixologist

Meet the Mixologist THOR BERGQUIST Thor Bergquist is a selfproclaimed ‘nightlife expert’, starting in the hospitality industry at 16 years old.

“I t’s all I’ve ever done,” he expressed. Bergquist has worked in almost all aspects of the bar sector, from bartending to managing, floor service to developing products and has worked in Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore, London, and New York before settling back in Sydney. Now, Bergquist works as a consultant helping to launch brands – anything from product development, flavours, processing and production to distribution and sales. “I got to a point in my career in New York where I was sick of bouncing around with work Visas and I wanted to come back to Sydney with the plan to open my own bar – PS40, and launch a product called PS Soda,” he explained. “The creation of PS Soda came about because of a consulting gig I had in New York where I was hired to create the flavours of a similar product – a natural energy drink, but with a cocktail influence. A guy had flown from Paris and tried one of my cocktails, he said ‘I want to put this cocktail into this energy drink.’ It was my first experience doing anything like that on a production scale. “It turned out the client also needed a designer, which worked out because my wife, Liv, is an amazing designer. It was the first time we worked together on a project, she designed the labels and boxes and worked on the brand, and I got to design the flavours.” This collaboration worked well for the couple, so they decided to bring their creative worlds together for a new product – PS Soda.

“At a point between opening PS40 and launching PS Soda, I made a personal choice to stop drinking,” said Bergquist.

“I’d spent a long time bartending and getting other people drunk and I also used to drink a lot myself – I feel I have drunk enough for one lifetime so I decided I wanted to give people the option to have something that was non-alcoholic, but still adult and grown-up. So, I sold the bar and moved the soda into its own facility.

“I’ve always been on the creative side of hospitality, I’ve always written menus and cocktail recipes – my joy from hospitality wasn’t necessarily the service side, it was always more in preparation, so it was a natural progression to exit the FOH life of a bartender for what I do now.”

As Bergquist and other in the industry have witnessed, there has been a significant cultural shift in people’s relationship with alcohol. All over the world the pandemic has elevated consumers’ focus on health and wellbeing, but even before COVID, a greater awareness of the harm alcohol can cause was starting to make people drink differently.

This is a shift that Bergquist is seeing, not only among customers, but among those who work in the bar sector too.

“I was talking to a bar owner in Newtown just the other month and he said staff these days don’t want a beer after work, they want

something non-alcoholic – they want to wake up early, go to the gym, stay healthy.”

But, as Bergquist pointed out, no one wants to be at a pub or restaurant ordering the same fizzy drink as your little brother or niece, they want something made for them. One of the first brands to break into the market was UKbased Seedlip.

“Seedlip seemed to open people’s eyes to the fact that you could have a non-alcoholic drink and still have fun and feel sophisticated.”

So, do customers simply want a replication of an alcoholic beverage? For Bergquist, this depends on the product or brand he is working with.

“Some want to recreate classics cocktail flavours, for example, Yes You Can has three RTDs, an Aperol Spritz, a G&T and a Dark & Stormy. We have even taken the G&T into bars and bartenders can’t tell the difference.”

This is great for those who are just starting to move into non-alcoholic offerings, but for people who are already in the no-alcohol space, who don’t want anything that reminds them of alcohol they may be turned off by that. So other brands draw inspiration from the flavour of cocktails or serves but create a premium ‘adult’ soft drink instead.

About six months ago, Bergquist closed down PS Soda.

“I thought that when I had to close the business, I had failed. But straight away people started to approach me saying, ‘that’s the knowledge we need and want.’

“The first brand I worked with is Yes You Can, it’s such a cool product with a great team, made locally in Australia with Aussie ingredients.”

Across the ditch, Bergquist is seeing a keen focus on using native ingredients within the premium soft drink and non-alcoholic space. These ingredients are unique, tell a story and using them becomes a way for brands to give back to the community.

“On top of the three classic cocktail flavours already available from Yes You Can, we have six new flavours about to launch – all based on different cocktails.”

About a month ago, Bergquist helped launch Ghiddy, a non-alcoholic wine.

“We didn’t want to just de-alcoholise wine,” he noted.

“We didn’t want to take a product and remove something from it, we wanted to create something from the ground up with fresh, local ingredients, taking inspiration from wine flavours.”

The Ghiddy range includes a “pinot noir” made with beetroot, raspberry, lion’s mane mushroom, black tea and verjus (unripe grapefruit), creating the same flavour profile of a pinot noir - the earthiness, with sweet hints of raspberry. Another chardonnay-style variety uses honeydew melon, nopal cactus, chamomile tea, and verjus.

“It’s been a challenge – but that’s what I love. I like to think outside the box, and Ghiddy has been well received so far.”

According to Bergquist, bars can’t get away with not having a non-alcoholic list anymore, and not just in-house creations, consumers want to see the brands they recognise. This trend is not a flash in the pan but an ongoing and most-likely permanent shift in the way people choose to drink. There’s even a large hotel chain with about 50 hotels across Australia who are re-writing their hotel bar list to be 50 percent alcoholic and 50 percent non-alcoholic, a reflection of the global popularity of no-to-low beverages options.

“I think the trick with an non-alcoholic beverage is to have fun with it, to make it happy and joyful,” concluded Bergquist.

“It’s a very fun space to work in and the journey of discovery is really exciting.”