Forgery is legal!

FORGED DRINKS MELBOURNE ORIGINATED FROM ITS FOUNDERS’ BREAK FROM ALCOHOL AFTER A MAJOR SURGERY.

Well-known global identity in the coffee/cafe space, Sean Edwards,

Whilst recuperating he gave up alcohol, yet still wanted to be part of adult life and have a refreshing evening beverage. During his research, Sean exposed this lifestyle choice was growing, however the product range was not keeping up with consumer demand in quality and expectation.

During Covid isolation Sean also built a successful cocktail bar called Stick in the coastal town of Port Macquarie, through his passion of mixology. Sean was very disappointed with the range of non-alcoholic spirits on the market and decided to experiment on a home-still and run alcohol to zero yet maintaining the original flavours from the botanicalbased washes. This was a good flavour starting block to hand over to a Melbourne based manufacturer with whom Sean had been involved in developing high end cafe products. Together the magic happened as science and marketing collided.

The Australian consumer has really taken check around health and lifestyle decisions and is slowing up on alcohol consumption by drinking less or switching to replicated beverages in zero alcohol offerings. There has been a small range of beer and wine in the marketplace for over 20 years, but the quality and taste were not good enough to hook in the consumer fully. As science around beverage production evolved so has the quality of nonalcohol choices. The spirits collection has been very limited, mainly through the difficult processes that goes into the fermentation and distilling of manufacture. Again, many alcohol producers have been discarding flavour aspects of the distillation run that could be aging and formulated into a workable low or no alcohol spirit base. Forged is unique because the base range has been developed especially for the cocktail bar scenario. Many non-alcoholic bases lose their intensity when mixed with other beverages and most fade out in important taste profiles, like mouthfeel and the alcohol burn. Through a year of research and development Forged Drinks have come very close to original alcohol-based drink profiles when mixed as a cocktail. The team looked at which were the top 10 cocktails in the global market, they then started from this consumer angle developing quality non-alcohol, mainstream bases like whiskey, gin, vodka, rum and tequila. The team were very conscious to not just make another herbal based water which many of the other players had created. Sean wanted a zero alcohol base a cocktail barperson could pick off the bar shelf and replicate an alcoholic based cocktail.

The Forged range look impressive on the bar display and will appeal nicely to the consumer. The range has eight products

Dark Rum, Vodka, Whiskey, Gin, Pink Gin, Tramonto Bitters (Aperol), Agave Tibieza (Tequila) and Espresso Martini. The bases have all been Beta Tested and have also been approved by some of Australia’s best bartenders, while recipes have been created by an industry panel. The team are very excited to go to market and fill this unique mixology space of the commercial and home bar. Sean and his team will be forging their way forward to become leaders in this nonalcoholic beverage marketplace.