CAN SEEDLIP SUSTAIN THE HYPE?

To many, the idea of a non-alcoholic spirit seems somewhat redundant. But as Kit Kriewaldt discovers, bartenders are finding novel ways to incorporate products like Seedlip into their drinks offering.

Australians of a certain vintage can tell you straight away that “the drink you have when you’re not having a drink” is Clayton’s. Even many of my own generation, with no experience of the drink itself, know that if something is ‘Clayton’s’, then it is not exactly what it claims to be – whether it’s an apparently healthy meal, a legal contract, or a car salesman. Despite earning its place in Australian slang, very few people can tell you what Clayton’s is made of, or whether it tastes any good. The slogan proved more enduring than the product, which is as hard to find now as Clayton’s drinkers were back in the 1970s.

Seedlip founder Ben Branson

Seedlip, the British pioneer of the bourgeoning nonalcoholic drinks category, launched in Australia last year with a familiar tagline: “what to drink when you’re not drinking.” No doubt the resemblance to Clayton’s is unintentional. While Clayton’s is essentially a cola-flavoured soft drink without the fizz, masquerading as whisky, Seedlip is a non-alcoholic distilled spirit – the world’s first, in fact. The idea is old, but the method is new.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?

Seedlip sits in the lucrative $967 billion market for nonalcoholic drinks, and an increasing number of those non-alcoholic drinks are aimed at adults. It’s a category Seedlip practically originated when it launched in 2015. After just one month, the company was forced to quadruple production to keep up with demand. Since then, Seedlip’s unique characteristics have turned heads in bars and boardrooms. In 2016, Diageo invested in the company. And in 2017, Seedlip’s turnover hit the £1 million mark.

A distillery may seem like the last company you’d expect to support Seedlip, but Diageo is betting on a drier future. Worldwide consumption of alcohol declined every year from 2010 to 2016. Last year, the industry managed a barely perceptible increase of 0.01%. More importantly, young people – in particular, those obsessively-quantified millennials – seem to be the ones driving that decline. In the UK alone, people aged between 16 and 24 reported drinking significantly less than 45- to 64-year-olds. In fact, the number of young people who don’t drink at all has gone up by 32% over the past 10 years. Whether for economic, religious, or health reasons, young people today are drinking less than their parents. Diageo’s backing has helped Seedlip find its way into bars and restaurants in the UK, US, and Canada. Since coming to Australia, Seedlip has begun pushing into Asia, with a high-profile launch event at Employees Only Hong Kong in March. Seedlip’s momentum seems irresistible.

But given Australia’s history with Clayton’s – not to mention our hard-drinking national image – it’s surprising Seedlip came to Australia so quickly. Australia has changed a lot since the heyday of Clayton’s in the 1970s, but are we really drinking less, just like the Brits?

In short: no. According to the World Health Organisation, Australia consumes more alcohol than any other English-speaking country. Between 2015 and 2016, just as Seedlip was becoming popular in the UK, Australia’s alcohol consumption increased for the first time in a decade. Australia doesn’t seem to be racing towards Diageo’s drier future. In fact, young people aren’t even leading the way. The only Australians drinking significantly less than they did three years ago are people in their 60s. Those are sobering statistics for a hip new brand based on drinking less.

CARVING OUT A LANE

Nevertheless, in its first year on Australian shores, Seedlip has found a niche in restaurants and bars across the country, from Melbourne’s Black Pearl, to PS40 and Charlie Parker’s in Sydney. “The response from those at the forefront of the food and drink community [in Australia] has been incredible,” says Seedlip founder Ben Branson. He partly credits the positive reception to the ingenuity of Australian bartenders, who are “actively championing being able to offer their guests a memorable experience regardless of whether they are drinking alcohol.”

For bartenders, the three available flavours of Seedlip showcase the spirit’s versatility. Seedlip Garden 108, made with peas, hay, rosemary, and thyme, is tangy and herbaceous. Or, as memorably described by a chef friend, “it tastes like the beginning of a gazpacho.” Seedlip Spice 94, on the other hand, is much woodier, with notes of allspice and oak. It smells a little like an old-fashioned aftershave. There’s also Seedlip Grove 42, described as a “celebration of the orange”, distilled with bitter orange, mandarin, lemongrass and lemon.

Seedlip’s watery texture in comparison to its alcoholic cousins can make it seem like an underwhelming drink on its own. The company’s recommended serve is to mix Seedlip with tonic. In fact, mixed drinks are a key part of Seedlip’s strategy for getting into your glass.

Rather than simply aim to make it into the drinks cabinets of teetotallers, Seedlip is looking to become the backbone of modern mocktails – or rather, ‘nonalc’ cocktails. It’s a shrewd move, and one that might just help Seedlip escape the same fate as Clayton’s. As Branson says, Seedlip “provides a great base for a cocktail, be that simply mixed with tonic or in non-alc cocktails.”

A BARTENDER’S PLAYGROUND

Nothing attracts a bartender more than the chance to play with a new product. “My introduction to Seedlip was when Ben walked into our bar,” says Michael Chiem, coowner of PS40, one of the first bars in Australia to work with the product. Chiem says he was drawn to “the unique process, flavour profiles, and interesting ingredients” in Seedlip. The non-alcoholic spirit was a natural fit for PS40, which also makes its own range of adult-oriented soft drinks, PS Soda. “There are plenty of people who come in looking for something interesting to drink, with and without booze,” says Chiem.

That raises an interesting point: since Seedlip is so mixable, how much of it is actually being used to create non-alcoholic cocktails? Unsurprisingly, the sodafocussed PS40 sells a lot of nonalc concoctions. But at bars with a more traditional reliance on booze, like Brisbane’s Cobbler, it’s a different story. Here, Seedlip Spice is used to add woody notes to a whisky cocktail called the Woodworking Plane. According to bartender Allison, it’s one of the most popular drinks on the menu. As for serving Seedlip itself, though: “No one asks for it by name except bartenders and brand ambassadors,” she says.

At the moment, Cobbler easily sells more Seedlip in alcoholic drinks than non-alc ones. Despite that, Allison is interested to see how far Seedlip can go. “As an alternative, Seedlip could sit alongside Fino [sherry], or other low alcohol ingredients.” James Snelgrove, Seedlip’s Australian brand ambassador, sees a similar opportunity. “The growing trend of using Seedlip as a flavour modifier in drinks with alcohol is something we wholly support,” he says. Like syrups, bitters, or juices, Seedlip lets bartenders add extra flavour “without having to add alcoholic weight.”

Seedlip Spice with tonic

Snelgrove believes Australians are drinking less, but spending more per drink when they do buy alcohol, which has created a gap in the market for low-alcohol drinks. “With the rise of low [ABV] spritz across the country it’s great to think that bartenders are reaching for Seedlip,” he says. And Seedlip is reaching for them, too. In July, the company sponsored Nolo, a noand low-alcohol pop-up bar, at PS40 and Black Pearl. The inclusion of alcoholic drinks on the menu, albeit with a lower ABV, suggests Seedlip has found its niche.

In Australia, the fact that Seedlip plays nicely with alcohol may just be its saving grace. Unlike Clayton’s, Seedlip is a bartender’s drink, and what’s popular with bartenders has a way of catching on with the drinking public. Seedlip probably won’t convince Australians to give up their booze, but if you see more pea-flavoured G&Ts around Australia, you’ll know what started the trend.