Mindful Drinking & Moderation in Midlife: Low No Drinker Podcast

#46 Double Dutch mixers: supporting low/no drinkers & women in hospitality

• Denise Hamilton-Mace • Episode 46

Share episode

FREE COURSE: OVERCOMING THE HURDLES

=============
SHOW QUOTES
“Our friends would bring like a really beautiful bottle, like a premium bottle of spirit, but we would make the mixes and soft drinks, and so our friends called us the Tonic Twins.”

“I think we visited 120 accounts or something before someone said, ‘Okay, I'll buy one case’.”

============
SHOW NOTES
Raissa & Joyce De Haas are the twin power behind Double Dutch Mixers & Tonics. In this episode, we go right back to the beginning, from watching their parents host tasting parties for over a hundred guests in their annexed greenhouse distillery to knocking on 120 doors before making their first sales of Double Dutch.

It’s quite a journey, and they’re taking women everywhere with them as they scale their brand to be a partner in arms for females in hospitality everywhere, all the while ensuring that whatever is in your glass, their mixers give it the respect it deserves.

============
WE CHAT ABOUT
2:12 The Double Dutch story
7:27 The launch journey
13:26 Making 10 mixers & tonics
17:25 Supporting low/no drinkers
22:38 Bloody Marys & Margaritas
25:46 Bar & restaurant menus
28:20 Pregnancy or antibiotics?
29:41 Double Dutch Scholarship
36:51 Women in hospitality
42:24 The BBQ-Q 

============
Try Double Dutch*  //  doubledutchdrinks.com  //  @doubledutchdrinks  //  Double Dutch Scholarship

============
WE ALSO TALK ABOUT:
Noughty*
Caleño*
Everleaf*
Pentire*
Botan
Botivo*
By Women Built

===
🥂 Submit your non-alc or funtional drink to the innagural Bottle Raiders Zero Proof Choice Awards by July 31st - https://bottleraiders.com/zero-proof-choice-awards/

===
📰 SUBSCRIBE TO LOW NO DRINKER MAGAZINE ONLINE OR IN PRINT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

===
💰 Get 10% off drinks at Wise Bartender* & Dry Drinker*
with code LOWNODRINKERMAGAZINE

===
*Some links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase, Low No Drinker may earn a commission. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

We had a deal with our friends that our friends would bring like a really beautiful bottle, like premium bottle of spirit, but we would make the mixes and soft drinks and so our friends called us Tonic Twins. I think nobody wants to be the first customer. I think the issue that's the first issue People would ask are you selling it anywhere? And just saying no, we're not selling it anywhere. Do you want to be our first customer? Nobody really wants to take that leap. So I think it's a long time I think we visited 120 accounts or something before someone said, okay, I'll buy one case hi hi, lono nation and welcome to this week's conversation on the lono drinker podcast.

Speaker 2:

Uh, now, today I'm doing something a little bit different and I'm talking with the sensational sisters joyce and racer de haas. Uh, together they are the creative force behind Double Dutch Mixers, which, if you're watching on video, you can see behind me here. Now. Double Dutch is the first mixer brand that we've had on the show, but the reason being that I wanted to bring them on is because it occurs to me that when you're drinking low and low, when you're drinking spirits and the mixer is well over 50% of your drink, then you deserve to have the best ones that you can find. The other reason I wanted them on is because a lot of people don't always want to have alcohol proxies when they're drinking low and no. So there might be times when you want a wine proxy or you want a beer, but there might also be times when you want a softer drink, but you've just had enough of lime and soda. So I've brought the girls on today to have a chat about that. Plus, there's some really interesting stuff that they do. Working with female bartenders in the industry, and with my 24 years in hospitality, I'm so happy to hear them championing that.

Speaker 2:

So, with all that said, let's say hello and welcome to Raysa and Joyce. Hi ladies, how are you today? Hello, very good. Thank you for having us. Thank you for being here. It's an honor. As I was saying before, we pressed record. I've been trying to catch up with you for a while, but keep missing you at events, and now I've got you as a captive audience. So I always like to start the podcast by asking my guests to share a little bit of their backstory, their origin story, if you will, and this will be an interesting one because you know, you guys have obviously done this together. You've been on quite a journey and it's wonderful that you've had each other as part of that. I'm not sure who would like to start first, but tell me what was the journey that led you to creating Double Dutch.

Speaker 1:

So we always basically our background on, like where we grew up, has always been very much with drinks and kind of hospitality has always been something that we grew up with. So the house where we actually grew up in there was like this beautiful greenhouse next to it and our parents, when we moved into the house they didn't know what to do with that greenhouse but there was also this distillery already in there and so they thought, wow, what a fun thing to have. And they started using that greenhouse and that distillery as like kind of a party space to organize parties, tasting parties for friends every last Friday of the month. And I mean it started really small but after a couple of years it became like every last Friday of the month there were like 100 friends of our parents doing like tastings with like a team of champagne or vodka or wines and there was always like this tasting team. And so we kind of grew up knowing all the local distilleries and just build up a really big passion about that and our parents would always like the whole hospitality kind of size from. That was really important and they would um invite like little music bands and like there was always like this kind of entertainment next to it.

Speaker 1:

And then we graduate and we went to university and during our years at university we kind kind of also always organized parties at our place. And so we had a deal with our friends that our friends would bring like a really beautiful bottle, like premium bottle of spirits but we would make the mixes and soft drinks and so our friends called us the Tonic Twins and that was kind of it was like a hobby that we, that we did never thought about doing something serious with it, but it was just like a passion and some drinks were really nice and some things were less nice. But we always on a weekly basis had like experimentation with different types of carbonized drinks and so that's always been like in our early years. And then we moved to London to do a second master at university and we came to London and that was kind of the first time that we saw like wow, that whole hospitality scene and like bartenders is like a really big career and the whole spirits offering is like 10 or 20 years ahead of how we knew it from back in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Speaker 1:

But choice of mixers were kind of as boring and so we wrote our dissertation about the whole spirits mixer market and the fact that spirits are so much more premiumizing, they're so much more innovative, but choice of mixers are kind of lagging behind that innovation trend. And so our thesis was a business plan for more innovative tonic waters that were not just focused on gins but also on your whole back bar on low and low and kind of low in sugars, low in calories. Sustainability is a big part of our growth. So kind of a different wave of mixers. And then we graduated and our university gave us money to start the business and from there launch the business.

Speaker 2:

That is absolutely fantastic. I mean, there's so many amazing things in that story that I could take us on. I love the fact that you did this as your dissertation, because I don't think that's a topic that many people would think to go right, we're going to write a thesis about this and that the university then saw value in this and went right. This is something that you need to go and explore. How did that sort of pitch go when you spoke to the university? Were they sort of like yeah, let's go for it straight away, or did it take a bit of convincing?

Speaker 1:

The master was in tech entrepreneurship, so the original idea was to kind of find, find someone write a business plan in fintech. But we explained that our passion was very much in drinks, and so they then said okay, it's fine, it's better for you to really write your dissertation about something that you're actually passionate about and that you think you will actually pursue, rather than it just now having to to write something and devote your year about maybe something that's just your thesis. So they were very understanding, um, and then when they kind of gave that initial investment, uh as prize money, that really kick-started uh it for us and gave us kind of the start to think, okay, we're really going to to make our dissertation real and start the company, so they've been super supportive.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. That's amazing. I was speaking to another founder, a chap who's launched Talonmore, which is a non-alcoholic whiskey, and he's a young chap who went to university in Dundee in Scotland and he had a similar story in that he presented this at university and they supported him, gave him some money, gave him some training to launch the brand, and I think it's fantastic. I had no idea before starting this that universities were so hands-on in helping young entrepreneurs to realise a dream, especially one that can help so many people. So I think that's absolutely amazing and so how did you get started then?

Speaker 2:

because I know obviously you've got your experience in your, your, your parties, like from your parents to your uni days and everything. But that's quite different from going all right now. We're going to actually make something at scale that the public can purchase and enjoy, and then broadening it out to so many different types of drinks. So when you first started, what did that look like?

Speaker 1:

So we launched with our cucumber, watermelon and pomegranate and basil. First step was we had our own recipes that we made in our kitchen but I mean they were very primitive and not really developed to make like commercial recipes in large scale. So our first step was to find a flavor developer who could help commercialize our recipes, which we found via via via. And then the biggest hurdle was to find a manufacturing plant or filler, the glass, the labels, the crown caps, kind of just the basics in small volumes. I think over the past 10 years the drinks industry has massively improved in that there are now many options for craft manufacturers to produce on a very small scale. But I think 10 years ago it was just the beginning of that craft movement or just before that and there weren't many options. On. I remember the first few times when we looked around for glass the minimum order quantities were 1 million bottles and we were just like how on earth can we start with one? We were looking for like 5,000 bottles and similarly with the filling and the production plants and the ingredients. So that was a big issue in the beginning. But I think kind of the general food and beverage has really improved in that. So I think it would be slightly easier to go into a small scale now. Also, when we launch new products, we see lots of manufacturing plants that can do smaller volumes.

Speaker 1:

So we found eventually someone where we could fill a small factory in North London and he basically had a filling plant and he told us, if you want, you can manually fill your bottles during the nights when I don't operate it. So we had five or six dodgy nights with the two of us and my boyfriend at the time to fill 5,000 bottles there and that was kind of our first batch. And then we just we focused just on sales, sales, sales and we started focusing on um hotels in mayfair and then we went to, uh, premium kind of the the pubs in mayfair, uh, to the cocktail bars in mayfair, very much focused just on one small area, and then from there on, kind of when we visited most hospitality accounts that we thought would be a good fit to Double Edge, we moved to Soho Nextdoor, we did the same and kind of just very small, account per account, passed by with samples and tried to convince kind of first customers.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So you were literally there with your drinks in your hands, walking around, just going in and pitching and going hi, can you get our drinks please? Yeah exactly lots of no's. Okay, I was going to ask you what sort of reception were you getting then, was it, you know? Did you have to lock on a lot of doors before you started making the progress that you wanted to?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I think. I think nobody wants to be the first customer. I think the issue that's the first issue, because people would ask and are you selling it anywhere? And just saying, no, we're not selling it anywhere, do you want to be our first customer? Nobody really wants to take that leap. So I think it's a long time.

Speaker 1:

I think we visited 120 accounts or something before someone said, okay, I'll buy one case. And then I think from there on I mean not quickly, but we kind of got a second account via, via, because people, I think we found someone, a bartender or a bar manager, who was actually quite friendly and said OK, I also have a mate in a restaurant next door, you can pass by and say hi from me, and kind of that helped a little bit. That helped a little bit. Um, and then, kind of bar per bar, hotel per hotel, we got our first few 10 customers which we went to a wholesaler with and said because the issue is that no bar wants to buy from drinks brands directly, they want to buy from a wholesaler yeah the wholesaler doesn't want to stock you unless you have 25 accounts from that wholesaler.

Speaker 1:

so it's such a chicken and the egg which many I think everyone has the same issue. Uh, people, everyone who's starting a drinks brand, that whole wholesaler. Uh, hospitality relationship is very it's such a viscous circle. Um, but then eventually we found one wholesaler who was willing to take us on on a sale on return basis and we gave him exclusivity and some very bad terms but eventually it worked out and we got our first wholesaler on Barts and then we got kind of our we could focus on the account list of bars and restaurants from that wholesaler and then it kind of definitely helped to get our first few customers on Barts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can, yeah, absolutely. It's so hard when you're starting something, isn't it? And just finding people that can believe in you and just say, you know, I see what you're doing, I can see the value in it. I want to be part of that, because everybody's just as you say, reysa they're just too scared to be the first one because they think, oh, you know well if no one else is there. But you know, people have got to take a chance, they've got to be experimental and they've got to be creative, because we don't always want to go to the same place and have the same things. You get something different in, absolutely. I'd love to know now how many of those 120 doors that you knocked on that said no, have got Double Dutch behind the bar now and they're phoning up going, will they fall?

Speaker 2:

We should do that exercise. So, um, so, tell me about the range. And so you started with, uh, my two favorites. Then you said, uh, the cucumber and the mint. Uh, so cucumber and watermelon, yeah, uh, and then the the basil and those are my two favorite ones. Um and now, behind me, I've got uh 10 drinks on my shelf here, so tell me, tell us a little bit more about the range.

Speaker 1:

So after the cucumber, watermelon and the pomeranian basil, we launched our normal indian tonic water and skinny tonic water. Because we, while we always thought like are we gonna have a range of only double Dutch, unique, double flavored soda waters and not necessarily focus on like your traditional tonic water or light tonic or like ginger beer, but I think very quickly on we noticed that the first couple of customers that started buying double Dutch, they all told us like it's all nice and well, but this is not an ideal situation because now we have two mixes of double edge, we still need to buy our standard range of another brand and before we know it we have three brands of tonic water, so like mixers in the mixer category in our fridge and we always want to have consistency across a range. So then we thought, okay, this makes sense. So we expanded um very quickly into our indian tonic and our skinny tonic, which actually now we are the most awarded tonic water on the market, so very proud of the tonic water. It's definitely less bitter. So we always with our flavors, but also with our standard mixers or premium mix, like more traditional flavors, kind of always have worked on flavors that are not really overpowering and kind of.

Speaker 1:

I really believe in rice as well that if you drink whatever drink paired with mixer, the mixer is not the key ingredient, the, the spirit or the non-alcoholic spirit or whatever you're mixing it with, that's what makes the drink as well.

Speaker 1:

So you can't have a super overpowering tonic water, for example.

Speaker 1:

And so our tonic water is quite really easy to drink, slightly more clean and like less overpowering bitter, and hence why it also actually works really well for people that don't drink alcohol, that still have like kind of that more adult taste profile but not really have that bitterness. And so we had our skinny tonic and our Indian tonic quite early on, then expanded with a cranberry and ginger tonic. So compared to the pomegranate basil and the cucumber watermelon, which are boiled like soda water, so don't have that green mean bitter elements our cranberry and ginger was then the first flavored tonic water and then from there expanded to with another seven flavors, so at the moment our full ranges. So we have our cucumber watermelon or pungent basil or cranberry and ginger tonic, pink grapefruit, which is getting so much more popular both in Palomas but also as just an adult healthy soft drink. We have a refreshing lemonade and a double lemon and a soda water. And then we have an elderflower tonic um, an indian tonic, a skinny tonic, a soda water um.

Speaker 1:

And then ginger beer and ginger ale that's quite a list.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is quite a list and I love I. I obviously really like the drinks and I love as well your branding. So I've got your presentation box here and I just love all the colour. You know, there's fruits, there's animals, there's pots of colour, there's character, there's personality, and I love that you're taking what are these mixes and saying look this, this is an important part of your drink. It needs to be seen, it needs to be noticed, it needs to be considered um. I think that's really, really important and, as you, as you mentioned, joyce, you know, for people who are not drinking alcohol, they often feel not seen, not heard, not considered um. So I'd love to talk a little bit more about your involvement in the low and no space, because I've seen you at a lot of events where you have drinks on your menu that might be alcohol free or low alcohol. I know that you've worked with other people in this space to help make amazing drinks. What is it that brought you into recognizing that this was a category that needed extra attention and extra care?

Speaker 1:

I think we are seeing in general a major shift towards no alcohol options and because we started Double Dutch from the idea of Double Dutch should be a super versatile mixers, not just for gin. But we've always from the start said our initial two flavors you can also put them on a on your soft drink menu, you don't need to put it in a gin and tonic menu or you put it in a cocktail, and so we've always had that kind of started from flavor and the idea that you can mix it with anything. So, um, because they are so flavorful and because we use natural ingredients, um, and, and they're very flavorful, it just works really well as a healthy, adult soft drink and because of that, naturally, over the past few years, that percentage of people who are using double edge with alcohol and without alcohol has just massively increased, both in consumers and people, also bartenders putting it on their menus in a mocktail or in a non-alcoholic cocktail as well as putting it on itself on a menu, and that really just kind of that's why we started focusing on it more and I think you can have genuine kind of great experience with low abv spirits but also with non-alcoholic uh drinks and mixers like double edge. So, uh, it's definitely super important and, um, I think we we just want to partner with lots of non of the non-alcoholic spirits, as well as being a a proper drink on its own, yeah, and I think it's. Also, there were just like five years ago or more, there weren't so many options, and I think we also very much recognize that there should be more options and especially making easy options.

Speaker 1:

I think sometimes the drinks industry tends to like overcomplicate with products or like serves, and I think what we want to do is just create really easy to make delicious drinks for people that drink alcohol or drink no alcohol, and I think that part for people that didn't don't want to drink alcohol or want to be moderate in their alcohol consumption, they just don't have really that much of an offering or like that much of choice. And I think with our double dutch range, you stock three of our flavors in your fridge. You can make 10 different easy serves. Drink it within, like, for example, a non-alcoholic gin, or drink it just on itself and or add a little bit of apple juice to it, like just have like fun with it without making it complicated, without making, and I think that's all it should be, and I think it's a healthy choice. It's an easy choice, it's always consistent. I think that's kind of what we stand for.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a really good point as well, and I think you know something else that you mentioned before when you're talking about the range and the fact that, for example, your tonics are not super overpowering, they're not quinine heavy, and when it comes to low and no cocktails and spirits and mixes, obviously you've got a different flavor balance right. A low no gin is not going to have the same punch as a full alcohol version, and so finding mixes that can help support those drinks without overpowering them, I think is really important exactly, yeah, absolutely um, so I think you know it's fantastic to see this, and I wish that I could see more mixer brands giving as much thought.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I think it's definitely something that gets forgotten. And then the flip side of that is that you have other soft drink brands now that are sort of saying they're making non-alcoholic cocktails yeah, but they're not. Non-alcoholic cocktails are the same drinks that they used to make. You're both smiling, so I think you know which brands I'm referring to. Um, you know is, is that ever a a sort of a realm that you guys plan to move into? Are you sticking with the, the, the tonic sides, the, the mixer size? Are you thinking of expanding any changes? What's what's next for a brand like double dutch?

Speaker 1:

we're definitely looking at new product development and I think there is so much, so much to develop within our space of non-alcoholic premium drinks. Um, we launched in 2020 uh, two cocktail sodas. So they were not non-alcoholic cocktails, but they were cocktail sodas. One was a bloody mary soda which was sparkling and kind of clear but I mean red clear, so not juice based and then we launched it also together with a Margarita soda and they were super innovative and super delicious. At the time, we never really marketed them, as they are non-alcoholic cocktails. We kind of more marketed it as the Bloody Mary soda is inspired by the flavor profile of a Bloody Mary, so it really had kind of like that umami flavor, a bit of kind of balsamic, very tomato, but it was sparkling and clear. So we really struggled to bring that to consumers. Like what is it actually? Are you expecting me to put it in a vodka? But I'm not having a Bloody Mary. So we because I personally love a Bloody Mary, but I can always only drink one and then I'm super full so we kind of wanted to play on that, but I think the market wasn't ready, so it was a limited edition only for a year. Or Margarita soda was actually more popular, but mostly then people started using it in tequila cocktails as a kind of long drink.

Speaker 1:

I think the non-alcoholic cocktail it's really difficult to get that into an RTD. There are brands that have done a fantastic job, I think, but I think it's a fine line between when is it a non-alcoholic cocktail, like you say, and when is it actually just an adult flavor profile soda. So it's difficult. I think I don't know whether it needs to be a non-alcoholic RTD Like, for example, I was pregnant and then kind of stopped drinking for another six months or something afterwards and I didn't necessarily always wanted the alternative of what you said, like the alcohol alternative. I kind of just want to have a delicious drink that is not your Coke and that is not a sparkling water.

Speaker 1:

But I think there is a fine line on what Reiza says. I think if you go into that non-alcoholic alternative serve, then I do believe that you also could do well indeed, with like non-alcoholic spirits and then mix it with a mixer and like have kind of more. That I don't know, there's just so much around, but I don't think that it's clear yet for consumers or as easy for consumers to say, like okay, this is exactly what it is, and this is the consumption time and this is my occasion, and I think there's still lots of work to be done by lots of brands and the industry in general, you must have seen quite a change in, because you started off, you know, as you were saying, going around to the bar.

Speaker 2:

So you, you went straight into the hospitality and said you know, this is where we want to see our drinks place and of course, people can now buy your drinks either in bars or online and we will give people the the website to go, because you've got a lot of great options there. Um, but, going into the bars, you must be seeing quite a bit of change then over the last, uh, the last decade or so, in how people are responding to that offer and that position. Yeah, you know, I'm wondering if you're finding that bars perhaps are taking on more of your soft drink styles, so that they've got more to offer people, and if you've noticed sort of a shift in the way that bars are looking at drinks like yours.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I think on the one hand side, we just, for example, what is important, like what is an important activation piece for us and like our brand visibility comes from us creating menus for bars and restaurants. And I think if we look, if we compare to like 10 years ago and today, half of the menus that we make are focused on no low, especially on summer it's focused on split serves no um alcohol. Split serves like it's just a completely different type of menu, that where the bars are asking for. I think also the choices have become much more sophisticated.

Speaker 1:

I think 10 years ago the non-alcoholic options were in a separate sections on the menu. You had very sugary juice-based non-alcoholic cocktails or mocktails, and I think now it's people are increasingly prioritizing kind of mindfulness in their social lives and I think it's part of a menu I think from, for example, when Joyce was pregnant. You don't want to be looking at that last page on the menu and feel left out. You kind of want to order something so that nobody really thinks like, oh my God, she's having that non-alcoholic, why are you not drinking. You kind of want it to be part of the normal menu and just feel, whether you're drinking or not be part the the social interaction, uh. So I think that has massively improved and um and and just more sophisticated flavor profiles as well that are not super sweet but that that are more mimicked towards standard cocktails and flavor profiles I think that pregnancy position is a really interesting one as well, because you know most women, uh, when they're pregnant, don't want to tell people straight away.

Speaker 2:

You know it's pretty standard that you wait a few weeks before you tell anyone, but you still, you know, might be going out, you're having some work drinks, you're, you're socializing with friends and you know, as a woman, if you say I'm not having alcohol, the first question is, oh, are you pregnant? And then you're like um, um, antibiotics, yeah, exactly. But wouldn't it be nice if it was just so normalized that you were ordering a non-alcoholic drink that nobody sort of batted an eyelid?

Speaker 1:

indeed, I think, for example um so house, they actually do. Well, they have a Vibranthe spritz and like it's my I know now that it's a non-alcoholic syrup and it has double the chardonnay, so even better. But I know, like it's not called anything like non-alcoholic, like not a no-grony or a non-alcoholic beer or whatever. It's just a Vibranthe spritz. I know that there's no alcohol in it and that's my go-to drink if I'm like in a work lunch, for example, and I don't want to drink or anything.

Speaker 2:

so I think that and it looks beautiful, it looks like any other drink, so yeah, absolutely naming piece is so important, isn't it that no groany the no hito uh virgin mocktail, you know what virgin's got to do with it.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2:

Let's stick with bars for a little bit. I'd love to talk a little bit about your projects and your scholarship. Your passion for helping women in hospitality, I think, is so admirable. Obviously, I have a long career working in bars and restaurants and clubs and things, so I can completely see where this has come from. But tell me a little bit about it what, how did this project come about and why is it so important to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we just finished our fourth year, so we're going into our fifth year next year. So it's an initiative that we started in 2020 and kind of we started it to create more opportunities for women in the bartending world, because traditionally it's super male dominated. The environment makes it just less attractive to a woman. Once you start wanting to have a family, then those hours become just increasingly more difficult for women than for men. That's just the sad reality that it is so kind of I think. Therefore, when we started, there were so little women in senior positions during, for example, tenders, orers or managerial positions, it was also male-dominated, I do think over the past 10 years that has massively increased and lots of the senior decision makers now are women in hospitality. So I think that on the side, massive improvement in hospitality in the UK, I think, but we just saw that there were just so little women visible in the UK, I think. But kind of we just saw that there were just so little women visible in the industry and so we wanted to change that by providing support, resources and kind of a pathway for talented women to kind of develop their skills in hospitality. So we basically organized a 12-week program per year with. It's often 12 women, nothing to do with the number 12, actually, now I think about it, we should change it. So basically we just give them kind of specialized training and mentorship in collaboration with some really amazing women and men, industry experts, and where we basically give them a support and mentorship on both technical skills so to help them in bartending, so going from mixology or how to produce profitable menus or how to do kind of food pairing or kind of more, or how to flavor profile different cocktails or non-alcoholics. So that's kind of more the technical part. And then a big part of the program is also more personal skills. So, for example, we run sessions on what are the options after your bartending career, whether that is in hospitality or going to the other side like brand sites, or opening your own bar or going into consultancy, um. So it's it's quite a broad range, as well as kind of mindfulness, uh, how to deal with longer hours, um. So it's very varied and it's very much about kind of the program and um and and learning new skills and kind of maybe giving a new view on outside of hospitality.

Speaker 1:

You have built such an amazing skill with in hospitality because I think your social skill I mean any, not your pure actual skills, but I think anyone coming from hospitality they, I do think, are just their eq is much. You've dealt with really angry customers. You've dealt with drunk people need to manage them, put it all together, put them back to their seat. I think being in hospitality you do get such good social skills, so I think that's a big part of it, but also the support network around it and the community building and kind of just fostering mentorship and friendships and a little community. And I think over the past years we've definitely also learned a lot on how we run the scholarships.

Speaker 1:

And this year was really truly amazing and, I think, the best year we've done, because it was the fourth year. It was the first year that we did all the sessions, or most of the sessions, in person. So we kind of took all the learnings from the first three years. We had a really great group of scholars and everyone was super invested and we still have lots of contact with them. Uh, still so I think it is the. The scholarship itself is very much improving, also on the, the, the courses that we give. It was also a learning curve for us. Um, so I think now going into the fifth year.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I'm really really super, uh, excited for next year year and just happy to be celebrating more women and I think, even if we make a tiny, small, small change, it's.

Speaker 1:

I think it's also good for awareness and I do think it's on smaller companies like us to give back to communities, because if we don't do it, the bigger companies are definitely not going to do it so and it's a lot easier for us to implement it. So it's definitely something super close to our hearts. Yeah, and then we are also part of this community called Raising the Glass, and it's founded by Rom, who is the head buyer at Co-op, and it's this community bringing any woman from the drinks industry together. So, whether it's women in accounting, jobs at wholesalers or whatever, it is like any woman within the industry in one way or another. And she also has her own podcast and I think that's also an amazing initiative, like whether I think our female bartendership is so much focused on, like those 12 graduates, and they are really being nurtured and that's fantastic. But then those initiatives like the Raising the Glass it's much more open to so many people, so much more women in the industry. I want to sign up to it. It's amazing.

Speaker 1:

I want to sign up to if you're a woman. It's by Women Build I don't know if you know it BWB, which is an initiative that champions businesses founded and led by women, and it's more kind of if you don't see it, no, what's their tagline? You can't be it if you don't see it. So to kind of put a spotlight on more female founded brands and to kind of promote gender equality in entrepreneurship and encouraging consumers to buy more female-led brands. They also do amazing events and networks and it's such a great community who's been super supportive also. So I do think there are so many now more and more support networks for women in drinks or not in drinks that there is just, which is great for building the profile and everyone kind of, I think, now feels that they can be part of a community and you do have a support system and I think that's just great for the industry in in general when you were talking about the, the course, I was just blown away.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I'm thinking back to when I was working still in the bars and restaurants. I would have loved something like this because you know I mean, I left hospitality in 2019.

Speaker 2:

So I went on maternity leave with my my youngest and then Covid hit in 2020 and I never went back.

Speaker 2:

But prior to that, it was 24 years and you are right, it is a very or at least it was when I was there a very masculine led industry, and I've worked in lots of different types of environments as well, and there have been women around, but, like myself, our behavior, our term, our language, the way we communicate, everything was had a masculine air about it, because it was very much led from the top down by this, this masculine energy, and one of the reasons is interesting you mentioned, you know, going on to other things as well.

Speaker 2:

So within, yes, frontline hospitality, but also within the rest of the industry, because the reason why I didn't go back to hospitality was because I had two children, a two-year-old and a newborn, and I was like I was at the time I was working in events, uh, sales, and I was heading up a department, and I was like there is no way I can go back into another company, do what I do on the salary that I want and work the hours that fit around my kids without having to do the late nights, you know the 60 hour weeks and it just, it couldn't work.

Speaker 1:

And you get child care in the middle of the day, and it's just. It just doesn't work. Yeah, no absolutely not.

Speaker 2:

You know, and I even remember at one point I had a female bartender and there weren't many most most of my career, the bar staff were mostly guys and wait staff were mostly girls, which I'm sure you've seen. Um, and she had a, a young child, and it was. It was the first question. It was like how do we manage child care around the shift work? That is, you know a venue that's open till midnight? Yeah, because there were just no provisions for it and and the management don't know how to handle it as well. So, even if they do want to do something, you know a venue that's open till midnight? Yeah, because there were just no provisions for it and the management don't know how to handle it as well.

Speaker 1:

So, even if they do want to do something about it, they're like, well, I don't, what's the solution? How do I fix it? Yeah, even if they want to do something about it, it's just a difficult environment. How do you do it? I do think, since COVID, not in actual if you actually work in bars, but I think if you work on the office side of hospitality, I do think it has improved a lot, but still, working in hospitality it's.

Speaker 2:

it's a difficult environment to combine with with uh, with having a family, absolutely I think it's absolutely amazing hearing about this, and I'll definitely make sure it is linked to below for people to go and check it out and the the other projects that you mentioned as well, because you know, we've got to champion the diversity that needs to come into our industries so that, so that we can stop, let's get to a point where we don't have to do this anymore, where there is that equality?

Speaker 2:

and we can just get on with making great drinks.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. And also, I think men are really fantastic human beings and it's not about excluding men outside of this hospitality. It's just about inclusion and getting minorities back into the industry and kind of championing, just like minorities within industry. And I think it's, for example, interesting, like in the female bartender scholarship that we do every year, we probably even have more male mentors than female mentors, and I think that's also great um who all want to support for free, um, so I do think that there are also, yeah, lots of uh, good men, human beings there who want to help support the cause absolutely, absolutely this.

Speaker 2:

There are great men out there. You know it's. And this projects like yours are not about saying that you know we need to get all the men out. It's about saying let's make this, even let's yeah, let's be aware of the fact that there are considerations that affect certain types of people more than they affect other types of people.

Speaker 2:

Um, you know, on the flip side, you know, I think there's a lot of things that need to be done for men as well. For example, we're talking around child care, paternity leave for men, whether in hospitality or anything else. You know, giving them two weeks, that makes absolutely no sense. So there's a quality in a lot of places that we need to, we need to get right and like we say so then we can stop talking about it and just get back to making and enjoying our lives and our great services. So, before I let you go, let's tell people where they can go to find, um, your amazing drinks. And then I have my last question for you. So, um, if people want to go and try some amazing double Dutch and find out more about the Double Dutch sisters, where do we send them?

Speaker 1:

You can buy us on our, on our webshop, on DoubleDutchDrinkscom, or if you're shopping on Ocado, you can add it to your basket, or also on Amazon and Amazon Prime. So if you're shopping there, you can always add it, and if you want to follow us on instagram, we're also on double-edged strings. We do great giveaways and and we talk more about our female bartendership. And when the the uh, when we open it next year, um, which is going to be in in q1, if you want to enter our scholarship, um, yeah, that would be great, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2:

I'll make sure that's all linked for everybody so they can, uh, they know where to go and find you. Um. So my last question is one that I put to everybody who comes on the show, because I am very passionate about spreading the uh love and appreciation for low no and light drinks around all of low no nation. So, um, bear with me whilst I get you to enter into your imagination and pretend it's a nice, hot, sunny day, wherever you are, and you are off to a barbecue at a friend's house. The seasons are changing. I might have to change this to a dinner party, but we'll stick with barbecue for now. And on that day you are choosing not to drink full strength alcohol, other than, of course, bringing along some amazing, amazing mixes and softs from the double dutch range. What other drinks do you like to enjoy from the low no or light category when you're choosing not to drink full strength alcohol?

Speaker 1:

and we'll start with you, joyce, I love thompson scott it's um, also founded by this fantastic woman, amanda, um, which is really great. I think that they offer a really and I think that's rare really delicious non-alcoholic wines and and sparkling wines and um, yeah, I really, I really love drinking it yeah, the naughty range is absolutely lovely and she's got quite a good selection, isn't she?

Speaker 2:

There's the sparklings and the stills, yeah there's rosés and yeah, and what about yourself, Russell? What do you like to enjoy? I?

Speaker 1:

think there are some great non-alcoholic spirits. Calenio, I always like, I drink it a lot with the ginger beer, super delicious. Everleaf, super nice and Pentire they're probably my favorite non-alcoholic spirits. But there are so many. We have a local actually here in Belgium. It's non-alcoholic cocktails, but proper cocktails, I mean, like super, super delicious. I did a blind tasting and I didn't even notice that it was non-alcoholic. What were they called.

Speaker 1:

They do like crazy flavors like wakame and yuzu, pear, thyme, rosemary. They're all still so not sparkling and they're also super expensive, but they are absolutely worth their money. They are super delicious. Yeah, Botanicals so B-O-T-A-N.

Speaker 2:

Botanicals so b-t-a-n okay, I'll check that one out.

Speaker 1:

Never heard of that. Yeah, also not a good non-alcoholic spirit actually.

Speaker 2:

Uh, there are many amazing, amazing, great suggestions. Uh resa joyce, thank you so much for joining me today. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you, amazing thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 1:

This was great.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Denise Hamilton-Mace

Host