Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
The companion podcast to Low No Drinker Magazine, the No.1 UK magazine for mindful & sober curious drinkers.
The Low No Drinker Podcast is the place to come and meet the people, places and brands leading the low-and-no-alcohol revolution. It’s your introduction to a life less intoxicated with no judgement, no pressure and no expectation.
Get closer to the people behind the drinks that make it possible for you to live a life less intoxicated, whether that’s for a night, a week, a month, a year or a lifetime, and the industry experts bringing it all to your door.
Find out what motivates them, what their own journey was like and why you should try their amazing drinks.
If you're new to drinking mindfully, just considering cutting back for a short time or beginning to explore a sober curious life, this is the podcast for you.
Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
#80. 12 Years in the Making: From Seedlip to Seasn to Sylva to Shandy with Ben Branson
This week, I’m bringing you none other than Mr Ben Branson! The man who turned the drinks world upside down with Seedlip joins me to share the story behind his newest venture, Sylva, with a quick stop off at his innovative bitters range, Seasn.
Sylva is a revolutionary approach to non-alc dark spirits that extracts flavours from trees using sonic maturation. From his humble beginnings as a farming-family-kid-turned-entrepreneur with zero drinks industry experience, Ben opens up about the rollercoaster journey of creating category-defining products. I loved his refreshing honesty about the challenges ("I wanted to close the business every week") and his passionate stance on not mimicking alcoholic spirits.
Between tales of forest foraging, his changed perspective on mocktails, and a sneak peek at his upcoming shandy project (coming to a BBQ near you this summer), this episode captures what makes Ben one of the most innovative minds in the low/no world today. But above all that, he was just so much fun to talk to – happy listening!
WE CHAT ABOUT
0:00 Ben Branson's story
5:24 Childhood inspiration
8:54 Anti-social behaviour
10:56 The birth of Seedlip
13:29 Small goals: Seedlip was initially a side project
15:27 Genius or lunatic?
17:40 Wavering self-belief: Being his own biggest critic
20:47 How do you stay motivated?
24:31 What is Sylva - how is it made?
30:25 Limited release allocation
31:50 Building a global local brand
36:00 The creative process
39:24 Making a sippable non-alc dark spirit without chilli
44:07 Familiarity of flavour without replication of alcohol
46:19 Dangerous expectations
48:17 Mocktails have their place
50:41 A brief history of bitters
54:38 Seasn bitters
58:57 Find Ben & all his brands
1:00:01 The BBQ-Q
1:03:46 Ben's new Shandy: Daystar
SYLVA
SEASN*
SEEDLIP
@SEEDLIP_BEN
IN/BENBRANSON
WE ALSO TALK ABOUT:
RAPSCALLIONSODA.COM
DAYSTAR
BEST NEXT EPISODE
#68 No.1 mistake made by new low/no drinkers
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Hello, hello and welcome to the Low no Drinker podcast, bringing you closer to the people, places and brands leading the low no and light alcohol revolution. Today, I am super honored to be joined by a man that many refer to as the founding father of the non-alcoholic category. How he feels about that I don't know. I guess we'll find out. But from launching Seedlip 11 years ago to creating Season Non-alcoholic bitters, to now pioneering a brand new production for non-alcoholic dark spirits in a form not seen anywhere else, ben Branson and his team because he doesn't do it all alone have been hyper focused for over a decade on bringing quality, innovation, excitement and creativity to those who choose to drink differently.
Speaker 1:His latest project, silver, which you can see behind me if you are watching on YouTube, is a mind-boggling coming together of science and nature, using something called sonic maturation no, I don't know what that is either, but he'll tell us in a minute. Demonic maturation no, I don't know what that is either, but he'll tell us in a minute and nature's trees to create a series of sippable dark spirits, and I'm very excited to find out more about all of it. So thank you very much for joining me, hello Ben. How are you doing, my lovely?
Speaker 2:I'm good Thanks for having me, Janice.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad to have you here. I always like to start by asking my guests to share a bit of their story and the journey that led them to where they are today. I know you've spoken to many people, so tell us the bits that you think that our listeners of Lono Nation should know about the journey that's led you to be where you are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll try and keep Um. I guess the most important things, I think, or the pivotal things, are I'm from a farming family that's probably number one and I absolutely love nature. That's sort of number two and I guess the by-product of of number one. Um, I had previous to seed lip. I had no experience really of the drinks industry. I was not a drinks maker, I was not a bartender, I was not a scientist and I was not a business person either.
Speaker 2:At this, incredibly fresh and incredibly naively, um, but absolutely fell in love with I don't know what I fell in love with. It wasn't so much I fell in love with the drinks industry, it's probably more that I fell in love with working with nature, finding a process to produce something that either hadn't been done or hadn't been thought about or, yeah, maybe had been overlooked and, importantly, I guess, made sure that I scratched an itch and definitely allowed me to kind of get deep into a topic and then I guess the win-win was that I tried to believe or thought that it had a place in the world and a relevance and a meaning to a big enough audience and therefore to be able to have some sort of viable business. Viable business. Um, and yeah, you know I I've told the seed lip story lots and lots of times and I'm not bored of it, but I definitely never tell it the same way twice. So, yeah, maybe it's. It's more just about editing the interesting bits of why I'm doing what I'm doing and probably why I've gone right back to the beginning to, yeah, try and take some more risks and do some more stuff that, yeah, maybe hasn't been done or isn't out there, because I see a need and I want to meet that need, and that's regardless of sort of alcohol content or drinks categories or any of this sort of business side.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, it's it's more about being able to scratch more riches. So it's all really selfish. Basically, denise, you know it's, I've got to be interested in it first and it and it'd be big enough and broad enough. As you know, there are 47 000 edible plants on this planet, so that's hugely fascinating from a kind of I don't know a treasure trove of potential tastes and flavors, and then there are 73 000 tree species, and so there's infinite combinations, regardless of, yeah, alcohol categories or, um, trying to copy something else, I'm totally driven by, yeah, being able to experiment with, with what's out there, um, and put things together in interesting ways and then ensure that at least half of it makes some sort of sense to people and try and fill in the fill in the rest, yeah, if there isn't that familiarity of what the product is or how to drink it.
Speaker 1:So how then did this? Because you didn't come from a drinks background. You came from a farming family, so obviously you have an appreciation for, for nature and the land. Well, that's a big difference between coming from farming to going. How can I take these thousands of species and turn them into something that people can drink? Was there a catalyst that led to that?
Speaker 2:I think you know, I remember being eight, nine years old and being able to, you know, walk into my kitchen at home and see a massive bag of potatoes, you know, on the floor, and I knew where those potatoes had come from. They'd come from our fields, I had seen the amount of work that went in to being able to produce and harvest those potatoes and it was without me realizing it was obviously just really instilled in me. Two really important things One was that just produce and working with the land to produce your food. That was number one, which sounds really simple and really obvious, but I feel like we're further away from it than we've ever been. That was number one, which sounds really simple and really obvious, but I feel like we're further away from it than we've ever been in terms of that process and that cycle. The second thing was hard work and a really strong work ethic. You know, everybody in my family, on both sides my mom and my dad's side lots of people work for themselves and so and farmers, you know, tend to obviously work for themselves as well. So I was really surrounded by a really strong work ethic, and so that's. You know, that left a big, I guess a big impression on me.
Speaker 2:And then the third piece is my dad is in the world of sort of design and advertising and so I've got this, this really interesting mix of eight, nine years old seeing our potatoes on the floor in the kitchen, but also then asking my dad about, you know, the latest advertising projects or I don't know. Walking around a supermarket and not just viewing it as a shopping experience but viewing it as like design and packaging and what jumps off the shelf and so literally Seedlip, you know was a product of my upbringing in the sense of wanting to initially grow stuff at home and learn about natural history and stumble upon this old remedy book that was a pdf called the art of distillation and kind of see some of these contraptions and this distillation equipment and sort of think, well, that looks like I'm quite curious about that, I quite like to have a go at that. And absolutely nothing to do with drinks, you know it was. I can remember it really, really clearly and taking mint from my garden and making a liquid that smelt and tasted like that plant. I found just so absolutely magical that I just wanted to keep doing it. And this, you know, at the beginning it had nothing to do with seed lip or non-alcoholic spirits. I'm really antisocial, denise. So it wasn't that.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, living in London in and out of bars or restaurants or events and kind of seeing the need. I, I I didn't. Um, it's quite happy in the countryside, like living in the woods and being with my dogs and learning how to do taxidermy and I just like, I like how, I like understanding how things work, I like improving things and, yeah, I like nature. And so what then became Seedlip? Just I don't know, it just ticked so many of those boxes and I became just absolutely voracious in my kind of learning.
Speaker 2:And that was learning, obviously, about botanicals, about natural history. It was visiting all the botanical gardens in England and Scotland. I visited loads of old farming museums, you know I was suddenly finding myself emailing the director of baskets at the English museum of rural life to ask her about seed lips, which was seed sowing baskets, um, yeah. Or buying a couple of black and white prints from 1920s farmers weekly, you know that had photos of seed lips still being used right through to just emailing anyone I could and asking them about bits of the business. And so let me understand value chains, let me understand a P&L. What does a balance sheet do? What do you do about this IP thing, what's trademarking? And I had no idea, but I just wanted to go and figure it all out.
Speaker 2:Um, and that stood me in really good stead, I guess, learning sort of every part of the business. Um, yeah, it, it wasn't. It wasn't really about sort of wealth domination plans, or I didn't really want it. It wasn't about building a team. It was very gradual and far more. I don't know far more about the process of, like, how do you start a business and how do you make a product? How do you make something real that tastes really nice, that meets a need? What do you make something real that tastes really nice, that meets a need? What do you call it? What does the packaging look like? How do you make it? Where do you sell it? How much do you make it for? How much do you sell it for Real, like basics? Yeah, um, yeah, so that that sort of naivety and and really crystal clear clarity on this is why I'm doing this project and this is what's in it for me. Um, yeah, I think has stood me in good stead then for all my subsequent projects.
Speaker 1:so you really are self-taught from the ground up, then for all my subsequent projects. So you really are self-taught from the ground up, then, for everything that you have achieved, and I think that's going to be quite an eye-opener to a lot of people who are listening, whether they are drinkers of low-no and light drinks or whether they're in the business, in the industry themselves, because it sounds like you literally went okay day one. Where do I start? What do I do? That must have been quite a or was it? Was it quite a daunting process, because I know from launching my own little corner of business that I'm trying to grow, that there is so much to consider, and if you're looking at everything from the marketing to the production, to the P&Ls, to what you call every little corner of it, that must have felt like a mammoth task. Or did it just flow?
Speaker 2:I think initially my goals were so small that it was so gradual, and so, if you, you know, if I wind back to, like you know, 2013, 2014, pre seed lip launching um, initially I it was just going to be a side project and initially it was just going to be, to be honest, it was. It was an exercise in. I was working agency side and helping you know founders and big brands with their design and their strategy, and I really enjoyed it when I met other founders and kind of talked to people who were, you know, in charge of their own kind of food and drink product and so so my original thinking was, oh, this is what a good thing to tell potential clients that, hey, I'm also, I've got something on the side. I feel you, I kind of I know what you're up against. That was it. That was kind of like this is just a sort of a bit of an experiment.
Speaker 2:And then that moved, that shifted from from sort of think about a little side project that I can tell clients about to I'll take it to a farmer's market. I'm gonna launch seed lip at a farmer's market. Um, I'm bearing in mind that my original thought was I was going to do a range of five different products. Okay, um, and I ended up only launching one product because I was I was you know again totally naive to the work involved yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So then it went to like farmer's market idea and then I think, the more, the more, the deeper I got into the project uh, the bigger the opportunity kind of presented itself, the more, probably, the more interaction I was having with other people about seed lip and therefore I was starting to get feedback. This was before launch, but I was starting to understand that either I was an absolute genius and no one had ever thought about this before and this was what the world needed, or I was an absolute lunatic and this was the most ridiculous idea.
Speaker 2:That was never going to sell a bottle, um, but it did it. Basically, I fell more and more in love with the project, and the size of the opportunity, or the size of the need, just grew and grew, uh. And then I literally just thought how am I going to know if this is going to go anywhere? Well, I'm going to start at the top. I'm going to go and see the buyer at Selfridges. I'm going to go and see a few of these top bartenders, I'm going to see if I can get a meeting and let's see what they think. And if they think it's any good, then maybe I've got something. If they don't, maybe I need a bit of a rethink.
Speaker 2:And so it was all very, it was all very contained, and I think I learned that I could dance between what I would call like minutiae thinking of very, very small, very, very detailed, very specific tests or builds or improvements, versus also being able to, you know, think that I was going to change the way the world drinks and complete delusion and total belief and total conviction and, yeah, absolute, pure optimism. To be like this is what the world needs, and I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1:We need that delusion, though, don't we? I think, if you want to make a success of what you're doing, whatever terms you use to measure success you've got to believe in it unwaveringly, because no one else is going to believe in it for you until you've already reached that pinnacle. And then they can jump on and say I always knew that that would work, but in the beginning.
Speaker 2:It's just you, it is. And I would say that my belief in all my projects has been completely wavering, completely wavering, and it has never been unwavering. Okay, I am seedlit and seasoned and Silver's absolute number one worst critic, and that's been really important for me to think through and spot and critique all of the objections and all of the challenges. So there's no surprises. So I've I've kind of already thought of everything that you might say before you maybe say it. That's number one, and that that that I'd urge anyone to do um, and I'd urge anyone to do that, because the reality is that nine out of ten of these food and drink kind of startups will fail. So the odds are so stacked against us that, yeah, why wouldn't you become sort of big champion but also biggest critic? I think it's been really healthy actually, and it's been incredibly healthy and important. However big the projects have got um, because it's easy to get carried away, uh.
Speaker 2:But then I, you know, first, six months in seedlet since launch, I wanted to close the business every week. I didn't want to do it um, I probably have that now once a month with all my other projects. Okay, um, but I'm okay with it because I don't close the business right, I don't, I don't act on those thoughts. But yeah, any, anyone. Well, I've not met another founder yet who, who's kind of said oh yeah, they've loved every day and, and, um, I've never had doubts about what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're quite open about that. I remember seeing a post that you did on LinkedIn about the challenges that you had, and you were specifically talking about the launching of silver in that post. But you mentioned, obviously, your previous projects and I think it's admirable, first of all, that on the social media sphere people are far more honest, you know, sort of just showing our best life, as the kids say, every single day. This stuff is hard, right, and, as you say, there's times when you just feel like should I just pack it all in? So what stops you from doing that then?
Speaker 2:It's a really good question. I mean silver, for example, even though you know, on the one hand I'm kind of like, yeah, but I should know a bit more about how to do this right. I did this 10 years ago with seed lip and Should be easier second time round. I know a bit more. I don't think it's. I think the challenges are different this time. And silver, because we have literally built a distillery and I have literally created a process from scratch. Process, uh, from scratch, um it's.
Speaker 2:It's just come with different challenges of trying to figure stuff out and having to really test stuff and having to test lots of different variables and having to decide or make some, make some really important decisions I mean important in my little world, not important in the world, I can tell you but you know variables on temperature or sonic frequency or PSI and pressure or wood selection or wood chip size or just lots of all the individual variables where there isn't a resource or reference point that I could go to. So you're having to figure all this out internally, which is part of the challenge. But that has been painful and lots of headaches and given that I first started thinking about silver way before seed lip, right, it's 12 years old. The idea for silver, that comes also with some pressure of like come on, I've been working on this for a long time. I've done this before. It's meant to. You know, I'm meant to know what I'm doing. But working with a completely different material like trees and wood has sort of self-enforced. A whole load of naivety again.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that I'd say for anyone listening ensuring that there are plenty of elements of being out of your comfort zone and yeah, in just finding ways to bring that naivety back or celebrate or embrace that naivety, yeah, I think in a category like non-alc are so important when it's so young and it's such early days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think naivety is just incredible. It sounds like you know it's what's still making it exciting for you and that's why you can find that wherewithal within to come back even when it feels so, so hard, and I think that's really important. We could go down this track for quite a while, but before we do, I'd love to take you to the drink itself, because it's different, you know it's unique. Like you said, you've been thinking about this for for 12, 13 years I mean, that's a long time in the making for, for an overnight uh production. You know, people often don't realize how much time and effort goes into something before they just see this finished product and and think you know, oh, he's done, seed lip, he's done, uh season, he's at it again. But actually no, this has taken a long time and it involves some phenomenal ingredients, some very interesting and unique techniques, and I was hoping that in as much in layman's terms as you can for the listener, who might not understand terms like sonic maturation, like me, I understand that term maturation.
Speaker 1:Like me, I understand that term. So. So tell me then, um. For those watching on youtube, you can see a bottle here from your first um production, which was your uh, is it paddock, paddock? Um, tell me a bit. How is this made? What is the story behind it, please?
Speaker 2:so, um, silver is the old english word for of the forest. That's the first kind of thing to say. Um, the second thing says I really love things beginning with s, and so seedlip season silver, and my wife is sam oh, there you go I do really love things beginning with s?
Speaker 2:um, ultimately, I wanted to to. I wanted to do two things I my best childhood memories involve wood and trees, and whether that's involve wood and trees and whether that's building tree houses or being in the forest or making a bow and arrow or playing poo sticks or whatever it is like, wood and trees just were part of my upbringing and I didn't know there are 73,000 different tree species on this planet and I had an inkling that trees were full of flavor. But we only really know about one tree, one species, and that's oak and everybody on that. You know oak barrels and whiskey making and aging, but actually trees are absolutely jam packedpacked, full of flavor. Um, and I wanted to create an aged liquid that celebrated trees and the flavor of wood that you could sip. So no mixing, no shaking needed, no fancy, needed something that you could literally pour in your nicest glass, sit down, take a moment and sip something that was absolutely like full of flavor, that wasn't trying to copy any other liquid, any other liquid, and so and this is starting to get a little bit technical, but what we do at Silver, at our distillery and our maturation lab, is we take wood some which we're launching.
Speaker 2:A new release, a second release this week, uses three kinds of wood from our forest. So we have four acres of forest here and it's full of probably over 40 different species, many of which people will know birch, oak, hazel pine. We've got an orchard here of apple and pear and plum. Anyway, these trees, we have proven, are absolutely full of beautiful, delicious, gorgeous flavor. So we want to extract that amazing flavor from them, and so we have a grain distiller, a base grain In our case it's rye, but it could be barley, oats, wheat, maize, corn and then we are taking our wood, we're processing our wood, so we're getting it down to wood chips and then we are blending our that mixture to heat, pressure, oxygen and ultrasound, and these four things, for a period of time we've proven, create the best conditions to make beautifully delicious aged non-alcoholic spirits.
Speaker 2:And so we are very small. We have Fabio, who's our full-time maker, and me, and that's it. We've literally got two domestic ovens, for example, are we can roast our wood or dry our wood out. We've got a small wood chipper. We've got four sonic chambers, four sonic reactors. They're industrial cleaning machines. They're not. You know, we're not built any kits, we literally take an axe out to the forest. I was standing picking fresh young hazel leaves two weeks ago that we're literally picking and we're distilling because they're so green and so floral.
Speaker 2:And so we make limited releases, limited batches. Our first release Padauk, you know, went into Selfridges and the Fat Duck and all these, yeah, received some really amazing press. And our second release Silver Haz is called is was an opportunity really to like capture what happens through the winter with trees, when they kind of go to sleep and then they're awakening in the spring, and so we've got this sort of much brighter, bouncier flavor profile. That sort of takes you kind of sort of earthy forest floor right through to sort of spring fresh cut green wood. Yeah, it's great, it's really different from our first release.
Speaker 2:And so we yeah, we make it in limited batches and then we sell that on allocation, which means certain customers can only get so much, and then we sell the rest of the batch through our website directly. The first release sold out, which is really exciting. Hopefully that will happen with the second release. Really exciting, hopefully that will happen with the second release. Um, and then we're yeah, the way we want to build silver is not by making a big factory. So there's this old idea um that wine knows a lot about, um and spirits know quite a bit about. Actually, which is you produce close to your produce?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's a really simple idea, and so our produce that we need is grain, cereal and wood, and so we can do that here in the UK, because we've got around us now we've got loads of fields, loads of farmers and loads of trees, and so, rather than but we want to, and we want to do that with tree species and cereals that make sense for a local audience, and so we're building another distillery at the moment outside of New York, so that will be our US headquarters where we get to work with US tree species and US farmers and US cereals. The ambition is to build a global local brand, and so each distillery will have its own responsibility for its own release schedule. Obviously, each kind of distillery is going to work with its own local materials. Yeah, rather than just make a bigger factory in one place, we just want to make the best, not the most, and obviously we want to get on and do that, and obviously we want to get on and do that.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, by building a kind of modular footprint of production, we think we can learn more faster and we think we can cater to a local audience much more effectively. Yeah, and there's tree species all over the world. Yeah, and there's tree species all over the world, yeah, which is kind of like the never-ending, endless fascination with this project, I think. So, yeah, does that help, do you think?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean it opens up several different tangents that we could then go on. I mean you say it's the never-ending resource of creativity that you can have with these tree species. It seems more like a neverland of excitement For those who are listening. I'm watching the video and Ben's eyes are just lighting up, talking about the possibilities and this term that you use a global local production which is going to allow you to do something that's quite unique in that you know, quite often people will say you know, if we're making a whiskey or a wine, no two drinks are ever the same because of the terroir or because of the site picking, but yours, literally, will never be the same because it's about what is produced by that land in that space for that market and there's the variables and sort of scope of this project are enormous.
Speaker 2:Project is the best exercise in um trying to stay focused. Um, because there are so many different variables and I mean, just how old is the tree, what part of the tree, when in the year is that tree being harvested? For example, what are you doing to that tree? Are you removing the bark, are you charring it, are you roasting it? Um, yeah, there's so many different. You know there's 650 species of oak, for example, and so, yeah, there are so many variables that this is a it waves and that kind of, yeah, that rise and fall of having to go really wide and broad and experiment. And so we can do, you know, we could test a hundred different tree species in two weeks and rule in or rule out what's good, what's interesting, what's not, but then having to make sure that we funnel it back in and make some choices and make some decisions, because otherwise we will just be a research company, um, and we'll never actually release anything. Because there are just, you know, tannins. Tannin content in wood is a whole other piece. Moisture content in wood is a whole other piece, terroir of the wood, age of the tree, except, like there are just so many different variables. But we are, we are absolutely building live in the.
Speaker 2:Our second release is way better than our first release. Okay, absolutely way better. Um, the process was better. We were more organized. I think the flavor profile is better, etc.
Speaker 2:Like the labels, the right height, you know all the little improvements, um, and so, yeah, we're really open about that, because I think we're we're in uncharted territory and and we were like that with with seedlip in the early days, and I think we, yeah, we learned like that with Seedlip in the early days and I think we, yeah, we learned then that it's just better to be, yeah, it seems to be just better to be open about that, that we're experimenting, but we're really proud of what we're doing rather than I don't know pretend we've got it all figured out or pretend we're bigger than we are. Yeah, I mean, I run the social media, I write the newsletters, I'm responding to people's complaints occasionally when they have them, I'm holding my hands up going. Well, I'm the one that made the decision on the box that ripped. I'm the one that made the decision on the box that ripped. I'm the one that made the decision that the label should be that high. Yeah, I'm the one that's sort of fully responsible.
Speaker 1:The buck stops with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:It's okay, isn't it? It is okay because you're clearly putting so much of yourself into this as well. You know you're talking about the fact that you were out there two weeks ago picking the leaves and you know it's just you and one other person actually making this drink, and it's very refreshing. Obviously, in the low-no space it's a lot of small businesses, a lot of small producers. No space, it's a lot of small businesses, a lot of small producers. Um, but to know that somebody is putting their own blood, sweat and tears, obviously not literally into the liquid, but into everything not into the liquid, but literally.
Speaker 2:You know you can see plasters on my fingers, denise, and you know, yeah, that there have been blood tears 100%, but not in the liquid.
Speaker 1:I wanted to touch on something that you mentioned when you were describing what you're trying to produce with the drink itself, and again, it's something that I've seen you speak about before which is that you said you're trying to create something that is is delicious and and amazing in its own right.
Speaker 1:I'm really fascinated by the fact that you've made a sippable drink in the low no space, because, um, last week, at the end of last week, I was uh speaking at an event and somebody was asking me about, uh, non-alcoholic dark spirits, uh, the fact that he can't find any for his pub group that tastes the same as the full strength versions. Now, I've done many episodes on this podcast about why that would be the case From your perspective. From your point of view, obviously, first of all, you've made the choice to make a sippable drink, which is a huge challenge within this space, um, so I'd love to know about the thought process behind, why you decided to take on such such a bold challenge and why it's so important to you that it is, within its own right, a sippable dark spirit rather than a whiskey alternative or a rum alternative, so on and so yeah, good, good questions.
Speaker 2:um, I actually, you know, seedlit. We spent so long and so and and and so much time and effort and I see you know this is. This is not just seed, this is common to any, certainly any, non-alcoholic spirit. Serve, serve, serve. You know recipes, serve rinsing, kind of repeating the messaging of like how do I drink it, when do I drink it? And that education piece.
Speaker 2:And you know, we just focused on the sea lip and tonic and if you were lucky, you would get someone making it with a nice glass. If you were really lucky, that glass would be full of ice more than a couple of cubes, and if you were just, if it was your best day ever. There was a garnish, however, there was a garnish, that is and people like Fevertree won't mind me mentioning that it's a real challenge even for Fevertree to get someone to garnish, you know, a gin and tonic or a rum and Coke or whatever, getting two ingredients in a glass for a consumer at home. Don't let anybody kind of tell you that people make lots of cocktails at home because they don't really right. They really don't. And so we want things to be easy and simple, and the simplest serve of all is a neat pour, but the kind of you're naked right is there's no bubbles, there's no sugar, um, there's no other ingredients, there's not even a garnish to hide around, um, and so this was, yeah, this is a kind of a big holy grail, I guess, opportunity um for people to have something for that occasion. In a world where, you know, when everything's really fast and life feels kind of manic and quick, I think having that moment to, yeah, sit down and take a moment and sip something, uh, that's full of flavor, I think is, yeah, is is a luxury actually, um, as simple as an occasion. It is so, yeah, that that was. I thought that was really lacking in non-alcoholic Um, I also personally have a real problem with, you know, people attempting to make liquids burn with capsicum and making people's mouths hot with chili.
Speaker 2:Alcohol does something very different. Alcohol is more trigeminal and it's more warmth and that emanating across your chest and behind your eyes and the back of your head, rather than staying in your mouth and on your tongue and burning like spice. And so we've taken a different approach, with silver to that, and you will get that warmth that builds. You won't, you won't get any kind of chilly heat in your mouth, it's, it's more uh yeah, it's more warming behind the head and behind the back of the eyes. Um, and then the second part to your question of like, why not, why not try and make a whiskey, or a rum or a cognac or a brandy? Um, I don't. So I don't drink alcohol, so I don't know what any of those things taste like number one. So it'd be really boring project for me trying to make something that I don't even know where I'm aiming towards. That's number one. The second one being I think there are, you know, and we did this with Seedlip and we're doing it with Season.
Speaker 2:I think there's ways to bring familiarity for people, whether that's when do I drink this? What kind of drink is this? When do I drink it? What kind of ingredients are in it? What does it kind of taste like? Where do I buy it? What does it come in?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's in a glass bottle. Okay, it's in a glass bottle and it's kind of dark looking, and you're telling me that I sip it. Okay, that sounds like a whiskey. Okay, if that's what it sounds like to you, then that's no problem, but we're not trying to tell you that that's what it is, or that's what we try to make it taste like, and I I have enough proof from the thousands and thousands of people that told me that a cedar and tonic tastes like a gin and tonic when it like can't, because it doesn't even contain any juniper. Um, and who am I? You know, taste is so subjective, right, that if somebody tells me that, somebody tells me seed lip and tonic tastes like a gin and tonic, then that's good for you, because somebody else told me that it tastes like witch's piss. So like do you know what?
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:Each to their own and we've had loads of people with silver saying, oh my God, that tastes like nothing I've ever tried before and is absolutely mind-boggling and brilliant. Or oh my God, that tastes like the bourbon that I really like. I get concerned when I see non-out products where the first thing I read after the brand name is gin or vodka or whiskey or rum. I get really concerned, not for me, but for the consumer and for the business that's doing that. But for the consumer and for the business that's doing that, because I just find it.
Speaker 2:I find it really misleading and I find it dangerous from an expectation setting perspective, because you are telling somebody for example, here is a non-out whiskey, my God, it better be a non-out whiskey, right? Because if it isn't anywhere hitting every single button that a whiskey does, apart from the fact that the alcohol content is different which, by the way, I believe is impossible actually then people are going to be disappointed. And you don't have to go too far and read a whole load of reviews on the dark spirits in non-alc to see that that expectation is incredibly high. In dark non-alc, the white spirits you can get away with right, it needs to be mixed and people aren't necessarily used to drinking those neat, and so there is more.
Speaker 2:there's a bit more permission yeah whereas, yeah, in the dark space it's. It's really got to stand up. And if you aren't saying, drink this neat, then I'd also be really concerned. Um, because that's the behavior we associate with age spirits is that they are, whether you mix them with Coke or have them in a cocktail or whatever, but really they're judged on how they perform when they're neat. And so, god, I'm saying all this, denise, now I'm thinking fucking hell, I've really like gone for the top ticket here, haven't I? I've really set the stall out.
Speaker 1:I think that's OK. I think that you should, and one of the things I want to use this platform for is to open up this conversation, because there will be people out there who wholeheartedly agree with everything you've just said. And there will be people out there who wholeheartedly agree with everything you've just said, and there will be others I've had some of them on the podcast who would think you're talking absolute tosh, and that's okay, because I think we're lucky enough to be in a position in this category now where we can have that conversation, where there is enough variety. You know, people a slight tangent, but people argue all the time about the word mocktail and they get really upset about it, and I'm just really excited that there are enough people drinking it to be able to have a conversation about it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean I've got. I was very I was, I was the one ready to launch a petition to remove the word mocktail, denise and and actually I've changed my. I changed my mind a few years ago. And actually I've changed my mind a few years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we've all slightly been missing the point, if I'm really honest in the sense that we don't it's not that we don't need mocktails, it's not that it doesn't matter that mocktails are sort of downplayed or maybe a bit you know, I don't know a little bit mean.
Speaker 2:What matters is that they are qualified for what they are. And if we can agree that a mocktail is a blend of fruit juices and syrup with an optional umbrella and you can find it for three or four quid in a menu and it's cheap and it's probably got a silly name and kids can drink it, cool, that's a mocktail. That is not what the non-out sector is talking about or making or proposing. And so mocktails are fine, but they, they just need to be yeah, they just need to be qualified for what they are, rather than, yeah, confused with non-out cocktails that there's a there's a place for everything, and everything in its place, as, as the saying goes yeah, I'd agree with that um, as we're talking non-out cocktails, uh, I would be remiss to to have you on the show and not have a little chat about, uh, your bitters.
Speaker 1:So, yes, uh, you mentioned your love of all things s, including your wonderful wife. Shout out to sam. Um. Season was launched not too long ago, so you've been quite busy for quite some time.
Speaker 1:Um yeah tell me about season uh, and also, while I have you here, tell me and the listeners a little bit about how they can best use uh cocktail bitters in their drinks, because I think a lot of people are still quite uncertain about them, particularly if you don't come from a bar or hospitality or drinks heavy background in some way, shape or form. You might look at it and go, okay, it looks great, what do I do? Add soda. So tell us a bit yep, so season began.
Speaker 2:As a project in 2017, I started making, uh, bitters and blends of of bitters that we would give to bartenders or server events, and I fell in love with this incredibly weird and wonderful category. So, to give you a little rundown on it, I guess bitters originally were being made 5,000 years ago by the ancient Egyptians and they were medicine and this was about putting plants together that often tasted really bitter, but would do you some good Simple terms. Fast forward to the 1820s and we have the first written definition of a cocktail, and that first written definition, which was in the US, called for spirits of any kind, water, sugar and bitters.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:In the first ever documented recipe for a cocktail. Bitters are right there. And then we had the bitters that everybody knows, angostura, which is, you know, 1825 200 years old this year again originally a medicine for sailors and soldiers and then became an important ingredient in a bartender's kind of cocktail repertoire, mostly for things like the old fashioned. And so we've got this like 200 year history of kind of bitters being used for a cocktail and they really are the kind of the seasoning I guess no pun intended or pun intended Maybe they do so much and they're so concentrated that you don't need a lot of them. They will accentuate flavor, they will bring body complexity, add depth or richness or brightness. If you want to take a drink up, they're kind of that sort of finishing touch, I guess, where you kind of think, oh, there's something missing from that, and you add a few dashes of bitters.
Speaker 2:Most bitters, 99% of bitters, are high alcohol content. So Angostura is 44.7% ABV. You don't actually need depending on the size of the drink that you're drinking, you don't actually need that many to start tipping beyond 0.5. So that's just one thing to say that if you are listening, thinking, oh yeah, let me go and get some cocktail bitters. But you want to make a non-alcoholic drink, just be careful. Or have a look at Camper Englishes. He wrote a post all about the maths on Angostura and how many dashes and how to work it out, which I'm sure I can find and send to you, denise.
Speaker 1:Fantastic yeah. I'll find that and I'll put that in the show notes for people to go and check it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good one, because most people don't realize. So, anyway, you've got this weird old category, um, that is, but is in the recipe for, oh, about 15 of the world's 50 most popular cocktails, right, so it's kind of they're there, but it's grown up within the bartending world and I wanted to kind of simplify that and I wanted to bring some real like foodie taste credentials to this space and make it simple for people to kind of go. Look, we season our food drinks and, if I can get you to add three dashes of season to your tonic or your soda or your ginger ale or whatever it is, to pep it up and turn it from being a mixer into like a proper drink, yeah, we've already sort of got 200 of the UK's best kind of bars, restaurants and hotels putting season in alcoholic cocktails and non-alcoholic cocktails. Chefs are absolutely loving what we've produced, which is really important because these are just about pure taste and flavor, and we've made it really simple.
Speaker 2:We've got only got two products season light and season dark and effectively we've just broken the world of drinks in two, and so I think you kind of have your lighter drinks, like lemonades and sodas and, uh, non-outspirits like seed lip and mojitos and margaritas and you've kind of white wine and champagne. You've got kind of like all that light, bright stuff, yeah, yeah. Well, seasoned light goes beautifully with that area. And then you've got the kind of darker sort of flavor profile world of ginger and cola and rum and red wine and just all those sort of darker, richer coffee kind of flavors. Um, and seasoned dark which is like we've really amped up the kind of umami notes and the spice notes and we're working with over 30 different plant extracts across these two products, so they're jam-packed with actually quite savory.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm just trying to think season light, as you know, is sea salt and it's lime and it's rosemary and it's jalapeno for a little bit of a kick. Um, and season dark. You've got everything from like smoked cherry wood and red chili to cocoa and orange and, uh, belitas mushroom extract, which is absolutely delicious, and you've got black pepper. So you've got salt in season light, you've got black pepper in season, you've got salt in season light, you've got black pepper in season dark. And they're really yummy and they're really easy to use and I don't think they're not just there to make cocktails, they're just there for I guess it's a bit like a hack really, of you just add three dashes, have a stir and you completely kind of enhanced the drink and made a soft drink into actually an adult drink.
Speaker 1:And I saw your Instagram post where you were very adamant that these are dashes, not drops.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of started seeing people just kind of doing a measly like drip, drip, drip, and I was like no, come on, there's no. I mean they're vegan, they're 0.0, there's no sugar, they are like pure flavor, uh, and if you like the taste of it then go for you know, then then sort of don't be shy.
Speaker 1:It also helps me have a business, obviously, if you're not going drip, drip, drip like get in there, get in there, get it in there absolutely well, talking of helping you have a business, um, this has been fascinating and I could ask you so many more questions. Um, if people want to support the business by getting hold of some season, some seed lip, some silver, they want to follow you. They want to know what's going on in the mind of Ben Branson. Where are we sending people to find out more about you? And then I'll ask you my last question.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's go for some websites SeasonYourDrinkscom, let's go for some websites SeasonYourDrinkscom, silverlabscom, seedlipdrinkscom I'm at Seedlip underscore, ben on Instagram, and I'm Ben Branson on LinkedIn. Yeah, and I have a charity, all about neurodiversity, where we have a weekly podcast celebrating great minds and that is called the hidden 20 apple spotify youtube fantastic.
Speaker 1:I will make sure that's in the show notes for everybody and if you are listening on audio rather than watching on youtube, then I highly recommend you pop over and give Ben's podcast a listen to. Now before I let you go. Ben, it is time for my last question, which I ask everybody who comes on the show, because I truly believe in spreading the love to all of Lono Nation. We are recording in springtime. You're obviously far more aware of the seasons and the joy they bring than I am. I'd like you to imagine you are hosting or off to a barbecue with the lovely Sam and some friends and you're bringing a couple of drinks with you to enjoy on the day Now. Obviously we've got a wonderful array of S-lame drinks to be bringing, along with seed, lip season and silver, but what else in the Lono space would you like to enjoy on a day like that?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to be slightly so. Firstly, I'm going to choose two, okay that's fine.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be slightly naughty with the first one, and this goes actually sort of against my S rule, because we are launching a shandy this summer called Daystar, which is a word for the sun, and we're bringing shandy back and it is that just most refreshing, delicious blend of lager and lemonade. It's 0.0 for a barbecue in the summer, absolutely just beautiful. So, yeah, we're doing a little launch of that this summer, so I'm definitely going to bring some of that along. And then I have a buddy of mine called Gregor has an amazing mixer company up in Scotlandotland called rapscallion soda. Okay, and they make like the most beautiful, like blueberry soda, for example, and like a awesome lime soda. They're processing everything themselves.
Speaker 2:Um, they've got, I think they've been going for a few years, a few years now. They're very selective about where they sell, how they sell. They've got a stunning looking brand. They really like they sort of do the right thing and they do it in the right way and they're doing things properly. And, yeah, they're, they're just gorgeous mixers that you know. Lots of people obviously can put alcohol with them. Loads of the great non-alcoholic spirits work really well with them. Um, I think, yeah, having great mixers, if you like non-alcoholic. It's easy to get swept up in what's this non-alc wine or this non-alc beer or this non-alc spirit and slightly forget that you've got to have great tools as well. You've got to have a great mixer, and I love Fevertree with all my heart, but I also, yeah, I love what Gregor and the guys up in Scotland are doing with Rapscallion Soda, and so, yeah, big shout out that their drinks need to be at lots of barbecues this summer.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. I'll have to. I'll have to see if I can get him on the show, because somebody else was recommending him a couple of episodes ago as well. So, yeah, they sound and they look amazing. I've seen them, but they look, amazing yeah they sound and they look amazing. I've seen them. I haven't chased them, but they look amazing.
Speaker 2:They are. Yeah, he made an apple pie one for an apple pie soda at Christmas. What? And yeah, it was. I'm trying to get him to make a lemon barley soda because we need it as a mixer for silver, because it would be. Oh yeah, it would be amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go, gregor, I'm, I'm, I'm with ben on this one. Get going, let's get that lemon barley happening, and uh and daystar. When can we expect to find out a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2:yeah. So, um, my wife basically said to me two and a half years ago, when she was pregnant with our third daughter, she'd been out for dinner and she came back and I was like, how'd you get on? Yeah, it was fine. Would you have to drink? Oh, there weren't really many options, um, but I tell you, what I really wanted was just like a really good shandy, and literally I could taste it, and then I couldn't find it, and so then I had to make it, and so, yeah, we're going to do a sort of June onwards, we're going to do a small kind of test for the summer. Yeah, we've got some fun ideas and it's going to be a real scrappy startup. You know, test launch. We're a small team and so, yeah, stay tuned.
Speaker 1:You're a small team and you're kind of busy, right. I mean you've got a lot going on.
Speaker 2:It's good. It's good. We've just got to keep the focus and keep really brilliant, clear, direct communication, and then nothing gets lost and everybody, we're all clear on what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Oh, I'm excited to see it. I am excited to keep following you and your journey, everything that you've done. I love that you are not trying necessarily to fill a gap in the market, but trying to create something that you know needs to be addressed in a way that serves so many people, no matter what they're looking for. This show isn't about telling people not to drink. It's not about sobriety. It's about amazing drinks that can help people to enjoy a life less intoxicated on their own terms, and I think, from from Seedlip to Season to Silver to Daystar, it's quite obvious that there's a reason why you're so admired in this space. So thank you for all the amazing drinks you keep making and the amazing education you're bringing about how we can use nature in a positive way to add to our drinking experience. It's phenomenal. Thank you, ben.
Speaker 2:Thanks, denise, thank you.
