More Good Drinks - Industry Podcast

The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover is back for its ninth year, and from 24 June until 5 August, 200-odd venues from Paihia to Dunedin will be arguing their case for the country’s best toasted sandwich. There’s whitebait in there this year. Veal. Prawns. Raclette. Somebody has gone paneer. It is, as always, an exercise in seeing how far a grilled cheese can be pushed before it stops being a grilled cheese.

But if you actually want to understand what makes a Toastie Takeover entry work, don’t start with the sandwich. Start with the drinks match - exactly what will balance all that cheese and acidity?

Shining Peak Brewing usually enters the competition always as a brewery first: toastie on one side of the pairing, beer suggestion on the other. This year they’ve gone one further, building a full drink to match rather than just a suggestion, and the drink might be the more interesting creation of the two.

A brewery that thinks in matches, not menus

Shining Peak’s whole operation celebrates pairing. Every beer comes with a suggested food match as standard, which head brewer and co-founder Jesse Sigurdsson says has been core to the place since it opened. It’s partly practical — a genuinely enormous range of beer styles and flavours gives you far more to play with than the traditional wine list — and partly a deliberate play for people who wouldn’t otherwise order a beer. “It’s trying to capture people from all walks of life,” Sigurdsson told me on More Good Drinks this week, not just the beer-drinking crowd that would find the brewery anyway.

The toastie itself leans hard into that pairing instinct rather than sitting on the sidelines of it. It’s built on pickle-studded bread, layered with smoked beef and smoked cheddar, caramelised sweet onion and pickle relish, finished with pickle aioli and served alongside a beef consommé for dipping — a nod to the traditional beef dip. Sigurdsson tried for the first time in Vancouver last year and has become a fan of the richness and depth of flavour it delivers.

Why there’s a margarita involved at all

The brief to the bar team was simple: everyone online is mixing pickle juice into Coke and Pepsi, there’s clearly an appetite for pickle-forward drinking right now, so what happens if we take that seriously? Restaurant and bar manager Luke landed on a margarita almost immediately (sorry cola & pickle, this is not your time to shine) — tequila, triple sec, lemon juice, McClure’s sweet and spicy pickle juice, rimmed with pickle and chilli salt — reasoning that a margarita’s citrus-forward brightness was already halfway to pickle territory.

It’s a good instinct. Pickle brine and a well-made margarita are chasing the same thing: a clean, high-acid hit that resets your palate rather than filling it up. Put it next to a toastie that’s rich with smoked beef, caramelised onion and a consommé dip, and the drink is playing a key role in delicious balance and leaving you begging for more, instead of bloated and full.

Sigurdsson’s own explanation of what makes a beer work with food doubles as a pretty precise account of why this pairing succeeds: it comes down to balance, and to matching texture as much as flavour. A rich, fatty dish wants something with genuine acid cut, he says, in the same way a bitter IPA can work brilliantly against pork belly. The margarita’s job here isn’t to complement the toastie quietly. It’s to argue with it a little, in exactly the way a good pairing should.

There’s experience and passion behind the philosophy and execution. Sigurdsson has been brewing for close on fifteen years, starting out scrubbing floors and cleaning kegs at Whitecliffs Brewery north of New Plymouth in exchange for the chance to learn. Fifteen years later, his conversation keeps coming back to drinkability and inviting people into a great beer experience the same way chefs develop tasting menus. It also fits a brewery that’s built its identity on very local, very specific storytelling — beers named for Taranaki eccentrics like the Citroën-obsessed Mad Max, another local hero now celebrated.

How to get amongst it

Toastie Takeover runs 24 June to 5 August, with finalists announced on 5 August and the Supreme Winner revealed on 20 August. Every entry has to sit between two slices of bread, include cheese (or a vegan alternative), be eatable by hand, and feature McClure’s Pickles — the Detroit-founded, now globally stocked pickle brand behind the whole competition, distributed here by Cook & Nelson. Judging runs on presentation, preparation, eatability, taste, provenance and innovation, with a People’s Choice vote running alongside the judges’ picks, so turning up and ordering the thing genuinely counts for something.

If you’re anywhere near New Plymouth — or Christchurch, once Shining Peak’s new site is open — this is the entry worth ordering as a pair rather than picking apart. Get the toastie. Get the margarita next to it. Notice how much work the drink is quietly doing. Then go find the venue near you doing the same thing badly, so you know the difference when you taste it.

Full entrant list and voting at toastietakeover.com.

There’s something uniquely special about learning what shapes the people who shape some of our most memorable moments. Hospitality is all about helping people to make connections, but sometimes the most interesting person in the room is not the loudest.

Ryan Oliver is warm, gentle, and often finds himself a watcher before he’s a participant. This episode goes behind that reserve: an OE that started with forensics and ended in a London events agency, four formative years at Deadshot under Ali and Heather, a stint running Caretaker that taught him as much about people as it did about cocktails, and where he’s landed now — Panacea’s batch-built, whisky-forward bar, where the focus is the welcome. Along the way: an annual pilgrimage back to a European fencing club, a hostel night in Vienna that turned into an impromptu spirits tasting, a Prague bartender baffled by the very idea of batching, and the vintage Manhattan that’s about to disappear from the menu because the vermouth ran out decades ago.

In this episode

* On learning bartending from Ali and Heather at Deadshot: the technical skill turned out to be secondary to learning how to get a guest to tell you what they actually want when they say “I don’t know.”

* On the difference between fresh service and batch service: it’s not a downgrade in craft, it’s a different lens — creativity moved from the guest’s hand guiding you in the moment to designing for a much wider frame beforehand.

* On travel: an annual fencing reunion in Europe going back to his OE years anchors a month of travel every year, built around visiting old teammates from Belgium, Spain, Italy and the US.

* On hospitality across cultures: the standout memory is a Hungarian father, house-sitting for his daughter’s hostel in Vienna, sharing four bottles of his own homemade spirit with a handful of strangers at midnight.

* On regulation: a Prague bartender’s disbelief that Panacea can batch and store cocktails at all — in the Czech Republic, mixing has to happen in view of a camera in the walk-in.

Fizzy For Good Sh*t

Tash sits down with Becs Caughey — the brand mind behind Cook and Nelson, importer/distributor of some genuinely excellent global products, and founder of Good Sht Soda — to mark the launch of their new Apple flavour. Becs unpacks how Good Sht became the world’s first pre- and probiotic soda, why fibre deserves “its full belt-singing moment,” and what four years of working with international scientists looks like when you’re trying to make a probiotic shelf-stable without refrigeration. The conversation moves from can design (deliberately uniform, deliberately legible — no shouty health claims, just the actual ingredient list blown up large) into the bigger picture: GLP-1 medications, an FMCG sector forced to do more with less food, and why “wellness” has quietly become a trust argument as much as a taste one. Becs and Tash also trade notes on apple and whisky pairings, because priorities.

In this episode:

* The origin story: a stalled shipping container, a tiny American brand and a decision to build something local

* Why the prebiotic fibre matters as much as the probiotic — “it’s like a dog with a bone”

* The science behind an ambient, non-refrigerated probiotic that “wakes up” on your tongue

* Designing a can that’s colour-blocked, uniform, and built to make the ingredient list the hero

* Apple flavour development: nostalgia, orchard-fresh aromatics, and getting the granny smith/braeburn balance right

* GLP-1 drugs, shrinking portion sizes, and what that’s doing to restaurant menus and bar pours overseas

* Why Good Sh*t makes zero claims on pack — and the food lawyer reality behind that decision

* Distribution: where to find it in NZ, and the early export push into Australia and Asia

Tash speaks with Mark Teague about the evolution of Tasmanian whisky, the stories behind its growth, and why Tasmania’s distilling scene has become such a compelling global reference point. Mark shares how a lifelong connection to Tasmania and a deep love of whisky led him into event organising, whisky advocacy, and a central role in Tasmanian whisky culture.The conversation explores the true history of whisky in Tasmania, including early distilling on the island, the complexities of the laws that shaped the industry, and why the common “origin story” is often oversimplified. Mark and Tash also discuss how the industry has matured from a small cluster of similar distilleries into a much broader and more varied whisky landscape, with a growing focus on volume, innovation, and distinct house styles.The episode also looks ahead to Tasmanian Whisky Week, including the showcase, meet-the-maker events, bus tours, awards, and the community atmosphere that draws whisky lovers from across Australia and New Zealand. It’s a lively, insightful conversation about whisky, place, people, and the future of one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most exciting spirits regions.

Key topics

* Mark Teague’s whisky journey and connection to Tasmania

* The real history of distilling in Tasmania

* How Tasmanian whisky has matured and diversified

* Volume, cask strategy, and production changes

* Tasmanian Whisky Week and its signature events

* Community, tourism, and the culture around whisky lovers

Notable moments

* Mark explains how he became involved in Tasmanian whisky through events and tastings

* Tash and Mark unpack the myths around Tasmania’s whisky history

* The discussion turns to how distilleries are now building for scale and distinction

* Mark shares what makes Tasmanian Whisky Week such a unique destination event

* The episode closes with excitement around upcoming festivals, previews, and awards

Why listen

If you’re interested in whisky, Tasmanian food and drink culture, or how a regional industry builds identity over time, this episode offers a thoughtful and well-informed look at the people and ideas shaping the scene.

Mentioned in this episode

* Tasmanian Whisky Week

* Bill Lark

* Casey Overeem

* Sullivan’s Cove

* Belgrove

* Old Kempton

* Greenbanks

* Hunter Island

* Derwent Distillery

* Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania

Quote

“Whisky doesn’t matter where it’s from — it’s from everybody.”

Wellington hospitality has a few genuine institutions left. Dee’s Place — basement bar, no signage, twelve seats at the bar, juicer running — is becoming one of them. This week Tash sits down with Devan Nesbitt, bar manager and day-one crew at Dee’s, to talk about how you build a bar that people actually want to drink in, when you’re the customer.

Devan’s path runs through Matterhorn and Hawthorne Lounge to name just a couple and a slice of iconic Wellington bartending compressed into one conversation. A business degree that didn’t finish. A Negroni he’d never heard of. A pact with a mate that turned into a career pivot.

They get into the ice. Specifically: why ice is the most important ingredient in any bar, what a Hoshizaki cube tilted just off-centre does to the drinking experience, and why Tash has never had a cold nose problem at Dee’s. From there: vermouth blending as house philosophy, the slow conversion of single malt loyalists to American whiskey, and what seasonal produce-led menus actually look like when you don’t have a rotovap.

Also: milk punch, the Remember the Maine, Chattanooga Bottled in Bond, and why the staffy drink is a Michelob Ultra. Maybe a whiskey. Depends on the weekend.

In this episode:

* How Matterhorn and Hawthorne shaped a generation of Wellington bartenders

* Why Dee’s was designed around the bar, not the tables

* Ice as the most considered ingredient in the glass

* The American whiskey conversion programme, and how rye is usually where it starts

* Seasonal menus without the fancy equipment

* On mentorship: teaching fundamentals without the kitchen militia energy

* Outstanding Bartender of the Year, and why it still comes back to service

Adam Chapman of Sunshine & Sons in Australia, joins the More Good Drinks Podcast to dive into his unique approach to rum distillation, safety, and education. With over 30 years in winemaking and a passion for teaching, Adam shares profound insights into spirit craftsmanship, sensory evaluation, and industry challenges.Why Adam? Well - he has a unique ability to call a spade a spade, and an unerring drive for accuracy and understanding. There’s plenty here to examine by way of inspiration, attention to craft and just a good bloke having a bloody good time and trying to stay alive doing it.

He’s not afraid to call out what craft distillers could be doing better and to share his rich knowledge. So listen in, you’ll benefit.

In this episode:

* The transition from winemaking to rum distillation driven by climate change and a passion for spirits

* How wild fermentation and organic molasses create a full-bodied, muscular rum profile

* The importance of texture, mouthfeel, and structure in spirit evaluation and how Adam measures these aspects

* An overview of his innovative tasting scale from 1 to 5 across various characteristics

* His approach to blending, maturation, and experimenting with fermentation processes to develop signature styles

* The critical role of safety equipment, including pressure relief valves, in small-scale distilling

* Emphasizing industry safety, compliance, and the importance of education in spirits production

* Adam’s perspective on Australian rum’s potential and the influence of terroir

* The value of sensory education, understanding compounds, and how to communicate complexity to consumers

* Insights into his ongoing training contributions and plans to influence the industry positively

* The significance of respecting cultural traditions like Baiou and indigenous ingredients in spirit innovation

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction: Rum innovation and Adam’s background

02:00 - Transition from winemaking to rum distillation

05:15 - Wild fermentation and organic molasses as signature elements

08:30 - Texture, structure, and sensory evaluation in spirits

12:45 - The unique tasting scale and scoring process

16:10 - Maturation styles and blending strategies

20:20 - Safety practices: pressure relief and distillation equipment

24:00 - Industry challenges and safety standards

28:30 - Australian rum: terroir and style evolution

33:20 - Cultural influences: Baiou and indigenous ingredients

39:00 - Education: training, sensory analysis, and industry standards

43:30 - Future trends and innovation in spirits

48:00 - Final thoughts and Adam’s passion for safety and education

Rethinking Innovation and Authenticity in the Drinks Industry with Mikey Ball

Dive into a compelling conversation with Mikey Ball, a product development expert at Woodward Street Distillery, as we explore what genuine innovation really means in the drinks industry. Discover how ancient techniques, authenticity, and storytelling shape truly original products, and learn practical insights on navigating the balance between tradition and modernity.

In this episode:

The difference between copying techniques and building original flavours

How ancient traditions inform innovative product development

The importance of deep foundational knowledge and context

Recognising the role of storytelling and narrative in product positioning

Examples of misleading terms such as "ultrasonic distillation"

Authenticity as a marker of genuine innovation

Practical approaches for elevating industry standards and consumer experiences

The parallels between product creation behind the bar and in distilleries

How to embed culture, technique, and authenticity into branding and packaging

Insights into navigating market demands and consumer perceptions

Future-focused topics: water sourcing, mineral analysis, and regional identity

Timestamps:

00:00 - Opening thoughts on what constitutes true innovation in drinks

02:26 - Mikey shares insights on building flavor through ancient techniques

03:35 - Deep dive into question everything approach in product development

05:03 - The pitfalls of superficial innovation and copycat culture

07:12 - Clarifying misleading terminology like ultrasonic distillation

09:12 - Authenticity versus superficial branding in industry claims

11:19 - The importance of understanding ingredients and processes

13:23 - The thin line between inspiration, learning, and recipe copying

16:35 - The ongoing nature of product refinement and consistency challenges

18:03 - Connecting product stories with consumer perceptions

20:04 - The importance of visual branding and market positioning

22:20 - Embracing continuous learning and innovation as a mindset

24:37 - The influence of tradition, culture, and regional identity

27:03 - The story behind Chi Chi Vodka and its approach to authenticity

30:36 - Navigating market demands and product differentiation

32:17 - The role of narrative in brand building and consumer connection

34:27 - How storytelling enhances product experience in hospitality

37:42 - The power of simplicity and core technique in a saturated market

40:49 - Envisioning a future where hospitality deeply values understanding

45:11 - Upcoming workshops on carbonation, liquids, and innovation tools

48:02 - Exploring water sourcing and mineral profiles in New Zealand

Resources & Links:

Woodward Street Distillery

Chi Chi Vodka

Connect with Mikey Ball:

[email protected]

Join me as Alice Newport, ambassador for James B. Beam Distilling and advocate for community and education within the spirits industry, shares her insights on evolving advocacy roles, building authentic communities, and balancing health with a demanding travel schedule.

In this episode:

* Evolution of advocacy and community engagement in the spirits industry over the past decade

* The importance of authentic, safe spaces for bartenders and trade and how to foster them

* The significance of education — from upskilling trade to empowering consumers

* Navigating the misconceptions around whiskey and diversity in the industry

* Addressing mental health, safety, and industry shifts towards healthier habits

* How societal changes influence drinking culture and social interactions

* Alice’s travel routines and personal rituals for grounding and recharge

* The future of hospitality: creating meaningful connections and community

This episode highlights the importance of authentic connection, ongoing advocacy, and the delicate balance between professional passion and personal well-being in the vibrant, demanding world of hospitality.

It’s time to lock in some key dates for cocktail lovers and spirits producers alike.

But first the big news: lots of award wins in for NZ distillers like Clarity, Awildian, Roots, Sandymount, Cardrona and Pōkeno… but right at a time when the fragile homegrown distilling industry is in more flux than ever before.

Tune in to celebrate our smash hit Kiwi success stories before the NZ awards season kicks off and learn all about Auckland Cocktail Week, coming up June 22 - 28th.

There’s plenty to be optimistic about for those of us who love celebrating the best of the industry.

Twelve years in the middle of nowhere: Ardnamurchan Distillery sits on the farthest West Coast of Scotland, where everything has to be thought through with exacting detail.

Connal Mackenzie has been Sales Director at Ardnamurchan and Adelphi for eight years. He was in the warehouse the fortnight they didn’t see daylight, picking the casks that became the inaugural single malt. He came through Christchurch last week, back to the country his daughter holds a passport in, back to Whisky Galore where he used to work before he went home to Scotland. We sat down at the Howff to talk about adventures in whisky.

Ardnamurchan is four hours from Edinburgh. Four hours from Glasgow, four hours from Inverness. “Ardnamurchan is four hours from Ardnamurchan,” Connal says, because anyone who’s driven the single-track road out to the peninsula understands what exactly what the geography means and costs. But it also gives back in delightful ways. Lorries come and go on roads really better suited for sheep. Power, when it goes, doesn’t come back quickly.

What the geography gives back is the freedom to start the way you intend to continue. Ardnamurchan started distilling in 2014, released their inaugural single malt in 2020 (listen for more shared trauma). We talk about pricing and structures for understanding earning trust with whisky lovers.

Twelve years in, the things they decided early are the things that now look prescient. Solar in the warehouse, hydroelectric off the river, a Swiss biomass boiler that cost 1.2 million pounds and is quietly delivering a cost-per-litre of alcohol that’s, in Connal’s words, “maybe quite sharp” compared to the rest of the field during an oil crisis. He isn’t boasting but you can’t help noting that the ROI on a sustainability decision made for the right reasons in 2013 looks different in 2026. A clipboard person told them last year they could go off-grid if they wanted to. For a site Ardnamurchan’s size, that’s an extraordinary achievement.

The blending team is made up of four or five noses across different backgrounds: a single Master Blender can be a brand asset, a face and a consistency of vision, and that’s a real thing. It’s also a narrow filter on what gets into a bottle. The committee model is less heroic but it produces whisky that passes the compounding demands of groiup assessment, which is what you want when you’re trying to become someone’s third bottle on the shelf after their favourite Islay and their favourite Speyside. That’s Connal’s stated ambition for the brand. The reliable Highland coastal dram that needs replacing when it runs out.

We talk about cask provenance in one of the most interesting cask programmes currently operating. Most distillery sales directors, asked about cask provenance, will give you the line. Connal gave the actual breakdown. Around 75 to 80 per cent of fills are ex-bourbon, mostly from Old Forester, direct relationship. Sherry casks come direct from Jerez, one of the best suppliers plus a small bodega, bought in Spain and not (and this is the aside that earns its keep) imported via France, which apparently is a thing some distilleries now do because the maths works out and the geography evidently doesn’t matter to them. Paul Lanois Champagne casks, fifteen to twenty-five barriques a year, bought direct from the family.

Port, Madeira, Mizunara, Tokaji, Mezcal. They know the cooperages and the people moving the wood, as much as possible. But we’re also in a long, gentle inflection where transparency to that degree isn’t something we talked about as aggressively twenty years ago.

This matters because the new-distillery marketing playbook of the last decade has been to lean very hard on provenance language while quietly running the same broker calls everyone else runs. Ardnamurchan saying “we have direct relationships on the casks where we have direct relationships, and we don’t pretend on the ones where we don’t” is a more useful kind of transparency.

Cask costs, while we’re here. Bourbon barrels peaked at 250 US dollars last year and Connal calls that frightening, rightly. The relief, eight years in, is that Ardnamurchan is now reaping the second-fill, third-fill, sometimes fourth-fill yields off the casks they bought in the early years.

The 2020 balloon, and what it cost the industry to mistake it for growth

If there’s a single argument worth carrying out of the conversation, this is it. Connal and the Adelphi team were in Christchurch for Dramfest in March 2020, then crossed to Australia. Cancelled cricket games, a phone call from the chairman, last flight out via Dubai, house-bound for two and a half months. Standard 2020.

What happened next is what matters. Furlough money, locked-down consumers, bored, cashed-up. Every new release sold out instantly, anything new an instant seller, anything new an instant seller. The entire industry read those numbers as a category in ascent. It wasn’t. It was a balloon.

The reasonable thing, and Connal’s word here is “potentially”, would have been to base next year’s gross-profit forecast on 2019, not on the spike. Plenty of brands didn’t. Plenty built capacity, built inventory, built marketing budgets and crowdfunding rounds against numbers that were never going to repeat. Then Brexit landed for the UK side. Then two wars affected barley pricing and freight. Then UK duty went up twice. Sure, the calculation shifts at different volumes and price points, and global premium-spirit demand isn’t dead. But for a lot of mid-range single malt brands trading on that 2020-21 hockey stick, the curve they’re now trying to explain to a board is the curve of a normal year against an abnormal comparable. That’s a different conversation than a downturn, it’s a correction.

Ardnamurchan kept production flat. Same volume they made three years ago, same volume they made last year. The bet is that there’s a stock lull eight to ten years out and the boring decision to keep distilling through the wobble pays off then. Whether that’s right is unknowable. What’s defensible is that the call was made on what was actually happening in 2020, not on what the spreadsheet wanted to be true.

Price discipline, in a category that’s lost its head about price

Forty-five pounds in 2020. Two and a half UK duty increases later, still under fifty quid. Ninety-nine dollars on the shelf at Whisky Galore. No relabelling, no relaunching, no “now with extra story” repricing.

For a category that has spent five years aggressively premium-positioning everything in sight, including a lot of nine-year-old single cask releases priced like they’re surely crafted from solid gold, Ardnamurchan’s pricing discipline is … disciplined. The proposition is liquid to dollar. The bet is that a drinker who buys the bottle at a reasonable price three times comes back for the cask-strength, comes back for the Tokaji release, comes back for the Mezcal cask when it lands. Loyalty is built on the second purchase, not the first.

Most of the loud premium-launch playbook of the last few years has been built on the opposite assumption. Extract margin on the first bottle because there might not be a second. The honest answer is what Ardnamurchan has done, which is run the core range honestly and let the limited releases (quarterly, 8,500 bottles across 48 markets, gone fast) do the storytelling.

What he’s drinking

Ardnamurchan Cask Strength, when he reaches for his own stuff. The new Tokaji, which has “real funkiness to it” and lands here in the next couple of months. And outside whisky, because anyone who works whisky knows you don’t always pour whisky on a Friday, a Negroni with Old Raj Navy Strength gin from Cadenhead’s at 55.4 per cent, because if you’re making a Negroni you may as well really make one.

Listen to the whole chat for a solid dose of whisky business, banter and Scottish brogue.