“It’s the simple things in life” holds true for Sydney – my favourite thing is enjoying a meal with a view. Whether it’s grabbing a fresh salad to go and eating it by the beach, or dining somewhere fancy with a harbour view – there are so many good views to see and so much good food to be eaten here.
FAVOURITE FOOD MEMORY
The chocolate torte from Totti’s! Everyone raves about the flat breads and pasta there but the dessert menu is where it’s at. The torte is everything you’d want in a dessert – rich, served warm and the perfect sink-your-fork-in texture. DROOL! Anyone who says “I don’t have a sweet tooth” will change their mind after tasting this.
FAVOURITE BAR
Any beach-side juice bar – ‘The Fruit Shop Burleigh’ being a top contender. I know it’s not a traditional bar but it’s impossible to have a bad day while drinking a fresh cold pressed juice by the ocean. My favourite is a No.4 – Apple, Cucumber, Spinach, Lemon, Ginger & Celery. Fresh, zingy and makes you feel like you’re a health queen.
DRINK THAT DESCRIBES YOU
Right now, it’s a ‘Pina Colada’ as I’m in desperate need of a tropical holiday.
BEST HANGOVER CURE
Boring answer but the most effective – Fresh air and a walk.
BEST INTERSTATE BAR
The Caretaker in Auckland, New Zealand. A very intimate, New York style underground bar that has no menus. The hosts ask you questions about your taste/flavour preferences, then create a custom drink or cocktail for you based off your answers. Its an experience, not just a bar.
FAVOURITE WINERY
Ayrburn in Queenstown, New Zealand. This place feels like something out of a movie – incredibly idyllic. There are multiple venues within the grounds like stone cottages & glass houses, all offering something unique and beautiful in terms of the food and drinks they serve.
NEXT DESTINATION
Auckland, New Zealand – back to visit family and work on some new drink formulations.
We love the sound of Clean Collective pre-mixers. What makes your approach uniquely your own, and how has the business evolved in the last seven years since launch?
Clean Collective is ultimately a lifestyle brand with all of our drinks catering towards conscious & sophisticated drinkers. People who traditionally may never have been consumers of premixes due to the sickly taste, old-school branding and artificial ingredients.
Having launched 8 years ago in New Zealand, we were one of the first “better for you” slanted options in the alcohol space. What made us unique then, still holds true today – our drinks deliver on zero sugar, zero carbs, natural ingredients but still actually have sweet and juicy flavour. We use premium ingredients and deliver a no compromise option – people young and old, are always shocked at how good our drinks taste.
Now our range has expanded in to non-alcohol categories and we offer a range of 100% clean energy drinks as well. Whether it’s our Energy, Vodka or Gin based premixes People drink Clean because they value living a balanced lifestyle and want to feel like they are making a better choice for their health.
Is there a demand for better premix products among young drinkers?
100% yes. 5 years ago the “better for you” category within liquor, didn’t even exist and now it’s one of the highest growing segments – pulling in people of all ages but especially the younger generations. This is a bi-product of the global health & fitness trend and better education around nutrition.
The younger generation are also swapping over from beer (which is in steady decline year on year) for those same reasons. At a music festival we sponsored with an audience of 25,000 people, 96% of attendees being under the age of 24, we outsold the beer sponsor (Heineken) 7 to one.
Tell us about the decision to introduce a nutritional panel on your product – and why it was important?
We have always chosen to be upfront about the nutritional features of our products – we know it’s important to our audience and what we stand for as a lifestyle brand but we also feel it’s a basic human right to fully understand what is entering our bodies. Knowledge is power.
Where can we purchase the product in Australia?
We are in selected Dan Murphys and independent retailers throughout NSW and available for delivery nationwide at www.cleancollective.co
How did you both meet and start Clean Collective.
Dan and I were actually dating at the time. We were in our early 20s, drinking and socialising a lot but also becoming invested in our health & nutrition. There was nothing on the shelves back then that catered to us – nothing modern, female leaning or low in sugar but in a premixed format. We had spoken about the idea for a while but it wasn’t until we were planning to go overseas on our OE, that my dad actually gave us the push we needed and said, use your travel money for this instead. Like all good things, it took time and we made lots of mistakes but pretty early on we knew we were on to a good thing. We sold out our first production run of 30,000 bottles in six weeks after door knocking around liquor stores.
