How the Romans inspired Merrick Watts' Posca Hydrate

This is one of the greatest things I've loved about working with Merrick is you get the unexpected. It was about, you know, the combination of ancient wisdom meets modern science. I went and saw Ed at Lyon and I said, I've got this really, really weird ancient Roman drink in a funny little bottle. This is gonna be the weirdest conversation you're gonna have today. Welcome to Drinks Adventure. make them. I'm James Atkinson and in this episode we're joined by Merrick Watts and Ed Stenney.

of Posca Hydrate, a recent startup that takes inspiration from one of the oldest drinks reported history. Posca shares its name with an ancient concoction of red wine vinegar, water. Salt and flavorings that was consumed by the Roman army for its hydrating properties at a time when clean water was often hard to come by. It was Merrick, the comedian, broadcaster, and wine expert, who conceived the idea of. this beverage for modern consumers. Is Posca hydrate?

That combines electrolytes and antioxidant rich red wine. to support hydration and gut health. Merrick teamed up with our other guest this episode. Stenning, a marketing executive formerly of companies including Lion and Suntory, Find the product and bring it to market. They've assembled a crack team of advisors to join the company's board and achieve some impressive milestones, including qualification with the ATO as an early-stage innovation company and a distribution partnership.

That's all coming up in this brilliant conversation. Yeah.

Well guys, let's uh get into this conversation. You know, it's not every week that we feature a sports drink on this podcast, but um this is a sports drink with a difference, isn't it? It's not like the sports drinks of old. And I believe it all starts with you.

Merrick. Um tell me about when this when this idea was conceived. Um well I mean it's it technically I suppose it's the the world's oldest sports trick. Uh we use it the way the ancients use it as an elixir. It was like a A bit of a cure all the time, but I found this the formula for this in lockdowns. I was doing some research. I'm a uh qualified wine expert and a wine judge and I was looking at some research and some uh a bit of a deep dive in wine during lockdowns in twenty twenty one.

had a lot of time on my hands and uh fell into a massive massive rabbit hole um in wine I was looking at ancient wines and you know the the history and pedigree of wines and then I came across this drink called Posca. And I was absolutely fascinated because it was

used by the Roman army, the legions would uh drink Posca like all the time. Most Roman citizens would drink Posca like every day. It was ubiquitous. And, you know, gladiators, so you know, the original sports drink comes with the fact that gladiators used to drink Posca. Um Emperor Hadrian, the Stoics Drank it, uh Pliny the Elder and Cato the Elder was all this amazing information that I'd kind of been able to glean from the the internet.

Where on the internet do you f did you find this? Well I said you gotta d you gotta dig deep quite soon so Recreationists I think was the word. It was deep.

It was like seriously, it was it was so far down and to kind of like I would hit a touch point and then I'd go, Okay, where does this go? And it's like lots of dead end roads but I was so curious about what this drink was, because I realized very quickly it it had given the Roman armies an ability to be able to travel and march and and conquer, essentially, because the ancient Romans used it as I said as an elixir it was used as a as a way to

purified water sources on the march. So the Roman soldiers, the armies To secure a local water source on the march was quite hazardous. And so they would blend red wine vinegar and salt, which every Roman soldier carried, man's worth his salt, and they would blend it into the water and add herbs or honey or other things to flavor it. And they would drink that. And that was like a daily thing. But what they didn't realise at the time is number one, they were offering themselves great.

benefit to the gut. So um that was cited by uh one of the uh stoic philosophers as having as a good digestive. And the other one of course was hydration, very specifically hydration. I love the story. I love, you know, the deep dive into it, but I was like I wonder what it tastes like. And that's when I was at home in lockdowns and I went, I'm just gonna start making this and see what happens.

So I looked at how people had made kombucha, I looked at some of other people's journeys and I was went, I'll just start making that at home and that's what I did. I batched the first batches were a lot of them, and the I'm not gonna lie about the first Forty batches were pretty awful until I started to find a little bit of a a good medium ground. I just experimented at home.

Tell me more about those prototypes. So you're taking wine vinegar and just mixing it with With salt and water and then and then I was blending, I was trying to be quite creative and quite tricky. I wanted to move I don't know why really s very specifically, but I never wanted to have sugar in it. I didn't w there was a couple of reasons I kind of later Stuck with the decision, but I was trying to avoid like c I did try it with cordial so it had like sweetness, but it was like

I want to kind of keep true to form. So um I was experimenting with like steeping different flavours like natural elements, everything from strawberry gum to you know um all these quite exotic ingredients. steeping out the flavours, uh boiling them, steeping them, and then adding them to to the elixir. And I was like, okay, this is hit and miss, very, very miss. And then I kind of came across What I thought was a pretty good

good version of it, but I thought it's not really gonna go like anywhere further than this. And then I literally just turned around and looked at the soda stream. And I thought, I wonder what it's like if it's fizzy. I literally just gassed a batch of it and I tasted it and it completely changed the flavor profile. Utterly changed it. The same way champagne doesn't taste like Chardonnay, but they are the same thing in there.

You know, a Blanc de Blanc is Chardonnay, but it doesn't taste like it, it tastes like champagne. So sometimes I refer to it as like the champagne of sports drinks, but it's um but it was a massive unlock for me. And when it once it was gassed and I say so went, There's something in this and that's when after the lockdown's finished, I went out and um I started formulating.

And so when did you connect with Ed? Uh now so it was two years after that. So you'd gone through your formulation. Maybe you want to tell him a bit about that, because that was I think sort of a big part of of that step. Yeah, so uh before I went to Ed I I had something that was reasonably well formed before I went and saw Ed.

So yeah, I came out of lockdowns and then went to a formulator, formulated up some batches and used again, leaning very much on natural ingredients and steep in flavours and and quite exotic. flavor profiles from native ingredients, things like Davidson Plum, um, and looked at it and I was really encouraged by what was coming through from a flavor aspect. But um and I was looking obviously at adding um more complex mineral profiles than just sodium.

But the cogs were high. It was I could already see the cogs were getting expensive. And I kind of extrapolated that and I went, no. And then I just went, I need to just stop, reset. And I went to another formulator with a larger scale, went to single flavor profiles, and went, there's enough in this story that I don't need to have.

17 native ingredients in it. Let's just keep it really simple on the tin. And then so I started um formulating there and once I got that I was like really quickly I was like, wow, there's something in this. And then eventually, um, when I was kind of happy with it, I uh with the first real kind of batch processes, um, second formulator, I um I went and saw Ed at Lyon. And I said, I've got this really, really weird ancient Roman drink.

In a funny little bottle. This is gonna be the weirdest conversation you're gonna have today. And and strangely it it definitely was. And and so that was that was sort of end of twenty twenty two, so we had a a mutual friend who introduced us.

And you know, it was kinda like, Hey, look, I've got this celebrity friend, he's created a drink. you know, he probably wants to sell it to Lyon. Can you just buy roll, yeah. Can you just can you have a listen? And I said, Who's the celebrity? And I was like, Mary I was like, Oh, I love that guy, yes. So um he he sat down and um, you know, he walked me through and

You know, this is one of the greatest things I've I've loved about working with Merrick is y you get the unexpected, right? And this guy turned up with these little glass bottles all wrapped up and firstly he made me sign an N D A and and give away my first child. And then he sort of had this, you know, this document like fully etched out, ready to go, like he had a business plan and and all these kind of things and I was like, This is more than than than we were definitely expecting.

And we started tasting and talking about the liquid and then for me it just was a massive unlock, James, because You know, obviously at line and and my previous life at Suntory overseas, you know, we had teams of innovation folk looking at what are the consumer trends, where are they going and and all this kind of stuff. And and what I saw was I was like, holy shit, America.

actually nailed all of these future consumer trends that we're all talking about, but because he just wanted to create something good for his family. And that flowed into this really, really nice story of of just going, look,

Mate, I I'd love to help you wherever you can because, you know, I'm as you know, James, a massive fan of Guinness and and I always believe that, you know, Guinness is an incredible product and an incredible brand. And when I tasted this liquid, I'm like, this is an incredible liquid. And mate, all you need to do now is operationalize this and make a massive brand out of it.

Even then the liquid was that good. I remember Ed's face, it was like the first time I'd shown it to anybody outside of my family or formulators under an NDA. So and Ed and I went, This is it. Like this is it. This is really it And he drank and goes, Wow That tastes really good. I was like

Price for that. Yeah, because you know, when you're in that liquid development world, you either want to taste like somebody else or you want to taste like something unique, right? And if we look at the The ones that I love the most, you know, you your your Beaumores, your Lefroigs, your Guinnesses, your Red Bulls.

Nothing tastes like Red Bull, nothing tastes like Guinness, nothing tastes like Lafroy, right? And there's and this is that unique flavour profile was like, holy shit, you really you really hit the the mark here on that balance. But also knowing, you know, hydration Prebiotic gut health, all of those kind of things, you know, no sugar, all natural. I'm like, you've just ticked.

every single box and even to the point and I I made this joke to him later on, I said, Yum you're you're basically the Stephen Bradbury of the drinks industry.

You know, you've been able to hit all these amazing innovation targets that we've been so excited about hitting in the drinks well and you've been able to pull it together. So So I gave him a long laundry list of tips and I said, Look, firstly Lion's not gonna be interested, Lion's very much focused on an alcohol only strategy at the time.

Um and you know, but but please, you know, here's a long laundry list and I think I said also go and talk to a sahi. And then you disappeared for like nine months. Yeah, I went down

Oh well that that guy's gone. Um yeah. But in classic Merrick Watts form. As went away and did the work. And I went away and set up the the company structures. Do you have any background as an entrepreneur or or building brands or anything like that? Well yeah, in s in some ways, yeah, and many ways no. Have I been a party to building brands? Absolutely. Rosso and I kicked off Nova um radio Nova FM network.

So we were there from like a a radio station that didn't exist before we went on air at all by anyone. So I watched that that brand build. So I saw that and there's some of those learnings that I've been able to apply to Posca and um and understandings there. Am I the best person to build a brand? No. That's why I've got a great team. But it was um

Yeah, it was a very interesting time because I had to go away and have a really solid think about what I could do. And I'm everything I apply myself to, I apply myself very, very seriously. Or so I'm I'm deadly serious about everything, including comedy. Everything. So, you know, I love comedy but I apply myself really heavily to it. Like I work really, very, very big into preparation.

So I went away and I I did all the things that, you know, Ed had suggested I do. I did all of them and when that they were complete about eight or nine months later, I came back and I said, Ed, I've done all those things um and I want to start the company and I wanna do it now and I wanna put it this into I want to put do the first um run of cans um as a as a test um and I want to do it like in a in a very short period of time and I need somebody, I need help now.

Because I can only take this to the point we're at now, which is like you know child canning, I can't take it beyond that. For me to to fulfill the the dream and the vision, I need you and I need a team.

And so when he came back to talk to you again, were you still at line or He told me go away. He said, Go away I I he said, Hey, you haven't heard from me for a while but I did everything you told me and I s and I actually said to him, Oh great, did you talk to a sahi? He goes, Everything but that and I was like, Okay, great, okay.

I think the line was, um, do you want to quit your fancy job and come and work with me? And I actually responded, Absolutely no. Um, it was not the point, look, I'm I'm you know, I've I've been a corporate guy all my life. I've I've never been an an entrepreneur and that and that kind of scared me a little bit.

Rightly so, I'll say. Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. I didn't find it terrifying at all. I thought it made sense. And and not just that, I I I love a lot of the people I work with, right? So I think that's part of the journey and and obviously having working with people like Anuba and and J B is is incredible. So

So, you know, I think there was an element here though that look the big trigger for me was I've kind of been a a bit of an entrepreneur in my life and that's a really Horrible name, but it's the best way of explaining it.

So I've kind of been this sort of startup mentality in in almost all the roles I've worked in. And I think in my head, you know, I was speaking to sort of my my my my business coach and, you know, he goes, Look, w what have you got to lose? Right? He's like at the end of the day

you've got to prove if you think you really got the muscle to be an entrepreneur, now's the time. Because, you know, I think this is the one of the interesting parts that I get excited about this for me personally was it actually was also the timing. Right. So, you know, mid forties, you know, I've I've I've been really lucky in my career, you know, lived in seven countries and and I've met amazing people and had amazing experiences.

But I've never been able to bring anything from the ground up myself. So this was a huge challenge for me and I think You know, Merrick is also incredibly persistent uh and he's very convincing. And it was kind of for me, it was like, you know, I'm I'm really gonna give this a go. So Merrick actually um you know, we went down and we did a a a canning just uh just outside of of Melbourne and uh just a bit of a a walkthrough and and I was like, Okay I love the liquid.

I love the guy, right? I I really believe in in Merrick and and his conviction. And then I'm like, and I know we can build brands. So I'm like, this space is what consumers are going. And I think as a person who's worked in marketing most of my life is I go, what what does the consumer want? How do we engage with them? You know, where is culture going? Where are trends going? And how do we connect with them? Merrick, this this Posca hydrate ticked all of those boxes.

So f for me it was like let let's get into this and and and give it a red hot go and And you know, we've been very lucky. I think, you know, both our wives are very supportive of a lot of our stupidity. Um My wife doesn't know any other way now. So it's like you know Well this is new for my wife. Yeah, I know. It's I understand it. I I understand it's it's new for everybody's wives except for my wife who just goes, You're doing another thing, are you? Okay.

Yeah. When will I see you next? But but but I I reckon this is I and you know, I I'm I'm talking him up because I n I always hang shit on him in the office, so I'm actually this is the one moment I'm gonna talk him up. You know, when Merrick won SAS Australia and today he's still today the only non athlete to complete SAS training through the SAS um show on on Channel Seven,

you know, that takes grit. That takes different level. You know, what are you f you're fifty one now? Fifty one, yeah. Fifty one and you were killing people who were twenty years younger than you. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And that and that that's mental toughness. And I think if you're gonna go into that entrepreneur co founder foxhole with somebody, you want someone who's got that mental toughness and and uh it you know I think that's

Yeah, it's timing's incredible. You must have also been excited though, just looking at a category sports drinks that just looks absolutely ripe for disruption, you know,'cause it it just sort of reminds me of like when Fever Tree came along, you know, whether it was fifteen, twenty years ago, something like that. I remember having uh one of the founders of FeverTree on the show and him talking about how n no investors thought that

they were onto something, you know, like it it took them a long time to get people interested in it. But certainly they've sort of shown how you can, you know, really disrupt a category like that. I said I think that Fever Tree example is amazing and and Tim the founder is his stories are amazing. I just I I'm I'm personally obsessed with with with those guys.

Um you know for us that that is de well sorry for me personally that was a a major um sense of excitement because You know, we weren't just disrupting the sports drink category, we weren't just disrupting the kombucha category. you know, the the better for you soda uh you know, categories, you know, or coconut water category. We're actually we we kind of see ourselves in a category in ourselves, right? And, you know, we're we're a sparkling prebiotic hydration drink.

And that doesn't live in a in a category world. You know the sports drink is like a this great challenge of saying of basically saying, Yeah, sure, okay, you know, the Florida Gators might have come up with the first ones, but the guys in the Coliseum, they were the original the the original gladiators. So this OG sports drink was a kind of that nod to both culture. and also leaning into the fact that this is a two thousand year old beverage.

Find me another beverage on the market that has a story that far back. This was found on every street corner in ancient Rome, in ancient Greece. It was found all the way through Persia. This is one of those incredible stories that's been able to bring ball back to life. And we've actually been able to keep pretty close to the recipe. Um, you know, obviously they didn't have pineapples, uh, but definitely didn't have pineapples.

But grapes though, and m grapes are one of the flavour profiles, so I really nailed it there. Full points full points to me. But I mean it was it was about, you know, the combination of ancient wisdom and it is still very much so. We live by the you know the saying of ancient wisdom meets modern science. So it is it's the ancient wisdom that they knew. They knew that it was good. They just didn't understand why it was good.

And it is a a little bit of an alchemy, this is the other word that we use with it, you know, is the alchemy of the ingredients is what makes it whole. If you remove parts of it it it doesn't work in uh both in efficacy and also to in um flavour profile as well.

So it is it is truly unique. And I know everyone goes, oh our you know, our beverage or our product or whatever is unique. This is the only sugar free hypotonic drink that we've been able to find anywhere in the world. Um and sugar free hypotonic there's no there's no uh caloric value beyond twelve calories in a can. So normally when you have a hypotonic drink you do have a high caloric value or sugar added to it.

So it's um it is it is actually unique and it it it affects the bloodstream and the absorption of mineral salts is done differently because of the alchemy of this dream. So you do actually take on the salts into the bloodstream in a different way and you don't suffer um or or you don't experience gastric dumping in the same way. There's lots of little nuances to to the the drink and the ingredients of the drink and how they work.

as a combination. And and to be honest, these are these are part of those little start up stories which, you know, we were you know, it's kind of we fell into. So when Merrick was obviously originally creating it, it was meant to be an isotonic beverage. So isotonic beveraging means that the you know the salt matches your your blood so it can absorb quite quickly.

We actually, Merrick sent this off for lab testing, for osmolality testing. You can't get it done here in Australia, so it was sent to the US. Um, Merrick had it done. We're on um we received the the the the the lab reports. Merrick rings me and he he says, this is we've we've we've cocked this up. This is uh this is we've got this all wrong.

Well, what do you mean? He's like, no, the recipe's wrong, it doesn't do it. And we're like, oh well hang on, hang on, hang on, let's get the doctor on the board. So we rang doctor on our board, Dr. Dan Pronk, um who's the sort of ex um SAS doctor, um incredible legend, and he um he's Sort of radiant and rings up and goes, Oh boys, you idiot.

He goes, this is amazing. He goes, I don't know how you did this. He said, You've made a hypotonic beverage without any sugar and without any carbohydrates. And we're like Okay, can you numb that down to idiots for us? And he's like, Okay, basically what it means is you've created sustained, healthy hydration and that's what hypertonic beverage means. So that means you don't you don't

piss as much, you know, it stays within your body for a long period of time. It doesn't flush as um as much. So if you're jumping on a plane, if you're going on a drive, you know, if you know you it's One o'clock in the morning, you know, all those things, it actually absorbs and keeps your body hydrated for a longer period of time. And we've done that with 12 calories. So this is kind of sitting there and I'm like, Merrick, you're amazing. And he's like, I know, right?

I didn't I didn't mean it, but it's great. It's like it's an onion. The more we kind of peel it back, the more we find that it contains resveratrol. I didn't even know what that was. Even as a wine guy. No, well I I knew it in those senses, but like, you know, it's like antioxidants and and ribofavens, of course, I'm familiar with, but it's like I didn't know that it was in the drink until it came back. I didn't know that it was a thing that could be in this drink.

It's like oh that's cool. And there was this like okay, there's more and there's more information and it's been it's been wonderful unraveling it. Yeah, we've had, you know, diabetics reaching out. This is a this is a great alternative. Um particularly for diabetes people on GLP one. This this is uh this is a those kind of areas

We're like, geez, these weren't the audiences we think we were gonna go, you know, we're talking, you know, with with a lot of the airlines again for the reason I mentioned,'cause of sustained hydration, particularly for those international flights.

So those kind of areas have actually really just kept unlocking through this process, which has been really exciting. And look, even we've got a bio um a biochemist at the moment who's giving us some advice as well and and she's seeing all these alternatives.

At the end of the day, that wasn't the reason why we necessarily got into it. We got it into it because we were like, this is really refreshing and it tastes yummy and this is a great time to have it. And that's really why we got into it. This is a multi-occasion beverage that tastes delicious.

Did we think we were gonna serve all these, you know, these these groups as well? It's like, well look great, you know, the more the merrier and I think um that's very exciting for us, right? Yeah. And the multi cage thing is just i again, that's part of the the onion keeps on r unraveling because You know, you can mix you can have this as like pre alcohol, you can have it mixed with alcohol, you can have it as an alternative to alcohol, um, or like I like it.

Um at about two AM when you wake up and you've got the dry horrors, there is nothing better in the world than a can of Posca. I'm not joking.'Cause it's got all that sweetness and the acidity and the kind of crunch that you're craving. But it doesn't have the sugar, so it doesn't keep you awake, and it has no stimulants, so it doesn't keep you awake. So you go it's got magnesium in it, so you go back to sleep. But then when you wake up, you don't feel awful.

That's my key. Like I mean not everybody's like me and wakes up with the dry horrors at two AM on a you know Sunday morning. But it it does it does actually have all these that's why it's a category under itself. It does have all these different roles it can play. It's good with food'cause it's got acid in it. It's sharp and fresh. It's great after high exertion. Like I personally love Yuzu after I exercise rigorously. It's just that.

this quenching moment where as opposed to like some sports drinks, I find it too sickly sweet and they're kinda bit sticky. There's nothing sticky about Posca, it's really clean on the palate. And, you know, you'd probably appreciate this too, James, is that before I ev I think before I even took it to Ed.

I was working with Hazel who's now our head of operations and uh Hazel Kittson is like myself she's qualified in Westet and she's got a great palette and we sat down with like eight or nine SKUs and we're looking at different things and I asked her to help me with the project. And we applied a systematic approach to wine tasting in many ways to this drink.

We looked at it through a different lens, which is the balance that you would apply to uh wine judging, you know, um how does it sit on the palate, what's the weight like, what's the um acidity like, the crispness like the salinity like? We looked at all those different elements and try to hold them in balance in a different way.

still um allowed it to be unique. Was it always going to be called Posca? Like the name that's yeah yeah you always it's the ancient name, it is what it is and you know with Posca is, you know, the name of what it was and Posca hydrate is what we are. And that's what it does. Excellent hard ration during.

And and just kind of tell me about like what sort of happened during refining the the recipe so that you could scale up and commercialise and all that kind of thing. And you mentioned, you know, there's no sugar in there, there is. A sweetener of some kind, is there? But what I will what I will definitely commend you on is that I can't taste that it's there.

Because I hate the taste of those sweet yeah, like I've got a real a real thing about zero sugar stuff that often if it's if it says zero sugar on it something I'm not gonna like. And that's not the case with these. Look, I I think you you and Merrick, you and Merrick are very aligned. Like I never really noticed it until, you know, particularly Merrick and Hazel and our team, they all hate anything with Stevia in it, because it gives you that coining kind of effect.

Um and so we've definitely stayed away from that. But I I I think it's also this plays a role with the red wine vinegar as well. Because it it also cleans the palate, right? So we don't get the coining. We've chosen we we think we've chosen a great natural sweetener with erythritol. I know this. Obviously more coming out and all those kind of things, but this this works really well from a balanced perspective.

Um, but you know, I think that's I think you've done a really good job, Bez, of putting into that direction. The the vinegar really does play yeah a key part of it and there's there's some nice story there as well. Yeah, acid helps li like in wine, acid helps lift aromas and so The vinegar plays a part in accentuating the the flavours that we've added. So you don't we don't have to

dump heaps of stuff in it. We don't have to put, you know, um a a multi-level um uh proposition of sweeteners um and we don't have any steve unit, but also too we don't have to like overcharge it with flavour. We've actually kept it, I think, um, you know, quite crisp. and refreshing and that's where it is. We're constantly looking at, you know, iterations and and improvements and small adjustments as anybody would. But we're, you know,

Very, very happy with the way it sits differently to other drinks. It is refreshing. Whereas a lot of drinks it can be replenishing, but they're not necessarily refreshing. We find this very refreshing. I think you mentioned there's eight different flavours?

So look, one of the great things Merrick's done is this flavor base gives us anything with acid in it we can add a flavour to, right? So basically the joke is we can do ever anything but banana, right? Um so you know, if we see a trend on white peach, we can be able to take the blend and hit those. We've developed three. Um we want to be really focused on on the core. We want to get the ranging right in that space. We want to get that three blocker, you know, the magic of three.

Um particularly the r at the retail space. So there's only three that are actually on the market. There's only three in the market and you just sort of you know released that little secret thing I wasn't gonna tell you about, but thank you for you know, these are the corridor conversations that happen. But I love that, James. Uh

So, you know, we've we've got we've got a bunch of flavours we've already developed. We're ready to go at the right time. The interesting thing though, we we developed um two of them quite far along, ready to go, um, because we always thought we were gonna have a dog, right? Everyone knows. You you launch three, you're gonna have two that are going to do really well and one that just doesn't.

Actually, from a sales perspective, they all perform fairly equally, right? Um, and you know, it really comes down to the occasion. We generally find, you know, those people in sort of you know, the the more health and wellness kind of space and the gym space we might sell more yuzu. And then for those folks at, you know, at the convenience stores we might sell more grape. But generally speaking, all in all, all three actually sell pretty well. So we we don't have a dog.

Which is which is good. Yeah, grapes not a flavour we see in Australia all that much, I wouldn't have thought. Yeah, it is. It's coming back. It's it's one of those nostalgic kind of components, right? Yeah. It's like the the point was to be a little bit nostalgic with the flavours. So sometimes people will s will smell the grape or taste the grape and it'll remind them of Hubba Baba.

So it's got that kind of Sweet nostalgic flavour and and pineapple you know, for me is uh I'll lower this pineapple lum. You know? Mm um so but Yuzu I think Yuzu's actually my favourite. But um And that's obviously the one that's like a hot trending flavour. in recent years. Which is actually why we did it. Let's have a look at it. And then I was like, I actually really like that. So I wasn't it was driven very much by but it's like Trying to decide on three was very, very difficult.

Very difficult to kind of narrow it down. But it was a bit of a Goldilocks kind of thing as well. It's like, well, you know, usually is quite it is it is fashion forward. Um grape is incredibly nostalgic to childhood and pineapple kind of sits somewhere in the middle. So that that was the kind of g Goldilocks thinking. But when you smell the drinks, it does, you know, it goes through the orifactory glands. So you're starting to smell you can smell it and it

It's familiar. It's known and it's familiar. And then you're about to taste something that is not known and it's not familiar. So it it does work on a couple of levels and you know, it's similar to wine again, like sometimes wine present themselves on the nose very differently to how they present themselves on the pallet. And sometimes they follow suit.

The wine vinegar, can you tell us where that where you source that from? And also like you know, apple cider vinegar is something I've heard a lot about the health benefits of that. Red wine vinegar less so. So maybe you can talk to that as well. Yeah, well I mean in a two horse race you're probably better off having um red wine vinegar every single day. It's got more yeah,'cause of

Riboflavins and uh flavonoids. So you've got um levels of antioxidants in red wine vinegar that you wouldn't necessarily see in apple cider vinegar. Uh it's a diff they're different products, they're made from different things. And it's the grape skin. That a affect this, not the pulp.

We grow a lot of grapes. The idea obviously with the grapes is to stay true to the ancient formula. They made it out of red wine vinegar. So we didn't balk at that um to try and tick a trend that other people are involved in. We stay true to what the formula was. We source our vinegar from um a producer in uh Queensland, Stanthorpe and Queensland.

I've been to their facility, Australian Vinegar Company, and they are fantastic. Their facility is elite. Like I mean clean. I've been to some very impressive major wineries and it's like that. It's very, very well run. It's incredibly clean. It's not just sort of like uh what you do with off wine, not at all. They don't start with poor wine. They start with excellent grape.

and then they crush back all the way till they make vinegar. And they make vinegar for different purposes and different sweets and and uh in different ranges at different price points. So it actually came down to like a real selection process of like going there, talking to them, working with them. Uh Hazel came with me and we sat down like we literally would taste like thirty vinegars. And it was like, Oh, these are amazing. We sat down with the owners and we were like

This is the vinegar that we're using. Is there an alternative? We looked back and forth and we're very, very happy with the product that we get from them. They're excellent and they're great to deal with.

So how are you going with distribution? And actually there was an announcement, wasn't there, about um SPC. Was that was that like a a major coup for you guys? Oh look for for us, you know, we so we've actually next week we will be um sorry, this Friday actually we've hit twelve months since we launched. Um so you know, we're still a baby, right?

And, you know, we've been able to, you know, get some really good traction I think. And, you know, I think and that's a huge shout out to the whole team at at Posca and particularly with Merrick being able to get that traction, get it those cold cans in hands, which we which we're so happy about.

So we're hitting well over 3,000 distribution points at the moment. Our retailers have been absolutely fantastic. They get it. They're very open-minded. They see the shop that this is hitting. They see the trends that it's hitting. Now, you know, obviously, for example, if you look in the convenience space. energy energy drinks are taking a lot of a lot of a lot of energy in the world at the moment. Everyone's getting on top of it.

Um, but really you're starting to see these other trends start to come through, you know, whether it be functional prebiotics, whether it be natural hydration, et cetera, you know, we're definitely in that space.

So, you know, we've been really happy with I think the distribution we've been able to get. Um, but there's a long way to go. And you know, when we first met um Robert, so obviously the see of Asahi Sarodavasi, he was um very positive about Posca and you know, it was almost I had a little bit of a flashback, to be honest, when he first tasted the drink with us, Th his look was like the look I got and uh he's obviously you know much more of a drink god than I am.

And uh he was incredibly impressed with the liquid, incredibly impressed with what we've been able to do. So when he became CEO of of SPC, you know, they approached us and said, Hey look, you know, we want to build a a you know a a world-first, you know, healthy beverage portfolio that's solely focused on healthy beverages for consumers that are Australian made.

And, you know, with that kind of proposition and the firepower of someone like Robert and and a lot of the people he brought across from Asahi, like John Harwood, we were like, This is this is uh this is a bit of a no brainer for us. Because look Again, w we're we're we're a start up, right? So, you know, we have

We have a small team, you know, we have a very elite team, which we're very proud of and and many of them we've we've collected through our experiences over over the years. Um and we're just so happy to work with them. But when you start to deal against the big boys, whether it be the Coca Cola's, the Sun Tories, the Asahis, et cetera.

you know, it's it's tough work out there. So now we're able to align with, you know, some real sophisticated commercial guys over there. Um and that commercial partnership we have with S P C now is only gonna see growth. So You know, we're just you know, we're rolling off across some some fairly major grocery which we'll we which we'll we can share at another point.

But the steps we go into, whether it be in QSR, whether it be in on-premise, whether it be in in Horeca or whether it be in in major grocery, those are the steps we now get to do because of the partnership we have with SBC.

What's been the feedback that you've had at some of the events that you've you've been out at? I mean Gabs Fine food Australia. Like my c me convincing Mez that Gabs was a good idea took days. He was like, Why are we gonna go to a beer festival? Ed, do you just wanna go to a beer festival in the company to pay for it? Is this what you're used to? And I was like, No, no, no, Gabs is the best and we're The the convincing that happened, he said, there's no way this is going to work.

What happened, Ms. And we sold heaps. We didn't just sell heaps. We made so many people happy. There was a moment where I was like literally carrying six cans in my hands over to a table for a group of people and I just went

Oh, I hate it when Ed's right. But also too, I'm quite thrilled that I'm doing this. Um I think what was great there is, you know, talking about something like Gabs, you've actually got some quite sophisticated palettes then. Some people who've got very, very strong opinions about stuff. So

You know, they can compare it maybe to like a sour or that you know, um it's not hoppy obviously, but they they've got they've got uh um an impressioned mind. Yeah. So they're like, yep, I I get this, I understand it. And then they go but the the other thing too is they go, Oh, I can have this between drinks. That's what I was really quite surprised by.

Is they're having it between it, they're going, I'm just gonna back off, have one of these and then I'll have a couple of more, you know, IPAs or whatever it is later. It's like okay, so it's in between, that's good. And then people were grabbing them on the way out because they knew, you know, we told them.

the the the great properties of rehydration when you have been drinking alcohol. So it did actually even in then it was different occasions and I was like, okay, this and we were selling them. You know, we weren't sampling these out, we were selling them. And I was like, All right, this is this is great. Yeah. Um so that was very encouraging. Um Fine Foods was very d a different experience. It was very enjoyable, but it was um

It's very much trade and there's a lot of people there. What was interesting about that was how many people from other countries? instantly understood what we were doing and saw it because they're seeing it in their own countries. Uh people from all around the world, from um every New Zealand, uh some wonderful folk from New Zealand we met, uh Singapore, Hong Kong.

Uh, and the Middle East, yeah. And they're like, Oh yeah, we get this. So you've got yep, yep. And they'll just look at the can and they go, Yep, this is great'cause they just went, Oh, you've combined these elements and they just kind of understood it quite quickly. Um and I don't know if that's because the the trends are emerging a little faster in their countries, but it was like great, this is really, really good. So that was a really good trade experience for me.

And you struck some pretty interesting partnerships as well. I think it was like w wheelchair Rugby Australia. Yeah, wheelchair Rugby. Yeah. So I I don't know when you're taking this to air but uh in the next couple of weeks we'll be making the announcement that we are gonna be the official um drinks partner of wheelchair rugby Australia. Um so we'll be the dr uh we'll be the um sponsor of of the Steelers, etcetera.

We we love those guys and and obviously, you know, for us this is a a gender neutral sport. It is absolute Colosseum at its best. Its nickname is Murderball, right? And if you haven't seen if you haven't seen a WRA game, it is some of the best. And also it's very well balanced because

Um you have to have a certain level of points based on on your disability. So you only can have so many points on the team at one time. So everyone's quite balanced in the area. And also, again, like I said, it's it's mixed genders. Um, it's highly engaging. We we're big fans. So these are the kind of things we want to do, right? We want to support, we wanna be always be a very curious brand and go to the places where not everyone's gonna show up.

Whether it be Gabs, whether it be Chi Wheelchair Rugby Australia. Um we did a you know uh It's a great thing about not having a category is you can break other categories in other areas as well. Exactly. We're we're actually we're actually the major partner for a huge skateboard event in uh next weekend.

Uh so you know, it's again hitting those those spots where, you know, to be honest, we're we're actually hunting a consumer and an occasion, right? Um, it doesn't really matter what their sort of backgrounds are. So yeah, that's what we're we're we're really keen about.

Tell us a bit about like some of the other people that are involved with Posca um on the board. Anyone who might be interesting to my listeners, for example. To your listeners, James, yes there will be. Take it away, Ed Stenny. We've been we've actually been really lucky. So, you know, when I you know, I think throughout more m personally my working career I've been able to work with some amazing folk and

When Merrick and I started working together, one of the first things we s you know we both believe is that, you know, no man is an island, right? You can't do everything yourself. Um and you know, we took into a co founder relationship which is which is really important. So again, the yin and the yang of Americanized balance. So we You know, there's no top dog. Him and I are are equals and we work in that that that space. So

You know, when we started going and say, look, you know, how how do we how do we create, you know, Captain Planet um in the in the best possible way? Well how do we bring these sort of superpowers together and You know, when we sort of looked at our rollerxes, you know, um we loved the first people we spoke to was Adam Ferrier, who's the the co founder of Thinkabel. Um I would say one of the the most brilliant creative minds in in the country.

Um, you know, when when when we first actually we pitched him at the we remember we were down at the the New Ace Hotel, we sit in there, we're we're sort of pitching him about becoming us'cause obviously we don't have any money, so we weren't paying him. Um but we were trying to convince him this was the right thing to do.

And Merrick told him the story, and we'd just come back from canning, so we're pretty excited about the liquid, and we'd just gone in um and we just taught Merrick told him the whole story, and he says. Fantastic. I mean boys. And we're like, oh, emerging, do you want to taste it? And he goes, I don't care what it tastes like. He goes, I spent my life trying to build brands. You've actually got a real story here I want to get behind.

And then of course he tasted it. Uh and now he's addicted to it. Uh and now he probably should stop. Drinking it, because he's drinking all of our samples. No, he can drink all of that. He just has to pay for it. Exactly. So Adam, obviously amazing, he's played a really

huge influence to us which were and just a great human. Anuba Sahasra Bude, so my old boss from Lion, she came on board obviously, you know, 20 years overseas, Coke, Mars, release, etc. Not just that, she is a proper gangster when it comes to to business. Um so she's been fantastic.

Uh and then, you know, what's what's the other part? Okay, we need we need someone to help us with operations and ensuring that this liquid is epic. If we are gonna put it up there one day against the Red Bulls, the Guinnesses, the you know, the Beaumores, you know, how how are we gonna do that?

Um and that's where again we we reached out to Idris Jama, who used to be the head brewer of of Lion. He managed all twelve, fourteen breweries. Um, has an incredible palette, real science behind the guy. He is he is a And suddenly Ed and I both know Idris independently. And so I was friends with Idris.

beforehand so like when Idris's name came up I went, Oh my god, that would be the best thing. Yeah. And you said to me, you go, You mean the seven foot tall, big guy? And I'm like, Yeah, there must be like only one. But he's great'cause he's you know, he's got so much knowledge and so much capability, but his pal It's like a w

So that's very, very helpful. And with you know, it kind of complements the suite. Exactly. And and and look our other three board members, you know, again we have Dr. Dan Pronk, you know, ex head of the SAS from a doctor perspective, you know, which has been incredible. And we also have

Um, you know, um Gavin Solomon who's very much understands entrepreneurship, banking, finance, all that kind of area, and obviously our non executive director, Courtney Fitzsimmons, who is an absolute gun in her own world. um w obviously from a finance sector. So, you know, again, we we try and look at going, okay, how do we get really smart people around the table? How do we find that? And then the next step after that was really finding a a superpowered team.

Um and that's where we were lucky to pull in, you know, Mick Boston, the ex-creative director of Lion. Tom Bills, the ex-partnership um head of partnerships at Lion as well. Um we've got Alman from Asahi, so and Hazel from Opera um from Fourth Wave.

wines, um and as well Laurel Lynn from um uh from Fourth Wave Wines as well. So again, just pulling this team together, which is absolutely incredible, lots of experience in different areas. Um, you know, and I think we're really happy with with where we've landed here.

How have you gone about funding it so far and you know what sort of challenges did you face early on when you started to talk to investors about You know, it's it's kinda like a double edged sword, isn't it? Creating something completely new, it's kinda like you've got the first mover advantage, but there's also a lot of risks associated with that too, right? It's very difficult to to sell something that is

It's a lot easier to tell the story once it's tangible. Um but so you need people with vision and you need people who have got experience. You know, it's not about being cavalier or, you know, risky. hungry or anything like that. It it you actually need smart investors um and you can see what you're doing. But I think what I've come to learn is they they value so much. The relationship between the founders.

And they are very, very keen and this has happened with several investors. They look at how much we do, how much work we do, and then they judge us often by one of the you know, most simple metrics is did they say they're gonna do something and then do it? Yes. So all the things that we say, and I live by that code. Say you're going to do something, do it. There is nothing.

nothing, you say it, do it. And so we kind of work to that manager here and um that kind of checks out. You know, we say we're gonna do something, we go and do it. And that whether that that be for one of our retail partners or an investor Or even people amongst the workplace. And that's that's a good thing.

with a bit of time proves out and other people see that. Exactly, exactly. And I think we've been very consistent in our message in that area. We actually had one um sort of investor sort of say to us he it was a he was passing joke, but he said Look, if it wasn't for Atlassian and Australia, Australian investors would still just be investing in property and mining.

Right. So if you're in food and beverages, you're you know, at the moment tech's really hot, but food and beverages is really hard to raise for in this country. So Anyone who's who's doing that, you know, I my hat's off to them. We're we're going through that. Um but we've been really happy with our investors and and supporting through that. It's just trying to find, you know, the ones with the right vision and and the support to make it happen.

It is definitely harder the first time we go out though. samples of something. It's not gonna it's not gonna look like this and it will taste a little bit of it's made in Merrick's kitchen. Can we have some money please? Um but yeah it's it's about vision.

And you announced a while ago that you'd secured ESIC state early stage Yeah. Yeah, look that was f for for us that was a that was a big deal. So obviously we know uh a lot of people in tech they said look you should apply for ESIC. Um for those who don't know, ESIC is basically um uh this this

a fantastic initiative by the government that started many moons ago, but it was basically trying to put and get investors to start in supporting early stage startups, right? Particularly ones with a strong innovation backbone. Basically what it allows is for any investor gets effectively 20% off rebate off their investment, plus they have no capital gains tax if they don't sell up to 10 years. Right. So sorry within ten years of of of of sale.

So that is that's a huge offer for a lot of investors going, I get basically 20% reduction straight away from the investment I get to put in and no capital gains when I sell. Now obviously you have to be a qualified investor and please talk to your accountants and yada yada yada. Um but we were told about this and and someone said, Yeah, but you know, you've got to be innovative, you're just a drink. And Mez and I were like, actually, let's look into this.

You actually have to pass through the ATO a hundred point innovation test and it is brutal. My application form that we put together was 36 pages long, full, you know, clinical papers and everything else. because we had to prove that this beverage was different than everything else out in the market and that the ATO, and let's assume the ATO are fairly conservative, actually had to approve that as as a base.

We haven't found many in fact I can't I don't know of another beverage that has had E SIC, maybe you do, James, but but actually be able to prove that the innovation standards. When we got the the call up from the ATO and and they're absolutely lovely by the way. I'm I'm there is a there's there does say that everyone in the drinks industry loves the ACO. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong audience. Oh my god there's

Beer and winemakers out there just go, Well, I'm out of person who called me was very lovely. Anyway, I won't say a name just for secrecy reasons. Anyway, they were um you know they they they gave us a whip American o that was that was a massive moment for us'cause that was

Yeah, it was validation for I think you know, for some investors that was validation enough as well. But it was I think for us it was a huge huge moment because we're like we really are what we say we want to be, which is innovative. And um to be recognized like that and scrutinized in that that way, it was a real kind of test for us. I was like, great, we've crossed the threshold here.

I think you've sort of finished nearly finished the funding round now. Like will we start seeing Posca popping up all over the place? Like you you'll have more of a war chair to really start getting it out there, getting it in people's hands and is is there gonna be sort of a lot more advertising and stuff like that as well? Yeah, so look we've all look I as as a marketer I I believe in full funnel, right? So, you know, I think it's

It's all well and good for brands to say, hey, we're going to build this whole thing in TikTok. TikTok plays a role, right? We're definitely we're in we're in one of our studios right now recording. We do lots of TikTok videos in this studio within our office. However, you've got to do real awareness and and real awareness is above a line, you know, and we do a lot in

So we've got massive campaigns around billboards, we've got buses, we've got all those kind of things going through. Um, because you've got to behave like a big brand as well. Um, and you've got to get that mental availability as well as the physical availability.

And this summer for us is is that is that big one because we've got we've got all of the brand awareness and elements we we track really closely through tracksuit. Um we can see our consideration really starting to increase again among consumers, which we're so pumped about. We're getting our distribution, you know, up even further than where it's been and and in in more of the places closest to our consumer we want to be with.

Um so now it's hitting that sort of area. So look, yeah, this summer you should start to see it, um, wherever wherever you can, I I hope, James. And um And then, you know, next year for us is lots of international discussions. So we've got lots of plans through Southeast Asia, through the Middle East. um as we as we start to play for our our next steps. But yeah, we're you know, we're we're we're trying to build a brand here so Hopefully. James, you see it everywhere.

to see that too. Lot of work to do though. F fantastic stuff guys. Been a really, really uh interesting chat, so thanks for coming on the show. Who's your favourite? Pick your favourite.

Was it me or was it uh No I I just I'm so excited. There's a lot of people listening just go, Where's that going? I did think your comedy was gonna pay for a lot of our product, but no, it hasn't so far. Anyway. No it has. Uh James, I have to say shout out to you mate, I've been a massive fan of your podcast from from day one. Um and I'm actually honoured to even be here on even ask. So thank you, mate. Oh yeah, very nice to the guy. James. Thank you, James.