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GOURMET NEWS JUNE 2016 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier Business SUPPLIER BUSINESS 1 4 BRIEFS Enterprising Beverage Firms Breathe New Life into Premium Tonic Waters BY JORGE GONZALEZ-GARCIA Visit your local spirits emporium and you're likely to see new premium gins in the $25 to $35 range. For the gin and tonic aficionado, paying more to get better is fine. What's not is having to settle for a tonic water that doesn't match the quality of the high end spirit. Enter Jack Rudy, Q Tonic and Fever-Tree premium tonics. The first is a small batch, craft producer in Charleston, South Car- olina. The second is a medium-sized pro- ducer in Brooklyn, New York. And the third is a large beverage firm based in Lon- don. The companies are very different, but all launched on the premise that con- sumers want quality tonic water to go with their high-end liquor. To make tonic water for cocktails, qui- nine powder is blended with botanicals and carbonated water and sweetened. The conventional brands use high fructose corn syrup to sweeten, while the premium tonic firms prefer cane sugar or agave syrup. For decades, the category was a small niche in the huge soft drink market. Sales were steady, if not spectacular. Tastes started to change in the mid-2000s, ac- cording to industry analysts. Interest in high-end gins and vodkas and premium tonics started to grow as part of the surging cocktail culture movement. The trend con- tinues today, and that fuels demand for quality tonics worldwide. Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. was founded in 2011, and introduced Small Batch Tonic, a syrup, that same year. It's a small, family business with four employees in Charleston, South Carolina. Taylor Huber, 32, is President. He and business partner Brooks Reitz do operations and sales. A co- packer handles production. "We saw a lot of craft gins, but not great tonics to go with them," Huber says. So that's where we went." The Jack Rudy tonic is a cane sugar-sweetened syrup that comes in 17 fluid ounce bottles. In five short years, Huber and his part- ner have built a solid distribution network. "We have distributors in 40 states, two in Canada, one in the U.K., one in Sweden, and one in Australia. We're growing, but we'd like to keep it small and grow organ- ically." Jordan Silbert over- sees Q Drinks, the bev- erage startup he founded in 2007. His operation is based in Brooklyn, New York, employs 12 people, and uses a contract bottler for production. Q Tonic, his signature product, was intro- duced in 2007. The introduction came after four tough years of trial and error. "I don't come from the beverage industry, so I didn't know how hard it would be," Silbert says. "At one point, I was trying to extract quinine in my kitchen." He uses organic ingredi- ents, and agave syrup to sweeten. "I have a different perspective. I think that using tonics sweetened with fructose is not right for high end gins and vodkas," Silbert says. "Our tonic has more carbonation, uses or- ganic ingredients, is less sweet, comes in a custom bottle, and, we think, makes a bet- ter gin and tonic." Some of his first customers were high end cocktails lounges in Manhattan like Gramercy Tavern. Q Tonic is now sold to bars and restaurants and in specialty retail- ers and beverage chains. "Whole Foods was our first retail customer, and they've been great to us," Silbert says. Tim Warrilow manages the thriving Fever-Tree beverage firm. His distribution partner in the U.S. is Mark Rajeski, CEO of Brands of Britain, Fever-Tree's exclusive importer and distributor. The Fever-Tree product line includes Classic Indian Tonic Water, Naturally Light Tonic Water, Mediterranean Tonic Water, Elderflower Tonic Water and Bitter Lemon. For Warrilow, it starts with the natural ingredients that make the Fever-Tree taste. "We want people to know about the ingre- dients," he says. "And how we search around the world to find them in some re- mote and dangerous places.... What we tried to do from the beginning was to breathe life and interest into the category." Warrilow and Rajeski mapped out a strategy early on to use bartenders at high- end bars and restaurants to help them spread the Fever-Tree story. "It took a lot of time and effort, but the word continued to spread," Rajeski says. "That was an im- portant first step for us, to get those throughout the various levels of trade to recognize the difference in quality, to un- derstand that we were pioneering a pre- mium segment of the mixer category." GN Madhava Launches Into Sweet New Categories Madhava recently announced the debut of three new product lines: Organic Cassava, Kids Organic Honey Water and Organic Honey Pairings. Organic Cassava is a fructose free, non-GMO liquid sweetener made from the root of the cassava plant. Natural enzymes are used to convert raw cassava into this sweet, neutral-flavored syrup that can be used to sweeten your favorite foods and beverages. Organic Cassava comes in a 16.25-ounce squeeze bottle and began appearing on shelves in April 2016. Lundberg Family Farms Debuts Organic Sprouted Rice & Seasoning Mixes Lundberg Family Farms has launched five varieties of Organic Sprouted rice and seasoning mixes: Thai Red Curry, Toasted Coconut, Chile Verde, Korean BBQ, and Vegetable Fried Rice. "Our new Organic Sprouted rice and seasoning mixes are everything people love about our popular boxed side dishes. They're made with real ingredients, and are easy to prepare – making them a perfect wholesome foundation for everyday meals," said Grant Lundberg, CEO of Lundberg Family Farms. "With their diverse flavors and impressive nutritional profile from sprouted whole grains, we hope they will become a favorite new pantry staple." Morningstar Farms Introduces Veg Effect Calculator Vegetarian food producer and Kellogg Company subsidiary MorningStar Farms ® has launched its Veg Effect Calculator™, a tool that gives consumers a way to see how their personal food choices affect the environment. The impact is so powerful, in fact, that by eating a meatless meal instead of one with meat per week for a year, you're potentially saving, per person, 3,600 gallons of water, 1,000 square feet of land – not to mention 184 car miles in greenhouse gas emissions saved, according to a new Life Cycle Assessment released by MorningStar Farms. CORE Nutrition Rolls out Fruit-Infused Low- Calorie Beverage CORE ® Organic is a USDA Certified Organic fruit infused beverage with antioxidants and only five calories per serving. The USDA Organic low calorie beverage is rolling out into grocers including Kroger, Safeway/Albertson's, Save Mart/Lucky Supermarkets, H-E-B, Sprouts Farmers Market, Acme, Tops Friendly Markets, Bristol Farms, and select Whole Foods Markets through May. Additionally, extensive distribution will kick in at 7-Eleven locations on both coasts as part of the retailer's push for "better for you" beverages. Known for CORE Hydration, a premium bottled water, CORE Nutrition has developed a first of its kind – an organic and low calorie drink that tastes great without the worry of artificial ingredients, high calorie counts or sugar. With CORE Organic, the company is tapping into America's growing demand for organics, a market estimated at $40 billion that grew by 11 percent in 2014, according to Mintel. Joseph Magnus Bourbon Wins Gold and Best in Class On the heels of winning Double Gold and Best Special Barrel Finished Bourbon at the 2016 San Francisco World Spirits Compe- tition, Jos. A. Magnus & Co. was awarded Gold, Best in Category, and Best in Class for its triple-cask finished Joseph Magnus Bourbon at the American Distilling Insti- tute's 2016 Spirits Competition. In a blind tasting, 28 judges evaluated 645 artisan spirits and selected Joseph Magnus Bourbon as Best in Class Whiskey in the Craft Blended Spirits Competition. To win Best in Class Whiskey, Magnus first had to win its individual category, Best Bourbon Aged Over 5 Years, which it won with a gold medal. This qualified it to go head-to-head against the winners of the other bourbon and whiskey categories in the Craft Blended Spirits Competition, and Magnus emerged as Best in Class Whiskey. The American Distilling Institute's Spirits Competition has become the premier and top-attended competition in the craft spir- its industry. "It's an incredible honor for Joseph Mag- nus Bourbon to be named Best in Class Whiskey," said Master Distiller Brett Thompson. "We are grateful to our dream team of top bourbon experts who guided us on an incredible journey to learn from the original 100 plus year old Magnus bourbon and bring back that heritage in our triple-cask finished Joseph Magnus Bourbon." After Magnus' great-grandson discov- ered original 100+ year-old bottles of Joseph Magnus' pre-Prohibition era bour- bon that had been passed down through generations of the Magnus family, Jos. A. Magnus & Co. assembled a bourbon dream team led by Nancy "the Nose" Fra- ley, Magnus Master Blender; Dave Scheurich, former Woodford Reserve Dis- tiller and Whiskey Advocate Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, and Richard Wolf, former Buffalo Trace Distillery Vice President and General Manager. Upon sampling the pre-Prohibition Magnus, which was one of the best bourbons the team had ever tasted, they discovered that Magnus finished his bourbon in used sherry barrels, a process that delivered a uniquely smooth bourbon with notes of rich, dark fruits. The team, led by Fraley, set out to recreate those historic Magnus qualities by finishing 9-year bourbon in used sherry and cognac casks. GN

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