Coming up...

Speaker 1 1:12

Eventually , we ended up with a spreadsheet about a mile and a half long of different alcohol-free drinks categories , and I think how many did we end up with this year ?

Speaker 2 1:20

Over 100 . I think it's 130 . I get emails every week from people saying oh , I'd love to come and judge , I'd love to learn a bit more about these drinks , educating and teaching people . They have to come to us already having some background and some proof that they are , you know , making an effort and and learning and having experience with these drinks

Introducing the WAFAs story

Speaker 2 1:47

hi , hi , low no nation , and welcome to this week's conversation on the low no drinker podcast .

Speaker 3 1:53

Now today I am super excited . I'm kind of uh I think the kids say fangirling out because I get to speak to two people who have created one of the most exciting things to happen in the loaner industry , and those are the wonderful Chrissy Parkinson and Mr Chris Lush . Now Chrissy and Chris are the double trouble duo who created the World Alcohol Free Awards . I feel like I've got a special affinity with the awards , even though they're not connected to the magazine in any way . We both launched around the same time . They have been really open and shared loads of wonderful behind the scenes information with me . They let me come along and spy at one of the judging days .

Speaker 3 2:35

So it's been really , really exciting to watch the World Alcohol Free Awards or the WAFAs as they've become affectionately known grow into such an international concern . Chris and Chrissie between them have decades of experience in the beverage industry , everything from editing to judging , consulting . They've covered it all . They've run the gamut and today I'm really excited to get to speak to them about the inspiration behind the WAFers , the perspiration behind the WAFers , because it's a huge operation , and hopefully see if I can eke out any exciting tidbits about what's to come in the future . So to stop embarrassing myself from gushing too much , I will stop talking and say hello Chrissy and hello Chris how are you doing ?

Speaker 2 3:25

Hello , Denise .

Speaker 1 3:26

Hi Denise . Yeah , very good Thanks . Thank you for that heroic introduction .

Speaker 2 3:30

It's fine , we loved it .

Speaker 3 3:34

You deserve it . You deserve it . It's such an amazing thing that you've done and it's no small task , is it ? I mean the world alcohol free award . You didn't go in starting off with just like , oh , we'll do just a local one , we'll just see what the bricks are doing . You know , let's go global straight away no , that's it think big , think .

Speaker 1 3:54

Think . Probably bigger than we realized when we started it , I think , to be honest , yeah , like you said , it was an enormous amount of work , like far more than we thought when we first began it , I think . But yeah , you've got to think big , haven't you ? Go big or go home , that's what they say , isn't it ?

Speaker 3 4:11

That's what they say Absolutely , say absolutely . Um . So what I'd love for you guys to do is , if I could ask you um , we'll start with yourself , chrissy to just take us a little bit back to wherever you're comfortable to begin . What was the journey ? Because I , chris , every time I speak to Chris , he always tells me that you are the brains behind the operation , you are the powerhouse and driving force . So can you tell me a ?

Speaker 2 4:43

bit about . What was the journey that led to you creating the World Alcohol Free Awards many , many , many years and I got to run a wonderful two-year project looking at non-alcoholic drinks that we could use in our restaurants around the world . So I had a fantastic time tasting drinks from all over the world , getting to develop some new drinks with with people globally who were involved with with no and low alcohol free , and I was really sort of fresh from that experience when chris and I had the conversation which led to the waffers yeah , that that was a .

Speaker 1 5:34

That was almost exactly two years ago , wasn't it ? That was at London Wine Fair , and I'm a drinks journalist by profession , so I've written about mostly booze for about 25 years and done magazines and so on . And I was at a London Wine Fair , which is a big international drinks fair in London , funnily enough , and I was on these kind of panels interviewing people from different areas of the wine trade so independents , supermarkets , hospitality and at the end of each of these sort of panel discussions I'd ask the people on the stage what's the big trend you're going to see in the next few years ? And this being an alcoholic wine fair , I was assuming they'd say , oh , it's going to be rose , prosecco , orange wine , whatever . And every single one of them unprompted said lo and no , and that kind of brought me up short .

Speaker 1 6:26

And , equally , what brought me up short was the fact that , while they knew it was a trend that was coming down the line , they weren't comfortable with it , they didn't know much about it , they didn't know what was good , they didn't know what trends were happening and I thought , well , what they need and what perhaps this space needs is a competition . Because that's how you say this is great , this is not good . Here's what the experts think and it just gives everyone a foothold into the category . And to get to that point , I thought what I need is somebody who knows this better than anybody else and who did I go and see this lady here because she absolutely does know it better than anybody else . So that that's kind of slightly circuitous description of how we got here . So we came at it from slightly different places , but we had worked together before , hadn't we ? Cp ?

Speaker 2 7:11

Yeah , we had . We we'd worked together on various projects and , I suppose most relevant , the Sommelier Wine Awards , which you set up and I was head of judging for . So that was involved as judging wine and I've got a strong wine background , as has Chris . So we thought we knew what we needed to know about setting up a competition , but there was a bit more to it . I think that we realised .

Speaker 3 7:42

It sounds like you probably were the best placed people to do it , because you probably knew more than anyone else who would try to set it up , but

113 drinks categories!

Speaker 3 7:49

I can imagine it has been a journey fraught with shall we call them learning opportunities with um .

Speaker 1 8:00

Should we call them learning opportunities ? Yeah , I think one of the biggest ones is the kind of creation of the categories , isn't it chrissy ? So we started off and we kind of said , okay , we'll have whatever six or seven categories there'll be , kind of , you know , tea-based drinks , wine type drinks , beers , spirits , blah , blah , blah . And then literally every time I phone chrissy up she's like oh , we need another category for this kind of drink , and then that has to subdivide into four more areas , and then some of those have to subdivide further and we just , eventually we ended up with a spreadsheet about a mile and a half long of different alcohol free drinks categories , and I think how many did we end up with this year ?

Speaker 2 9:01

Over 100 . I think it's 113 . I'm just going to make sure it is anyway , think it's 113 , I'm just gonna yeah , I'm sure it is anyway , you know . But that's categories , subcategories , that making sure that you know we're judging every , every type of drink according to what it's trying to do and how it's been made and and really treating it fairly and getting the best out of it .

Speaker 1 9:24

You know , really finding out yeah , you don't want a flight of gin-type spirits with a couple of whiskeys in there as well , because you can't go from one to the other . It's not fair on the tasters , it's not fair on the drinks that have come in , so they all have to be entered into a separate category and then those need to be flighted separately , just so the judges aren't jumping backwards and forwards .

Speaker 2 9:44

Yeah , I don't know if you know what flighting is , but that's where you know you start with . You know several hundred drinks and you organise them down until you've got . You know here's six or eight or ten drinks that we're going to give to that table of judges , to taste those drinks together and to mark them .

Speaker 3 10:07

So it's this huge sort of funneling down process yeah , oh my gosh , there's already so many things that I want to unpack from what you guys have said . It's so exciting , isn't it so ? Um , we'll stick with the , with the sort of categories at the moment , just because , in terms of the low no market at the moment , it's

Who can enter the WAFAs?

Speaker 3 10:24

just huge in terms of creativity and categories , isn't it ? So ? How do you even begin to determine ? I mean , can all categories , all sorts of low-no drinks , enter from any realm ? Because there are very few rules at the moment around low and no , and every time I look , there's a new type of drink opening up , there's a new style of making this . There's drinks that try to replicate standard alcoholic drinks that we know , like you mentioned , gins and whiskeys and then there's , like this whole other world of brand new , weird and wonderful things that didn't you even have one drink that you had to serve warm , but it wasn't a tea , or really I'll do what I'll do .

Speaker 1 11:08

I'll give you the the basic what can enter , and then I'll let chrissy go into the more complicated stuff , since she lives the hell of trying to unpack this for about six weeks every year . So what can enter ? Basically anything from anywhere . Um , as long as it's 0.5 percent or below . And we don't take kind of kids drinks , so soft drinks , so we're not taking , you know , premium colas or anything like that . It's kind of if it's a drink that you would drink at a time when you have an alcoholic drink , for instance , then it's . That's the kind of stuff that we're considering and , as I say , there's the limit on the alcohol level as well . So nothing above 0.5 percent . Within that it does get a little more complicated , and poor old Chrissie has to spend a lot of time emailing , phoning , googling , don't you ? To make sense of it all .

Speaker 2 12:02

Yeah , you absolutely do , because you know the drinks are so complex and people because it's a new category really that we know that sort of non-alcoholic drinks have been around for a long time . We know of non-alcoholic wine being made in 1908 . So you know they've existed for a long time . But the creativity is really exploding now and people are coming up with new methods all the time . And I'll give you an example with wine . So back in 1908 , it was just somebody made alcoholic wine and then they processed it , took the alcohol out . Now that still goes on in a much on in a much better technology is used , but that still happens . But you can go to the shop right now and you can buy bottles that look like a bottle of wine and they've got 0.5 or below . But they might be made that way , or they might be blends of botanicals and juices , or they might be based on vinegar , the old concept of a shrub or a switcher , or they might be based on kombucha , you know , fermented with tea , or they might be something completely different . You know there are some drinks .

Speaker 2 13:18

We came to the conclusion that some drinks are . It's almost like molecular gastronomy People are , you know , they're getting chefs into the development kitchen . They're getting sommeliers in and they're really intricately piecing together very complex drinks and , as you said , some of them look like and taste like alcoholic drinks that we know and some of them are like nothing you've ever tasted . They've invented something completely new and all of that has to be broken down so that when our judges are tasting , they're tasting similar things , so they can genuinely find out which ones have done the best job . Yeah , yeah , they're comparing like with like .

Speaker 3 14:05

So how many entries did you have this year and how did that compare to the first

How many entries did you have?

Speaker 3 14:12

year ?

Speaker 1 14:13

So this year we had 450 , which is about 50 or so more than the previous year . So it's a decent increase , like 10 , 15 percent up on the previous year , which is pretty good . I mean , 450 drinks in the non-alcohol space is probably more than we were expecting when we started . I think it shows just how much is happening out there , not least because you know we still feel as though we're probably barely scratching the surface . I mean , you know , half an hour spent on AF Instagram just shows you how many new things are coming out all the time . So there's literally thousands of drinks out there are spent on AF . Instagram just shows you how many new things are coming out all the time . Yeah , so there's literally thousands of drinks out there . So we'd love to see the more the merrier really . And especially there's bits of the world which haven't really kind of taken off yet , I think aren't the CP and maybe Asia .

Speaker 2 15:01

We'd quite like to see a few more from there , but I think it's still quite an embryonic yeah , industry out that way , a small number from from asia , but I think there's there are more hidden away and I think sometimes it's the way people think about it . I remember working with a , a sommelier from malaysia who went . When I dug into it , his family had lots of drinks that they would have , you know , with dinner or evening or whatever , but he didn't think of these in the same way he thought of drinks you'd have in a restaurant . So I think there's there's a . You know it's going to take time for people to realize that these drinks exist and perhaps commercialize them and make them available and export them , commercialize them and make them available and export them . So I think we're going to see fascinating new things coming onto the market for quite a while still to come .

Speaker 3 15:55

Absolutely , I 100% agree . I think that the market's in such an infancy that there's so much experimentation going on . There's so many new things coming in . Sadly , there are some things going out as well . Going on , there's so many new things coming in . Sadly , there are some things going out as well . But I think this is sort of the natural ebb and flow that will occur as as the sector stabilizes itself and figures out what it's doing and how it's going to to do it . And , like I said before , there aren't many rules , so it's all sort of just making it up as we go along to make the best drinks in the best possible way .

Speaker 3 16:28

Hence you know , awards like yours are fantastic for showing people that there is such a wealth of variety

New & unique drinks

Speaker 3 16:35

out there beyond what you see on your supermarket shelves from big alcohol .

Speaker 1 16:40

I've got to say , as a drinks journalist , it's so exciting this category , because , you know , if you work in , I don't know , wine or whiskey or something , it's got rules and regulations that have been codified over you know , decades , hundreds of years , and they're designed to kind of limit innovation or kind of at least keep it within certain set parameters , and to be working in industry where basically anything goes . I mean , we've , we've seen , like you mentioned earlier on , we had a drink which was a kind of tea . It was meant to taste like whiskey but it was made like a tea bag and you had to kind of soak it in warm water . It wasn't boiling , it had to be just below boiling for a very specific amount of time , and then it had to be drunk and savored as a kind of whiskey . And there was two different flavors , wasn't ? There was a whiskey one , and was it a rum one or a tequila one ? I can't remember , but just bonkers I mean crazy .

Speaker 2 17:35

And you actually , you know , I spoke at length to the producer who who insisted that you actually drank it warm , even though you wouldn't drink a whiskey or a tequila warm , and yet it tasted great . You know , it was a really , really interesting drink , but I mean , where did that come from ? So , so left field , you know , fabulous . We . We're glad to have products like that because people are going through this creative process and they they can imagine something they want to drink and then they're finding ways to make it , which is wonderful .

Speaker 1 18:12

You see it a lot in the alt-wine category , don't you ? Cp , where people are , as you mentioned earlier , they're trying to create drinks that do the job of wine without necessarily always having even been started with grapes . So they begin with cider vinegar or something and then they build layers on top of it and , as you said , that kind of molecular approach . There's a company in I think it's France , who entered a couple of products this year that were really interesting and built , with chefs and top sommeliers working almost scientifically with it , to layer up these kind of food friendly drinks which are designed to take the place of wine on a list , but as far as I remember , there's no grapes anywhere near them . They just kind of layered up these different flavors and spices and herbs to create structure and acidity and mouthfeel and all these kind of things that you would want in wine . It fascinating . You know how they .

Speaker 2 19:09

How they go about doing it astonishes me yeah , and if you know , if you think about it , drinks like that . They are some of the most gourmet products that you could go to a shop and buy . You know they they are kind of the equivalence of dishes that you would get in really high end , michelin starred restaurants . They've been made with such regard for ingredients and how they combine together . So you know , that's a very interesting part of the world .

Speaker 1 19:43

It's a difficult message , isn't it ? For the AF space , the idea that these drinks are not a poor relation

The messaging around AF drinks

Speaker 1 19:50

and therefore should be cheaper , and it's the . It's the biggest challenge . Well , one of the biggest challenges they face , I think , is how you get people to understand that these drinks are can be made with real craftsmanship and care and attention and therefore , you know , because of that they they justify premium pricing . You know , I don't think it can be the only message , but I think it's . It's the one that people are finding hardest to get to stick .

Speaker 3 20:16

I think you're absolutely right . I actually yesterday , as of time of recording , I posted a newsletter , a LinkedIn newsletter , about the reason why low and no drinks cost the amount that they do yeah and it was looking at five of the top reasons that I hear from when I speak to to founders on the podcast about the challenges that they're facing .

Speaker 3 20:36

And I love that you took that into the awards and said you know we don't do soft drinks . This is not about , you know , judging what's the nicest soda . This is about about drinks for adults , for adult occasions , when you want an alternative to an adult drink . But you want those depths of flavours , you want that experience , you want that aroma , that mouthfeel , all of those things that you've come to know and expect .

Speaker 3 21:02

Because for those who have gone from drinking alcohol to not drinking alcohol as opposed to those who have gone from drinking alcohol to not drinking alcohol as opposed to those who never have there is an element of missing for most people missing what you used to have before . So being able to find that in different categories , in different styles , for different occasions , in different moments , because it's not just about finding one , you know , ready to drink cocktail that you like it's okay . Well , that might be good for a picnic , but what do I want for when I'm having a meal or what do I want as a reception at an event ? You know there's so many occasions that that these drinks can serve , and it's about showing people that that's available to them yeah , absolutely .

Speaker 2 21:44

You know , if you , if you really drill down into it , the one thing that you know alcohol can give to a drink which is hard to replicate is that it's a good preservative . But you can , you can develop drinks which have the impact . You can have drinks , functional drinks , which can affect how you feel or your well-being . You can have everything . You can replicate everything , um , but you know alcohol itself , ethyl alcohol , it's , it's a preservative , uh , but that's what we're used to , obviously it's really .

Speaker 1 22:21

It's really interesting , isn't it ? When we were at , we had , um , all of our gold medal winning drinks at the London Wine Fair this year , and you know there's a couple of groups of kind of younger people came up and they were like , oh , what's the point of drinking these if there's no alcohol ? And it's like , well , when you go out to buy a drink , an alcoholic drink , do you just get like the cheapest , crappiest vodka that you can find in the corner shop ? And they're like no , it's like well , if all you want is the alcohol , then why don't you do that ? Because you're buying a brand and you're buying flavors and you're buying balance and you're buying an experience .

Speaker 1 22:55

All those are true for non-alcoholic drinks . Literally , if all you want is the alcohol , then you maybe need to rethink your attitude to what you're drinking and how . But but nobody , unless they have a serious drink problem . Very few people drink like that and I think that's key . Part of this competition is to help people understand where those good drinks are and how you can go out and choose with a bit of confidence . Yeah , absolutely .

Speaker 3 23:21

Um , I would like to talk to you a little bit or have you talked to me a little bit about the judging , because what I saw was

Choosing the judges

Speaker 3 23:29

a well-oiled machine of chaos . It was . It achieved both at the same time in a way that I have never seen before . There were so many drinks , so many glasses , so many people . It's quite an operation . So , in in the beginning . Then tell me about the judges . You had judges from , I think , about 14 different countries . Who were the judges ? How do you select who's going to be ? Because it's not just this person . Put up a post about an alcohol-free drink so they can come along . You've really put a lot of effort , haven't you , into finding the people that you think will be best for judging these drinks yeah that they .

Speaker 2 24:12

they have to be people who , who have real interest and real understanding of the drinks . Um it's . It just doesn't work to bring in judges who are experienced judges in the world of alcohol but don't know anything about non-alcoholic drinks , because I think maybe your listeners might not realize that you train through your career in beverages , you learn skills and you learn a formal method of tasting and that's extremely helpful . But if you revisit that from the point of view of non-alcoholic drinks , then some of the things that you have to understand and look for are missing .

Speaker 2 25:00

So we have people who've been formally trained from the alcohol world and we have people who've come , uh , come to judging without ever having , you know , judged , judged alcohol , and in both cases we we have to see that they have understanding of the drinks and they've got genuine experience . You know , I mean , honestly , we get I get emails every week from people saying , oh , I'd love to come and judge , I'd love to learn a bit more about these drinks . And whilst we're keen on educating and teaching people , they can't learn as judges . They can learn judging with us . We're happy to teach people and guide that and we're happy to build people's knowledge . No-transcript .

Speaker 3 26:00

Because tasting and judging alcohol-free drinks is quite a skill , isn't it ? A lot of people still will compare an alcohol-free gin to an alcohol-full gin and not understand the nuances and what it is that they're supposed to be looking for . So I can imagine that trying to find people that can present that understanding in a way that's fair to the drinks as well could be quite a challenge .

Speaker 1 26:34

I think that's where the so we have . Yeah , as you say , one of the challenges with alcohol free is it's such a young category . You don't have a huge pool of people with experience in judging it or even drinking it to to , to kind of draw from . So we have one of the reasons that we've ended up with judges from all over the world is that we went for people who have lots of experience , uh , comparatively speaking , and those people are not always based in the UK . Uh . The other one , obviously , is that we're an international competition and different countries kind of taste differently or think different things are good . So we wanted that input as well .

Speaker 1 27:10

Um , but yeah , it's , it's a , it's been a challenge , but I think one of the ways around it is we have , you've got kind of separate teams that all judge initially , so

The judging process

Speaker 1 27:19

the flights get divvied out to different teams who taste them when they have got their results . So they'll say first round , is this going through for a medal or is it going out , basically , and those results from their tasting will come to a panel of senior judges , including chrissy and myself , and then we're kind of benchmarking how each team is tasting against the other teams to make sure that one team hasn't been too harsh , another team's been too enthusiastic , to make sure they haven't missed anything . That's maybe complicated , that they didn't understand these kind of things . So there's a lot of kind of safety nets throughout the judging process which are designed to make sure that things get a fair hearing and don't slip through the net . And then , so that's the first round in the morning , then in the afternoon , on each day we're divvying out the medals , so you get a different flight of drinks in the afternoon , all of which have been selected as medal worthy and they'll be going okay , here are our golds , here are our silvers , here are our bronzes , and again , that will be retasted and benchmarked by senior judges Chrissie myself to make sure that the judging process is fair and rigorous across all the teams .

Speaker 1 28:29

As you say , organised chaos is a very good way of describing it . Actually , there's a lot of bottles , a lot of bottles and a lot of where's this ? What did that go ? What did that get ? Who's seen this flight ?

Speaker 3 28:42

There's a lot of that going on . And then I noticed that you also had some other senior uh other senior judges who were in the room supporting the judges as well . Um , so it's not that they're just left to their own devices . There were people sort of guiding what they should be looking for rather than guiding their answers absolutely so there there are things , things which , when you're tasting , it really helps to know .

Speaker 2 29:07

So , for instance , you might have a flight of drinks and it's important to know if some of those drinks contain vinegar fantastic base for non-alcoholic drinks . It can make something so refreshing and so full of flavor . But vinegar is acetic acid and there are types of alcohol , such as wine , where if , if you taste wine and you notice acetic acid , it's a fault . Something's gone wrong . So it's really helpful to people to know if the vinegar is meant to be there and you know to have an understanding of what kind of flavors to expect . So we we make sure that people are alerted to that when they're judging . But what we also do because and it goes back to all the categories and the fact that we're looking at so many different kinds of drink We've got a couple of senior judges , james and Josh , who do a fantastic job , and we get them to go to each table as a new flight comes out and just chat for a couple of minutes to focus them on you know what to look for in this flight and also to make them aware . So I give you a good example of that .

Speaker 2 30:36

Non-alcoholic spirits , as we call them have really changed over the last three or four years to the extent that you can taste them and you can say you know this kind of tastes first generation , whereas you know this is tastes third generation . You can taste changes that have happened and you know . That's an example where even people who were doing a lot of work with non-alcoholic drinks might not be aware of the . You know the latest developments and the latest techniques and how to identify those , and you know how to compare which drinks are , you know , using the very latest techniques and getting the best results and which drinks perhaps need to be reformulated . You know so it's framing it in that way as well . Reformulated you know so . It's framing it in that way as well . Uh , so yeah , the senior judges play a very , very important role , um , in helping everybody to be completely , uh , up to date and aware of the flight they're about to taste , so that you know they bring their a-game to it you know what , christy ?

Speaker 1 31:41

that ? Um , picking up on what you just mentioned , that kind of progression of the af space

Progressions in taste & flavour

Speaker 1 31:47

is really interesting , isn't it ? Because we ? I think that some of the drinks which would have if we'd done this competition four years ago if there were enough drinks out there then to do this , I think the drinks that would have scored really well then would now be surpassed by almost everything that's coming out now .

Speaker 1 32:06

And I think that anyone who's kind of resting on their laurels and thinking we've created a great drink , we can just sit on that and keep doing the same thing forever . I think most people who do that are going to be disappointed because there's such a lot of energy and technical expertise within the category , like people who've grown up tasting the first generation drinks and think actually I've discovered a way of improving that that actually it's improving all the time . And we saw , didn't we CP this year , that there's drinks which got a certain medal in the first year of the competition who scored less well this year simply because there were better examples out there doing what they were doing . So their product isn't worse than it was a year ago , it's simply that it's been surpassed , and I think that's a really interesting place for the category to be in .

Speaker 3 32:58

It's almost watching the evolution of the category . I've been watching animal history programs with my kids lately and it's the . I've been watching um history program , animal history programs with my kids lately and sort of it's the same sort of thing . It's looking at the birds when they were dinosaurs to where they are now , and it's the same with the drinks . It's interesting to hear you say that you think that even in just four years there's been such an evolution in the category , because it just opens up the possibility to what we could be looking at in another few years yeah it , it does .

Speaker 2 33:27

I mean the standards .

Speaker 1 33:29

We saw a big jump in the standards just just in one year , uh , so I think things are moving quite quickly and actually , and a lot less of that you know that kind of that chili cough thing , that that was a big factor for spirits , the idea that everyone put lots of kind of capsicum and stuff in it , um , to recreate the burn of alcohol . It's like I don't think that's the best bit of an alcoholic drink in any case . So I don't know why anyone would want to replicate it as much as they do , and I think we're seeing a lot less of that , for instance . So really , and when people do use it , I think they're balancing it far better than they used to .

Speaker 1 34:07

We had an absolutely stupendously good tequila alcohol-free tequila came in this year and it was knockout brilliant . You know we were showing it at London Wine Fair and everyone who tasted it was like this is amazing , where can we get it ? And it's like well , america . So sadly you're going to have to fly to the states to get it . At the moment I don't think they're .

Speaker 1 34:28

They're exporting it , but it was breathtakingly good and it tasted like a really good tequila , only without the alcohol , and you just didn't miss it and you know that kind of thing . I think if they'd done that a few years ago it would have been clunky and clumsy and it would have tasted kind of hot and over spiced and it was none of those things . It was complex and smooth and balanced and just brilliant and and that kind of thing . When you think people can make a drink as awkward to create as tequila , which doesn't have those kind of big , rich oaky flavors that you get in , you know , whiskey and rum and so on , if you can get that kind of level of finesse with the spirits category , like tequila , then really you're on to something extraordinary .

Speaker 2 35:08

Yeah , if anyone's interested , it was called the Spirit of Tequila by Free Spirits .

Speaker 1 35:13

Thank , you for digging me out of that hole which I'd put myself in without any information , chrissie .

Speaker 2 35:20

It's not that I've got a good memory , it's that I've got our website in front of me and actually we should plug our website because it really is . You know , looking through the results , you know you can search for different types of drinks . So I just did a search on um spirits which won gold , and there it was , it jumped out at me .

Speaker 3 35:39

So so , while you're talking about , then , chrissy , what is the web address and what can people go there and find out ?

Where to find the winners

Speaker 1 35:49

Go on , chris , you're good at this . I get jumbled up halfway through . Yeah , ok , it's wwwworldafawardscom and there's everything . There's kind of a few nice little articles we've got up there about kind of trends in the category and kind of features and a bit of news and so on , and then all the results . So there's a big kind of features and a bit of news and so on and then all the results . So there's a big kind of tab saying results . If you go on that , you can , as Chrissy says , you can filter by everything from alcohol level , so you can filter by 0.5 . Or , if you want complete zero , you can filter for drinks that are at zero . You can filter by the country it was made in , you can filter by drink style , producer name , whatever you want . It's actually hugely usable , even by Luddite journalists such as myself have had a few problems using it .

Speaker 1 36:32

I just happen to have forgotten to get it on my website , on my screen , sorry , as we're talking and you can see the trophy winners .

Speaker 2 36:39

We haven't spoken about those yet , but you can see the products that won trophies so so what , what ?

Speaker 3 36:47

what is it that distinguishes a trophy winner then ? So we've had the judging , we've done

Trophy & spotlight winners

Speaker 3 36:52

the tasting in the morning , you've then done the , the medals in the afternoon and said goodbye to those that you didn't think were quite , uh , worthy just yet . Um , so that that's a two-day process , and then there is a what seems like a break to the outside world , but yourselves and your senior team are then looking at which of these drinks are the cream of the crop . How does that process all go ?

Speaker 2 37:19

yeah , that's right . So , um , this year we held it . A few weeks later we were at fortnum andum and Mason in their wonderful sort of third floor food and drink studio , and it's a very challenging tasting . So we have , I think , about 55 gold medals , chris , is that right ? And so , if you imagine the categories , so obviously we're looking at things like the best spirit or the best wine or best alternative to wine , so , and there can only be one winner .

Speaker 2 37:53

So we'll have gold medals that you know , for white wines , rosé wines , sparkling wines , but the trophy can only be won by one of those . So the judges have to taste these different wines and pick the winner . So obviously it needs to be judges who really do have a good understanding of what's great and so on . So that's what happens there , and we have some special , what we call spotlight uh trophies as well , which are not so much about whether something is a wine or a beer or a spirit . Uh , we have them , for , for instance , we have the best ethical drink and the best organic , uh , the best halal . So those are very interesting to taste as well , because then you might be tasting a spirit alongside a beer , alongside some original drink . We have a best original drink trophy as well , by the way . So yeah , those are very challenging to judge , but very , very exciting to judge , because you really just tasted gold medals .

Speaker 3 39:11

How many trophy winners did you have this year then ?

Speaker 1 39:15

13 is the answer . So we had , I think , seven or eight category trophies . So that's , I can read them off actually Best aperitif , cocktail , ingredient beer , wine , wine , alternative spirit , original drink and best cocktail . And then we've got the four kind of spotlight trophies , that's organic , halal , ethical and best value . So yeah , they're sort of slightly different , but I think those though they're .

Speaker 1 39:46

Again , there's something that's a bit different about the alcohol free space , because I think for a lot of people who are looking for these kind of drinks , these things really matter . I think they matter more than they would in the world of alcohol . So , as you say , people who've never drunk for whatever reason so the halal one's an obvious example or people who want to drink ethically you know a lot of people who are interested in alcohol free . Those things matter , you know . So we've got drinks that are b corp certified and give a lot of money back to worthy causes and stuff like this . So those are the kind of drinks that are in with the chance of winning that one and again . That's . That's different about this competition , I think yeah , fantastic , because I do .

Speaker 3 40:26

Uh , that was a bit of a cheeky question , because obviously I do know how many winners you trophy winners you had , because , um , you very kindly allowed me to share that in the magazine , so I'll flash it up on the screen for those who are watching on youtube so that they can see , uh , all of the amazing drinks . And you're really touching the , the producers here as well . So it's not just about the consumers , um , I can't remember which one it was , but one of the producers , one of the trophy winners , had only been in production for a couple of months and they were so excited that they had won . They were beside themselves that they got this trophy . We haven't even sorted out all of our back of office stuff yet . We're not even in all the places we want to be .

Speaker 2 41:05

We've only been doing it for a few months all the places you want to be , and we've only been doing it for a few months .

Speaker 2 41:11

It's really fascinating , denise , because you know , on the one hand , we have a trophy that was won by an asda product that you can go into your local asda and it's on the shelf and buy it they're dark spiced but then , on the other hand , like you say , we have products that have won trophies made by tiny , tiny producers you know husband and wife , or you know sort of one man band , as it were , and I think that's kind of one of the exciting things .

Speaker 2 41:39

I mean one that I love is that the best beer trophy was won by Belgium's oldest family brewery , and you know if you will think of Belgian beer , I mean it's famously strong , isn't it ? Lots of alcohol , and this non-alcoholic beer was brewed by the 14th generation . I think I've got that right , haven't I , chris ? 14th generation , yeah , the guys of this family . And I mean imagine you know how that feels in that family , with all of that tradition to break out and do something so new and and to do it so well that you go straight in and you know you win a trophy yeah , and then you've got .

Speaker 1 42:22

You've got the guys in germany , franz von fein , who started up think about six months before lockdown . So I don't think their timing was great and they did it literally . I don't think they really thought about it commercially at all , they just thought we'd quite like to drink something without alcohol because we're now working and think that people don't want to go to work with a hangover . So they just literally jumped into it . And you know they're're a tiny operation . There's just the two of them started it out and they did absolutely brilliantly . So they , they got a trophy for their , their ruby in a pair of teeth , and they got another , I think , another gold and a couple of silvers .

Speaker 2 42:58

They've been to two products . Both got gold and one of them got a trophy . I mean , what can you say ?

Speaker 1 43:03

so , yeah , I love that you've got guys who've been in in in the process for like three or four years and people who've been there for 14 generations and I think the Bloody Virgin Mary trophy one of the best cocktail trophy I think they've literally I don't know how long they've been going , but even less time than the guys in Germany .

Speaker 2 43:21

I think about five minutes yeah .

Speaker 1 43:24

Extraordinary .

Speaker 2 43:25

I love that .

Speaker 1 43:32

I like the fact that all these guys are competing on an even playing field and you don't know what any of them are when you taste them , because obviously they're all tasted blind . Nobody knows what anything is . So I I really like that .

Speaker 2 43:37

I love that egalitarian nature of it yeah , and it's real proof of of how this category is moving quickly and new things are coming into it . You know it's wonderful absolutely so .

Speaker 3 43:51

What do you think we can expect from the waffers for ? Uh ? I was going to say 2023 , but that's going

WAFAs 2025 (+best range winner)

Speaker 3 43:57

the wrong way . 2025 um , I'm assuming that you've already sort of uh , got your thinking caps on and and sort of processes in place ? Um , how do you think the WAFAs 2025 are going to look ?

Speaker 2 44:11

One thing that we did this year that we didn't do last year , I think was a huge success and that something we'll definitely develop and take forward .

Speaker 2 44:21

We gave a special trophy for the best drinks range , and that's only possible because we're starting to get both bigger companies and we're starting to see the smaller producers expand their ranges .

Speaker 2 44:38

So , you know , for that , for that particular trophy , you had to enter a minimum of five drinks and you had to produce a certain amount of volume , and we took all of the data from the producers , and so this is where you've got really big sort of international drinks corporations that have decided to create something non-alcoholic , competing with people who started up under a railway arch in London and have grown . And actually , you know , I think we were both thrilled that it was actually the latter that won it this time around it was Dukes that won it for their cordialities and their sparkling drinks , but that was a huge change . I think that we we could see , you know , companies growing and bigger companies coming in , and I think we're expecting to see quite a lot more of that next year . Um , so I think the one-man vans will still be there , but I think the big , bigger companies will as well yeah .

Speaker 1 45:48

So to be in the , to be in with a shout of winning the , the best range a you have to enter quite a lot of products . B they all have to get a medal . So you can't be in the running if you enter 10 products and only half of them get a gold or something . You know everything's got to be good , and so that's a pretty high bar to set , and we had , you know , two or three companies that were seriously slugging it out . Uh , and yeah , it's a . It's a really great thing .

Speaker 1 46:15

I think jukes are doing amazing stuff and I think I think he mentioned he's got lots of lovely listings and stuff on the back of having one . I think it's helped to unlock a few doors for him , which is great , because you know what we , what we all want and what we are hoping to achieve in the competition is that you know people who do good things should be rewarded , so that you know they should be the drinks that people want to look for and want to drink . You know the public and the you know so on , the journalists want to write about it . These are the ones to concentrate on because they're doing the best stuff , and then that raises the standard for the category .

Speaker 3 46:53

It gets everyone excited about what they're drinking , and you know it gets more kind of energy and so on into alcohol free , which is precisely where we're trying to go with it . Amazing you , the world alcohol free awards . Obviously you're both based in the uk . Do you think that at some point in the future

Going international

Speaker 3 47:03

you might take the experience and the judging to another place , another country , or is that a logistical nightmare ?

Speaker 2 47:12

I think logistics plays a part in it and it comes down to history . The UK has for many centuries imported wines and spirits and drinks from around the world and I think it's I mean , I've grown up knowing that . You know , if you go to France , you can see French wines on the shelves , but you're not going to see wines from South Africa or Australia , whereas you know , in the UK you see everything , and what that means is the infrastructure here is good . You know the um , the import process . Whilst it's not always simple and straightforward , I think it works slightly . You know it's more used to different types of drinks coming in from lots of different countries , so that is an advantage . Uh , obviously , and we're both based here , um , but there , you know , we're open . We're open to considering what might happen in future .

Speaker 2 48:11

There's a very small we've identified one very small situation where there's a type of drink that we can't judge . In the UK we judge functional drinks we mentioned them earlier drinks which have some kind of ingredient that affects you in some way or does something for your body , and most of us will have seen cbd drinks , uh , cannabidiol . But in america you you can get some drinks which have uh , thc in them , which is a um , a different compound derived from cannabis , and it does have I think it has psychoactive properties . Now , you can't even bring that into the UK as a free sample . I think it only affected .

Speaker 2 49:01

I think we only had one company contact us to say they'd like to enter and we had to say no , but we , you know , we'll keep an open mind on this . At the moment , the uk uh , works well though , um , and uh , yeah , it means wherever we go , we're going to have to ship samples from around the world and we're going to have to ship judges from around the world . So , you know , wherever we go , it's going to have to be a , you know , a major hub that works for that I like , I like the idea of shipping judges .

Speaker 1 49:33

It makes it makes you sound like you just wrap them up and send them to dhl .

Speaker 2 49:37

You know , yeah , some of my judges are so keen they'd probably do that you , you had some great judges .

Speaker 3 49:47

Obviously , I knew quite a few people there . There was some . It was lovely to meet some new faces . You know some people who are really leading the way in in the industry , some people who are coming up and perhaps not making as much noise but having a really great impact . So it was amazing to see , uh , that eclectic range , because there were . There were people who make drinks , people who serve drinks .

Speaker 3 50:08

You know you , you run the gamut of all those who really are passionate about the industry and I think that comes through in everything that you do and everything that you say is this real passion and drive to to help promote what is a new , burgeoning but struggling in some ways , sector that's trying to do so much good for so many people .

Speaker 3 50:31

Some ways , uh , sector that's trying to do so much good for for so many people . Um , and , and one of the things excuse me , I must say that I I love very much about uh , your approach , both from

AF is not a zero-sum game

Speaker 3 50:37

both of you , is that at no point throughout this conversation or any conversation we had before , do you demonize alcohol or make it about being sober or make it about not drinking alcohol . It's about the positives of presenting alcohol-free drinks to those that want them , for whatever reason , and I think that's a really important message um to put out there , because I know there are some people who see something like an alcohol-free awards and think it's all about being sober and and and saying down with booze . But but it's not . It's about saying look at this great stuff that you can have when you choose not to have the booze .

Speaker 1 51:17

Yeah , it's not a zero sum game , is it ? You know , for alcohol free to come up , it doesn't mean that alcohol has to come down necessarily , you know . So I think you know there are people out there who can't drink alcohol for whatever reason , but I think that's not where the major growth in the category is going to come from . I think if you look on alcohol-free social media then you think it might be , but I think that's not entirely representative . I think it's . You know , the growth is going to come from ordinary people dabbling with it , discovering they like it and then expanding their experiences with it .

Speaker 1 51:51

I was chatting to a producer a couple of months ago about this and they said when they first created their alcohol-free gin they thought that their target market would be kind of yoga mums in the home counties , so the kind of people you might see on social media who are kind of doing pilates in a beautiful kind of sitting room with a giant you know marble island behind them . And he said , actually their , their biggest market was just blue collar people in scotland who just wanted a drink , a gin and tonic , during the week and didn't want to have any alcohol because they didn't want to run the risk of being hung over when they went to work and it was just a kind of nice sober treat for themselves . So they took that learning on board pretty quickly and reconfigured a lot of the rest of their range and their marketing appropriately , and I think that's quite illustrative . I think that's probably where a lot of the growth will come from , certainly in Europe .

Speaker 1 52:47

I think maybe in the States there's a slightly different dynamic at play . I think there's a bigger sober movement going on in the states , so it might be more of a thing out there . But um , generally speaking , I think for sure . Yeah , it's all about lifting up alcohol free , not pushing down on on alcohol it's ?

Speaker 2 53:04

it's about making sure that when people spend their hard-earned money , they get a really delicious drink . You know , that's .

Speaker 3 53:11

That's what it is that's absolutely giving them quality . And and , chris , you and I were both at the the cam industry event a little while ago and you know one of their biggest stats was 75 of the uk are moderating their drinking in some way . So it's those people and you're right , it's not the staunchly sober who are the biggest market share . If no one knows , to survive as a sector , we need to make sure that those who are still imbibing alcohol feel welcome to come and drink at our table when they feel like they don't want to have any alcohol .

Speaker 1 53:42

It's . The biggest challenge , isn't it ? Is that , as you mentioned , the figures of people who are looking either to drink no alcohol on a night out or to mix alcohol and non-alcoholic on a night out are huge . And I don't think that's fully catered for yet within hospitality or , to an extent , the off trade no-transcript . And it's one of these weird things where this trend is being pushed along by consumers and producers and that the middle section of the whole equation is kind of being reluctantly dragged along by both elements . And I think once they properly get their head around it , then we'll see a real explosion of interest and much more choice for other people . Because you know we've seen there's some astonishingly good drinks out there and they're not all big production things , they're not all going to sit on the shelves of a major supermarket who want you know , tens of thousands of cases .

Speaker 3 55:09

But you know there's a lot of really good stuff out there have I disappeared we may have lost chris for a little bit , but that's okay , I'm sure he'll .

Speaker 3 55:17

He'll come back in whilst we wait for him . Chrissy , how do um so that lots of people who listen to this podcast are both consumers , uh , but they are brands as well . So if there are any brands out there that want to get

How to enter for 2025

Speaker 3 55:29

involved , how do they go about getting their liquids , uh , on your lips so that they've got a chance with with being a trophy winner for next ?

Speaker 2 55:36

year . It's really easy , uh , denise they . Uh , they just need to come to our website , which you know chris gave you the details of before worldafawardscom , and right at the , you know , on the first page , they can register . They can put in their name and their email and we'll let them know when entry's open . And if they want to go further than that , if they go into the menus , there's a login stroke enter , where they can start , you know , putting their company's details or whatever . But either way , it's very simple . They , you know , just come to the website and it's all done there .

Speaker 3 56:19

Obviously assuming that your internet connection remains stable of course which I was just in the middle of a lengthy excited monologue and then realized that literally nobody was listening to me because I was just talking to myself in my study yeah , yeah , yeah yeah no , listen , I think you made some some really interesting points there , um , and I think that any brands that are out there who are thinking of an opportunity to get their product in front of people who are 100% open to what they do , should definitely give you guys a shout and get involved , get submitting your liquid in industry and knows a thing or two about great flavor , should definitely put themselves forward , because the more people we can get involved in this and the more people we can get spreading the word uh , the more we can help the members of low-known nation to realize they've got some fantastic options out there for them . Um , I'm going to let you go shortly , but before I do , I ask everyone who comes on the podcast uh , the now in my

The BBQ-Q

Speaker 3 57:29

own head , barbecue question . And so that is . We are recording now .

Speaker 3 57:35

Mid-july , we had summer . There were two weeks that had four days between them of sunshine . So if you had been at a barbecue on one of those wonderfully sunny days and I know that you , you both are not teetotal , but we'll imagine that for this barbecue , you were deciding not to drink full strength alcohol , uh , and you're bringing along your own low , no or light drinks to enjoy , uh , we'll start with you , chrissy . What do you like to drink on those occasions ?

Speaker 2 58:06

oh Well , I would take a couple of things along . One of them is really informed by my experiences in Australia , where they tend to drink they're very good at Barbies and they tend to drink sparkling Shiraz , which we're not really used to in this country . But I'm thrilled to say that we had a fantastic sort of medal and trophy win . It called the Eden Vale Premium Reserve Sparkling Shiraz . It's actually won a gold medal two years running . I think there are only three products that have managed that and it's just so good , particularly with meat or with sort of chargrilled vegetables . You know it really has that kind of smoky , bonfire-y , you just want to drink it sort of lovely , fizzy red berries , but savoury as well . So that would be an absolute must . Take along and chilled People don't think of chilling red wine but as sparkling as you serve it cold , which is delicious , but I'd take along as well .

Speaker 2 59:14

I mentioned the Asta drink early earlier , the non-alcoholic dark , spiced drink . It's really sort of as this take on a spiced rum In a sense it's it's , you know it's lovely and dark and spicy . Lovely and dark and spicy , um , and you know , for summer , sort of let down with some cola . It's just so easy going . You know it hits the vibe . You know of sort of sitting around maybe post barbecue or whatever . Um , that that would do it for me and and obviously it's . It's a halal product , it's got a , it won the halal trophy , so I've got some muslim friends who would be very happy with that .

Speaker 3 59:55

So they're my choices I've not tried that one . I have tried because it's made by , produced by spirits of virtue , isn't it ? They've done a range for them and I've tried their , their , their pink . It's's like a pink gin sort of alternative and it's so , so yummy . So I definitely need to go and try the dark spice . One Good choice , it's great . And Chris , how about yourself ?

Speaker 1 1:00:17

Right , so I'm going to . I've got two separate . I've got three drinks , because you asked me for two and I'm going to annoy the hell out of you by not answering the question . So if there's sometimes you go to barbecues , right , and there's people who have like games of bulls and stuff like this before the game and things like that , now I want to channel my inner old Frenchman , right , and we've got , we had a really good drink that won the best spirit trophy and it's an absolute spit for pastis and it's kind of like yellowy green . It tastes exactly like it's got that lovely kind of tongue tingle that you get with with proper alcoholic pastis . I think that long with a couple of cubes of ice in it while I'm shuffling around grunting , playing boo , would be absolutely brilliant . Um , if , if I arrive too late for that and straight into the , straight into the , the kind of barbecuing bit I'm going to be , oh , sorry you did say the name is Night Orient .

Speaker 1 1:01:19

Oh yeah .

Speaker 2 1:01:20

Orient and East from Universe Drink .

Speaker 1 1:01:22

Yeah , I should have completely told you what it was . That would have been useful . I just want you to guess . You have to just keep Googling it until you what it was . That would have been useful . I just want you to guess . You have to just keep googling it until you find it . So and then the other one .

Speaker 1 1:01:34

I think if I arrived to do the barbecuing I'm being a bloke I would just stand around the barbecue for two hours staring at things as they cook and just poking them with a stick and suggesting that they move the sausage half an inch to the left . And to do that you have to drink beer , because that's the rules . So I'd be there with the Ramon , which is the brewery Roman one . That's our Belgian trophy winner and it's a lovely , light , balanced , pale style of beer . It's great . But the one I'd be drinking probably most of the evening would be a kombucha , and it's from a producer called kombustache . He's a little french guy with a extraordinary mustache , like a real hercule , poirot , curly mustache , and he entered a couple of kombuchas last year , both of which got gold . He entered another one this year which got a gold and an organic trophy .

Speaker 1 1:02:26

I was quite skeptical about kombucha . I didn't understand it . It had a few really funky ones which I didn't like . I struggled with that kind of slightly sour kind of acidity . Note of it . His drinks are breathtakingly good and literally every time I've opened one of his bottles for anybody , it's been empty within about 10 minutes . It's just completely gluggable . It's swiggable . You can chuck a bit of ice in it if you feel like it . You can have it with food . You can drink it the whole night . It is breathtakingly good and he's a really nice guy with , as I said , a fabulous mustache . What more reasons do you want for , uh , for drinking something ?

Speaker 3 1:03:03

come on and it's called con boustache .

Speaker 1 1:03:06

I mean yeah the one , the specific one I'm talking about , is his La Perle Noire Black Pearl . It's the one that he sent in this year . It's a wonderful , wonderful drink .

Speaker 2 1:03:16

The design of the label actually has his moustache on it , and it was really funny . It was last year's competition . We were on our stand at London Wine Fair and you know we'd got it there . We had no idea why it was called Cranberstache . And then this guy turned up at the stand . We'd never met him and we literally knew who he was the minute we saw him . It's like this must be your Cranberstache . And yeah , it was . He was Michel .

Speaker 3 1:03:47

Excellent , excellent Guys . Thank you so much . Great recommendations . I will make sure that all of the winners and trophy winners that we've discussed today they're all linked in the show notes so that people can go and check them out for themselves . I'll also make sure that your website and your Instagram are linked as well , so that anyone who wants to go and find out a little bit more about what you're doing or get in touch with any questions , they know where to find you . On a personal note , I think that what you're doing , your stance on your approach to it , is more than commendable . You are beyond trophy winners . I think I can't wait to see what else happens with the next year's iterations of the awards , and it's only going to grow and get bigger and bigger and bigger . So I hope for your sakes . You've got a bank of people waiting to help you out with all the admin , because I know that it's a lot , a huge amount of work . So thank you very much on behalf of the industry for what you're doing .

Speaker 1 1:04:49

It's a fabulous job oh , thank you , denise , really appreciate it and congrats to you . Brilliant , brilliant magazine . What a fabulous addition to the space , indeed the world , of publishing .

Speaker 2 1:05:00

Well done , yeah , yeah , excellent , well done . Thanks , guys take care .