CCS INTERVIEW WITH MONDAY DISTILLERY FOUNDER SAM MANNING 

We had a quick chat with Sam, one half of the founding duo of Monday Distillery to discuss what it’s like being a proudly Australian-owned business, sustainability, and the non-alcoholic beverage space.

ABOUT MONDAY DISTILLERY

Monday Distillery creates amazing non-alcoholic, distilled spirits. The concept started when Sam Manning discovered she couldn’t find glamorous, non-alcoholic beverages to drink on a night out with friends. This inspired her to create Monday Distillery, which started out as a classic G&T alternative. The range has since expanded to include six flavours, including a Dark & Stormy, Paloma and Dram Sour.

HI SAM – YOU’VE BEEN WORKING WITH US FOR SIX MONTHS NOW – HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT US?

You guys had checked out our website, and noticed our packaging was temporarily out of stock. You reached out to us and offered to do samples of our existing packaging, to see if that was something we’d like to get done here in Australia. The rest is history.

HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USING AN AUSTRALIAN PACKAGING SUPPLIER COMPARED TO OVERSEAS SUPPLIERS? 

In Australia, we have a built relationship with an account manager, which is nice. We can call Craig, our account manager, if we need deadlines brought forward, or we need new products. He’s very involved in that aspect of the service, which is nice.

HOW MUCH TIME DID IT TAKE TO GET PACKAGING MADE OVERSEAS? 

Over three months. It varied and it wasn’t consistent, sometimes we could have it in 60 days, other times it might have taken a couple of months. I guess what I’m saying is it wasn’t reliable.

HOW HAVE YOU FOUND WORKING WITH US? 

It’s nice – you feel like you have someone to go along on the journey with you, which is nice. 

When we need help with other things – It’s just a matter of calling Craig. For example, right now we are trying to organise some point of sale display for retailers – Craig has helped walk us through the process and capabilities. 

I guess the biggest thing is that you feel like you have someone championing your growth, and have someone listening to what you need. 

 IN TERMS OF BEING AN AUSTRALIAN-OWNED BUSINESS, HOW HAVE YOU FOUND THE WHOLE PROCESS OF ONSHORE MANUFACTURING? 

We are pretty passionate about being Australian-made and manufactured.

We try to source everything from within 100km of where our product is manufactured – we try to source ingredients, glass bottles, boxes, all that kind of stuff locally.

We’ve always tried to be really conscious about our environmental footprint and supporting other Australian businesses as well, so being able to have our packaging done here has been a key piece to the puzzle.

As a small business, we want to know that we are contributing to other businesses around us.

WHERE DO YOU GUYS DO YOUR BREWING? 

We do our brewing for Monday Distillery out of a microbrewery in South Geelong

WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO DESCRIBE THE BREWING PROCESS? 

I develop the recipes, and we use a lot of plant-based extracts and botanicals, and I have a team that we work with to help with flavour profiling.

Food science and food innovation have come such a long way, there’s a lot of great things happening in the food and beverage space.

We don’t have any alcohol in the products to start with, so it’s not as if we’re taking it out, but we do rely on different extracts and lots of plant based flavours to mimic the taste of alcohol.

Thanks Sam, I think that’s all we have time for today!  You can check out the Monday Distillery range here.