A toast to Australian botanicals: Papa Salt and Bess Paddington 

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's episode is imbued with a singularly Australian fragrance and flavour. First, we'll meet the CEO of an easy-drinking gin that celebrates the subtle taste of the country's native ingredients. Australia is famous for having a bunch of plants and animals that exist nowhere else. Once we landed on the final recipe, we were thrilled to have all these amazing Australian botanicals. When we tried to bring those into other countries, we quickly learned this is going to be an issue.

0:49And later, we'll hear from the owner of a flower shop in a Sydney suburb that's on a mission to elevate the status of Australian flora. We get a lot of flowers that come from the farm that I grew up on. It's just so unique what we have growing here in Australia. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:16You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. And I'm very happy to say we're kicking off the programme. It's a two-hander around the table. The show's producer, Laura Kramer, is alongside me here in Studio One. Hi, Laura. Hi, Tom. Nice to share the desk with you here in Monocle Towers. Now, can I say that you do love a strong beverage? Yeah, I think that's okay. I didn't mean to kick off in such an accusatory way. But in summertime, is there a better drink season combo than a gin and tonic on a summer's evening? It's pretty good, right? Yeah, or a Negroni. I love a Negroni. Yes. Gin is part of that.

1:53Flexible. So you need to. But gin is a, well, it's not an underappreciated drink. I think it's definitely getting its moment. But even within the gin firmament, there are some stellar brands that you've been keeping your eye on. Absolutely. One that kept catching my eye, actually, and it's very visibly why, is Papa Salt. And the reason I say that is because the bottle is this really striking, beautiful color. You just imagine like you're in the ocean in a very tropical place. So I invited the co-founder and CEO of it, Charlie Moss, to stop by Midori House to tell me more about it. It has a little bit of a celebrity connection.

2:32I'm not going to give away anything. You'll hear it in the interview. But he stopped by and he told me about the start of the journey. So we have five founders in Papasal Gin. It's myself and my wife, Regan. Regan worked on a movie with Margot Robbie in 2015. So there's Margot, her husband, Tom Ackerley, and their business partner, Josie McNamara. We've been friends for 10 years. My family has been in the spirits business for three generations. so in 2018 Tom Margo and Josie called Regan and I up and said could you walk us through the process of what it would be like if we wanted to make our own gin and I said absolutely Margo tells the story she said you know we asked Charlie how hard could it be to make your own gin and I do remember that question and I believe my answer was it's pretty easy to make your own one it's pretty hard to make a good one.

3:23And that started a journey in 2018 that took us five years to get a product out to market. Part of that is because it was no one's full-time job. I was working on another brand at the time. Everybody else in the interim were making films and everybody was also having children. I mean, there was a lot that happened in that space of the five years. But at the end of it, we launched in 2023 in Australia. It's been two years out now and it's really going well in Australia. We launched last year in the UK and then this summer we were in Spain and Italy. It was a product we made in the back garden and our intent was to make a sunny, easy drinking gin you can drink with your friends.

4:05And that idea, that concept is really infused in the entire brand. We wanted to make a gin that celebrated those long, sunny days with your friends or rainy days. If you're at a pub in London, that's fine by me. I think it still works. So that was really our intent. And that took a while to get that right. Yeah. 59 variations, 59 attempts. 59 distilled recipes, which means when you're making gin, you take a spirit base. So in essence, you take vodka and you put it back in a still, which is a giant teapot for lack of a better term. I'm sure all the distillers out there are furious with me, but I'm trying to explain this for the layman.

4:48So you put the vodka back in the still or any neutral spirit, and then you put in botanicals. So it has to be juniper, but you can put in anything else you want in there to give it flavor. And then you redistill that. It vaporizes and you collect the alcohol in another container. And so what you're left with is a bunch of natural flavor added to a base spirit and that process that distillation process for us now it takes a full day to do one batch and then you have to let it sit for a while you don't try it for a while so that's a distilled recipe so we did 59 of those you and then they would they would have to pack them up ship them to the states because we were producing in australia with our distiller at the lord byron distillery and they were sending it to us this was during COVID.

5:34We did 59 of those. Prior to that, we looked at 300 plus different ingredients, alternate recipes, botanical essences, just different ways to look at the flavor profile. So that's how we walk it through it. Actually, I actually did that backwards. So we started looking at all the different possible ingredients, botanicals, 300 of those. We decided, okay, this is the flavor profile. We want to go for something more savory. We didn't really want floral, mostly because there's some really good floral gins out there. You know, the classic London dry, that juniper piney greenness. We love juniper because that's what makes it a gin.

6:13We didn't want to focus on that flavor. And then Hendrix, of course, beautiful product. They had that lovely rose flavor to it. So we said, let's do something different. Let's do something new. We take that sort of idea, day drinking, sunny, versatile, savory to our distiller in Australia. And then 59 distillations later, which took about a year and a half working with him, we had our final recipe. And it's interesting because it's got some unique ingredients. Oyster shell, tell me why that is and what makes it a coastal gin. What are those flavor profiles that are so unique? Yeah, so there's a lot of Australian botanicals in there.

6:50Hibiscus, wattle seed, local citrus varieties. We're very, very proud of the Australian botanicals. In fact, the only botanical that's not locally found is the juniper. because it doesn't grow in Australia. So most of all of the ingredients, we know the farmer, we know where they came from. We're very proud of the ingredients themselves. You mentioned the oyster shell. So we use cleaned oyster shells and they're put into the still and we test it on the way out. There's no possibility for an allergen. The thing that people are allergic to is actually not able to go through that still. It doesn't vaporize.

7:26So we've had a couple people maybe misrepresent that. So it's great to have a chance to explain that myself. We test the liquid after. There's not an allergen present. But what the oyster shell does is it gives just a hint of salinity. It gives a hint of that minerality. And it's almost like sprinkling a little salt across a dish. Once it's done, it really pulls the flavors in together. So when you drink pop of salt, you get a lot of citrus up front. The middle is spicy. There's peppercorn. There's ginger. And then it's really smooth in the end. And the smoothness comes from wattle seed, which is an Australian ingredient.

7:59Wattle seeds are the seed of any of 120 species of acacia tree that grow in Australia. They've been being eaten there for about 5 ,000 years. It's an incredible ingredient, and it gives this really rich, lovely finish to the product. And we're very, very, very proud of our wattle seed. I imagine that with so many local ingredients, it can potentially cause maybe some challenges, logistical challenges, and trying to get it globally. Can you talk me a little bit through that? Sure. One of the reasons I know so much about wattle seed is that it is not allowed to be imported into the United States.

8:34You can probably tell from my accent. I'm from the U.S. I would love to be able to drink pop of salt at all my favorite bars and restaurants there. We are getting it approved for import. Once we landed on the final recipe, we were thrilled to have all these amazing Australian botanicals included. When we tried to bring those into other countries, we quickly learned this is going to be an issue. and I had to learn all about the different import-export requirements on various. Botanicals are just plants, right? And so Australia is famous for having a bunch of plants and animals that exist nowhere else.

9:07You know, kangaroos, koalas, apparently waddle seed. Although there are acacia trees in many other places, these specific ones we weren't allowed to import. So we're about, hopefully, only six months out from getting approval. It's a two-year process. But it's been an interesting one to learn about some of the restrictions on import-export of these various ingredients. We did try the gin without waddle seed. It just doesn't do it. You don't get that lovely finish, the thing that we really think characterizes pop of salt. And so we said, we're not going to change our product. We'd rather go change literally the law and get this approved for import.

9:48So I like to say that we're the proud and probably the most hardworking advocates for Australian ingredients in the world right now because we are really pushing to be able to get these things approved in a bunch of different territories. It's cool, though, because by the time it gets to the U.S., it'll be like, oh, my God, this gin that everybody's drinking in Europe and Australia. I mean, that's really we made a gin to drink in the sun with your friends. And so to be able to launch it in Australia and then this summer, even in the UK, it has to have been the hottest, sunniest summer the country's ever seen.

10:19The last couple of weeks we were in Italy, we were in Spain launching the brand and you're in these beautiful bars. It's exactly where we wanted to drink it, on the beach with our friends. So we hope a bunch of U.S. consumers have a chance to try the product on their summer holidays and then are eager to see it on shelves there next year. Well, I want to talk about the beach aspect of it because the name Papa Salt is inspired by a beach holiday you all had, right? And an infamous man, famous man now. Yeah, Papa Salt is a real man. He's not a myth, not a legend. So Tom, Margo, Josie, we're backpacking in Sri Lanka.

10:54This is a few years ago. I think it was right around the time we started working on our untitled gin project is what I used to call it. And when we went to name the product, we tried all of these names that were a little too serious and didn't really represent the ethos of the brand, which is this idea that you should have long meandering days with your friends where there is no destination. Right. And so the pop of salt story, they were at this bar. Margo heard a couple Australian accents, started talking with the guys. They owned the bar and they were from Queensland, where she's from in Australia.

11:30and it was New Year's Eve and they said, hey, you got to come with us to the next spot and meet my dad, Papa Salt. He's a legend. And they carried on with them to the next spot and Papa Salt himself looks like Santa Claus on a summer holiday. He's got the board shorts. He's got a big bushy beard. As it was relayed to Regan and I afterwards, he was missing a finger. He's got all his fingers. We met him. He's doing great. I hope you hear this, Papa Salt. But whenever we were trying to name it, they would come back to this idea of this. It should be like the day we met Papa Salt, where you just have a long, amazing day with your friends that meanders and is so memorable because there was no destination and no timeline attached.

12:17And it's that sort of day we wanted to capture. And so once we finally went through a thousand other horrible names, I think one of, I think we just said, let's just leave Papa Salt on there for now. We'll see what happens. And then I'm so glad we did because it really does capture the brand in a way that no marketing-driven decision could. I mean, everyone talks about having a brand story. I've worked on brands where they made up the story and they try to tell you what the story is after the fact. On this one, it's great to be able to say, all this happened. This is just how we made the brand.

12:56It took us five years. We had maybe one too many sessions in the back garden that weren't so productive because we were enjoying ourselves too much. But in the end, we made a product that we really love to drink, that we're very proud of. And we're just so excited to see it out in the world now. Talk to me about the design of the bottle, because that's actually something that everybody comments on. It's a very striking color. I imagine it's inspired by tropical waters. You let me know if that's not the case. But I also really like how heavy it is. Tell me about that. So the color is the water in Byron Bay where we make this.

13:33Byron Bay is this beautiful community on the coast in Australia. It's not far from where Margo grew up. And she was visiting home when we were making the final package, and she took a photo of the water and said, this is what I want the color to be. So that beautiful color really is the striking ocean out there. It's amazing. The package itself, when we were designing this and we worked with a company called Squad Inc. in Sydney who did an amazing job. And they helped us look at all of our competitors. And they're all so maximally designed. There's so much writing and there's so many little mini elements.

14:11And in any singular bottle, it looks great and it provides a lot of information. When you put 20 of them on a shelf, whether it's at a store or a bar, it becomes very hard to focus on anything. It's like a Jackson Pollock painting. So their insight, which we really loved, was they said, why don't we stand out with simplicity of the package? And that really matched what we were trying to do with the liquid. Clean, simple. We always talked about mixing something with soda because tonic can be a pretty specific flavor. I know this is controversial in the UK especially. It makes a great gin and tonic, but mixing with soda, we think, invited some other people into the brand.

14:51And, of course, you could still mix it with tonic. So to us, the simplicity of the occasion, the simplicity of the liquid was very important. And now all of a sudden, this wonderful design agency is saying, let's go as simple as possible with the bottle. And so on the front, the only things on there are what you have to legally have on there, the brand name, the category gin, and then the size and the ABV. And once you put it on a bar, it really does stand out for that simplicity. It almost glows. There's a really nice sea glass finish on the bottle as well that, again, we wanted to evoke the sea and being at the beach.

15:25And you did ask earlier about coastal gin. You know, coastal gin isn't an actual designation. There are a lot of brands out now pushing coastal gin. Most of them are trying to push some connection to the actual water. So, for example, sea kelp is a botanical you can use in gin. It gives a real nice brininess to it. That, for us, was a little too specific. We call it a coastal gin because we want to drink it on a coast somewhere. It was, again, more about the lifestyle. The oyster shell and that salinity does match the flavor profile one would expect. And even the name Papa Salt, we loved. It is the guy's name.

16:02Like, we didn't make that up, but we also liked the salt in there to tie to the sea. So there's a couple places where all these things sort of marry up. And the various stories of the brand sort of coalesced around this idea of simple beach sun. And that's, I think, really reflected in the package as well. Well, on that note then, what does success look like over the next, let's say, 12 months? Over the next 12 months, we'd love to get a bottle in as many hands as we can in the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand. Those are all places we're on sale now. From an operations standpoint, I need to get my wattle seed approved in the United States so I can start selling it in the bars near my home.

16:45and really enjoy it in the U.S. In your head, you think, oh, we're going to open up Italy and Spain and these are separate markets. And then you think about the U.S. and at first it's one market. And then you're like, no, that's 50 different markets that you all have to go to and get different distributors. We've had a lot of fun, whether it's Australia, the U.K., Spain, Italy, visiting all these places. I don't know if I'm more excited or more scared about the U.S. just because it's so big. Maybe you'll find us in a big Papa Salt Winnebago, just driving Route 66 to cover it all. Keep your eyes peeled.

17:22That was Charlie Moss, the co-founder and CEO of Papa Salt. And you can find out more and get sampling, like Laura I think might have been doing, by heading to papasaltgin.com.

17:41you're listening to the entrepreneurs i am still joined in the studio by laura kramer laura tell me we've had fun already where are we off to next well we're going to hear about a woman who trained with some of the world's leading floral designers and now runs a neighborhood flower shop on william Street in the Paddington suburb of Sydney. Bethany Scott, who goes by Bess, by the way, and her partner Jack Gorham, got in touch with me and told me about the shop and Bess's family history in the flower business. Now, in the email, they mentioned that they love Monocle Radio, and they thought Andrew Muller was a very funny guy, for which I almost deleted the message right away.

18:23We certainly don't want any compliments to Andrew Muller getting through the net. No, absolutely not. I'm literally sitting right here. Oh, sorry, Andrew. Thanks for your work as always. Laura, you know Andrew has to get paid for that. He promised me a freebie because they're from Australia, Tom. Can we move on? Yes. So moving on, Bess, their flower shop was founded in 2018 by Bethany. The shop is known for its distinctive Australian native wildflowers, many grown on her family's farm. And it's a family legacy in this industry that stretches back to 1950, beginning with Bess's great-grandmother.

18:58It's continued to grow through the generations. Her grandfather was one of the first, actually, to sell a mixed wildflower bouquet long before it became common practice. In fact, they still have a stand at the Sydney Flower Market called East Coast Wildflowers. So, Bess grew up around the business. In fact, she says it's some of the happiest childhood memories. And, you know, she remembers early mornings in the markets, running around on the farm with her three sisters. It was natural that she'd obviously continue the family tradition. And this is a good one for you, Laura, because you love your fresh flowers.

19:31And I should point out, because our global listeners won't know this, you always have blooms on your desk, brightening up and freshening up the air here in Monocle Towers, don't you? I do. It is one of my favourite things. And I always recommend flower bouquets as gifts. It's just such a thoughtful gesture and it's always so nice. you look at them, you think about the person who got them for you. It's just pure joy. So I was very excited to chat to Bess and her partner Jack about the shop. And Jack began by giving me a little crash course in the Australian wildflower varieties. In Australia, we're really gifted with what is botanically available.

20:08It's really, really different. And in nowhere else in the world, was that more starkly apparent than maybe the flower markets in London? The flowers are really beautiful in the UK but we really missed like flannel flowers, banksias, eucalyptus varieties and it made us understand how amazing the flowers are in Australia, how different they are to the rest of the world and we wanted to share how gifted Australia is with our wider audience and to really challenge a stigma that was apparent in Australia that people think that natives are a bit par se or unfashionable, but actually there are so many different varieties that are unworldly, really beautiful in their own way.

20:57And on a good day, challenge a rose or challenge a tulip. And we're trying to elevate wildflowers to the status of, say, like a beautiful rose. It's interesting because I went on your Instagram page and also on your website, and I saw some of the beautiful bouquets that you put together. I saw you also worked with the Sydney Opera House recently with these tall leaf-like things. I don't know how you'd really call them. But I was just so jealous because I was like, they are stunning. Yeah, it's just so unique what we have growing here in Australia, like Jack said. So, yeah, we want to share with everyone back home here in Australia but also the wider community as well, how special what we have here is.

21:44And we're very lucky to have some amazing clients like the Opera House, like the restaurants there, some beautiful spaces that we can show. Those stems you saw are giant. They're almost like, look like something from Jurassic Park. So it's a very cool thing to display in the Opera House. So let's go back to when you decided to start the business. Did you always have in mind that you were going to have a shop? Was it ever maybe just online? When did you take that leap? So when we were living in the UK, we actually looked at buying a business in Angel in London. And we just did the figures and we were kind of got a bit of fatigue from being a couple of broke Aussies in London.

22:25And the opportunity to sell flowers in Australia, grown on Bess's family's farm, was an opportunity that we couldn't really pass up. and we didn't really know how good the opportunity was. We did a little business plan, but the thing was that when we got to Australia, the flowers were better, our clients were more responsive than we thought they were going to be, and it just took off from day one and we've been very well supported by our community and they've allowed us to expand our offering, be creative, do a renovation in the shop and really kind of stretch our wings and think laterally of what other projects we can be taking on.

23:12And I know you mentioned that you get a lot of the flowers from Bess's family. Do you have other partners? I'm assuming right now as you've grown, you've kind of taken on different partners from around the country? Yes, definitely. So my family my dad and my grandpa they're the biggest Australian native wildflower wholesaler in the Sydney market so they are our main supplier we get a lot of flowers that come from the farm that I grow up on and also from my dad's growers around the country and then we work with some other really amazing growers that are local to Sydney Sydney flower markets is a really special place and there's still a lot of growers that are bringing flowers straight from their farms that are close by.

23:59So we have beautiful garden rose growers and tulip growers. People have a mix of beautiful blossoms and fruits on their farms in the Blue Mountains. So we have a lot of really special growers that we work with. It's also given us an opportunity to work with some amazing artisans as well. We sell some really beautiful ceramics from an artist in Canberra and a local artist from here in Paddington. That's been really interesting to sell flower adjacent products. And that's what we're trying to do in the future is to really curate some brands or people to work with. And that keeps things interesting for our customers.

24:42I really want I've never been to Australia, and if I come, I'm absolutely stopping by. They're just so beautiful. I was so taken aback. I loved one of the notes you got from, I'm assuming potentially, I don't want to be sexist here, but I'm guessing from a man that just said, she likes pink. Do you get a lot of funny notes like that with people trying to give you the inspiration for what to send to people? well it's funny you say that because we're working on a project at the moment which is taking inspiration from the notes that people are passing on to each other with the flowers that we send out on delivery and incorporating them into a cheeky range of cotton caps that people can wear around so yes we do get a lot of different requests of different types of flowers and different briefs that we have to try and bring to life.

25:33And that really challenges us. And a lot of people are equally as relaxed about what we might do, because a lot of people really trust us to make something really beautiful for their loved ones or for their homes. So yeah, it's a balance of people that are quite particular and a lot of people that are more fast and loose. I'm assuming that it's a very collaborative process in general that you have, especially when you've got these bigger partners that come on? How much of that back and forth is it what you bring to it, what they're inspired by? We really like to showcase the Australian native wildflowers.