More Good Drinks - Industry Podcast

You need to know that in a time of calamitous headlines, it’s important to celebrate the milestones. And Hawthorn Lounge is just that. Originally meant to be a slow-burner of a pop-up (let’s build it for a few years, sell it and buy a house) it’s a Wellington institution that defies the rules of evolution by remaining exactly the same but always relevant. This month celebrates 20 years since Hawthorn Lounge opened with a backbar stock from the 2 of the McKenzie brothers’ home bars (yes, those McKenzie brothers). Not only is Justin still running Hawthorn all these years later, but he’s also pragmatic and political when it comes to what it takes (and takes) to run a small bar in Wellington, New Zealand these days. Don’t misunderstand me. He’s one of the most proactive bar owners in the city and there’s plenty to unpack. Join us as Justin McKenzie from Hawthorn Lounge shares the story of 20 years of building a legendary Wellington bar. Discover his philosophies on hospitality, staff culture, pricing strategies, and the importance of maintaining tradition amidst industry changes.
Main Topics:
* The journey of Hawthorn Lounge from inception to 20-year milestone
* The art of creating a consistent customer experience and staff culture
* Challenges of pricing, licensing, and industry economics over two decades
* The significance of authenticity, storytelling, and community in hospitality
* Adapting to industry shifts and maintaining longevity in a competitive market
In this episode:
* Justin recounts how the bar was originally intended as a two-year project, which turned into a 20-year journey
* The influence of family, nostalgia, and storytelling on Hawthorn’s unique brand
* How Hawthorn maintains its essence through staff engagement and careful control
* The impact of industry trends, licensing laws, and economic pressures
* Practical advice for small operators on long-term sustainability
* Justin’s reflections on the importance of responsible service, pricing models, and community engagement
Timestamps:00:00 - Celebrating Hawthorn’s 20-year journey02:13 - The original concept and early ambitions04:07 - The importance of atmosphere and storytelling05:47 - Consistency in design and staff approach07:28 - How staff are selected and cultivated09:25 - Responsible service measures and customer care11:00 - The qualities of successful Hawthorn staff15:01 - Industry challenges over recent decades16:10 - Adjusting to economic shifts and costs20:24 - Industry history: Wellington’s iconic venues23:10 - Industry regulation and licensing issues26:49 - Costs, waste culture, and sustainability30:57 - Menu innovation, iconic drinks, and cocktail evolution37:13 - Pricing strategies and economic sustainability44:13 - Industry trends, gentrification, and community role50:55 - The future of hospitality and staying authentic55:14 - Origins of signature spirits and collaborations58:48 - Nostalgia, storytelling, and creating memorable environments66:39 - The importance of authenticity in customer experience70:32 - Community involvement and industry advocacy74:16 - The essence of Hawthorn’s culture and tradition77:48 - The joy of crafting perfect drinks and staff enthusiasm78:07 - Closing thoughts and toast to continued success


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The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover is back for its ninth year, and from 24 June until 5 August, 200-odd venues from Paihia to Dunedin will be arguing their case for the country’s best toasted sandwich. There’s whitebait in there this year. Veal. Prawns. Raclette. Somebody has gone paneer. It is, as always, an exercise in seeing how far a grilled cheese can be pushed before it stops being a grilled cheese.
But if you actually want to understand what makes a Toastie Takeover entry work, don’t start with the sandwich. Start with the drinks match - exactly what will balance all that cheese and acidity?
Shining Peak Brewing usually enters the competition always as a brewery first: toastie on one side of the pairing, beer suggestion on the other. This year they’ve gone one further, building a full drink to match rather than just a suggestion, and the drink might be the more interesting creation of the two.
A brewery that thinks in matches, not menus
Shining Peak’s whole operation celebrates pairing. Every beer comes with a suggested food match as standard, which head brewer and co-founder Jesse Sigurdsson says has been core to the place since it opened. It’s partly practical — a genuinely enormous range of beer styles and flavours gives you far more to play with than the traditional wine list — and partly a deliberate play for people who wouldn’t otherwise order a beer. “It’s trying to capture people from all walks of life,” Sigurdsson told me on More Good Drinks this week, not just the beer-drinking crowd that would find the brewery anyway.
The toastie itself leans hard into that pairing instinct rather than sitting on the sidelines of it. It’s built on pickle-studded bread, layered with smoked beef and smoked cheddar, caramelised sweet onion and pickle relish, finished with pickle aioli and served alongside a beef consommé for dipping — a nod to the traditional beef dip. Sigurdsson tried for the first time in Vancouver last year and has become a fan of the richness and depth of flavour it delivers.
Why there’s a margarita involved at all
The brief to the bar team was simple: everyone online is mixing pickle juice into Coke and Pepsi, there’s clearly an appetite for pickle-forward drinking right now, so what happens if we take that seriously? Restaurant and bar manager Luke landed on a margarita almost immediately (sorry cola & pickle, this is not your time to shine) — tequila, triple sec, lemon juice, McClure’s sweet and spicy pickle juice, rimmed with pickle and chilli salt — reasoning that a margarita’s citrus-forward brightness was already halfway to pickle territory.
It’s a good instinct. Pickle brine and a well-made margarita are chasing the same thing: a clean, high-acid hit that resets your palate rather than filling it up. Put it next to a toastie that’s rich with smoked beef, caramelised onion and a consommé dip, and the drink is playing a key role in delicious balance and leaving you begging for more, instead of bloated and full.
Sigurdsson’s own explanation of what makes a beer work with food doubles as a pretty precise account of why this pairing succeeds: it comes down to balance, and to matching texture as much as flavour. A rich, fatty dish wants something with genuine acid cut, he says, in the same way a bitter IPA can work brilliantly against pork belly. The margarita’s job here isn’t to complement the toastie quietly. It’s to argue with it a little, in exactly the way a good pairing should.
There’s experience and passion behind the philosophy and execution. Sigurdsson has been brewing for close on fifteen years, starting out scrubbing floors and cleaning kegs at Whitecliffs Brewery north of New Plymouth in exchange for the chance to learn. Fifteen years later, his conversation keeps coming back to drinkability and inviting people into a great beer experience the same way chefs develop tasting menus. It also fits a brewery that’s built its identity on very local, very specific storytelling — beers named for Taranaki eccentrics like the Citroën-obsessed Mad Max, another local hero now celebrated.
How to get amongst it
Toastie Takeover runs 24 June to 5 August, with finalists announced on 5 August and the Supreme Winner revealed on 20 August. Every entry has to sit between two slices of bread, include cheese (or a vegan alternative), be eatable by hand, and feature McClure’s Pickles — the Detroit-founded, now globally stocked pickle brand behind the whole competition, distributed here by Cook & Nelson. Judging runs on presentation, preparation, eatability, taste, provenance and innovation, with a People’s Choice vote running alongside the judges’ picks, so turning up and ordering the thing genuinely counts for something.
If you’re anywhere near New Plymouth — or Christchurch, once Shining Peak’s new site is open — this is the entry worth ordering as a pair rather than picking apart. Get the toastie. Get the margarita next to it. Notice how much work the drink is quietly doing. Then go find the venue near you doing the same thing badly, so you know the difference when you taste it.
Full entrant list and voting at toastietakeover.com.


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There’s something uniquely special about learning what shapes the people who shape some of our most memorable moments. Hospitality is all about helping people to make connections, but sometimes the most interesting person in the room is not the loudest.
Ryan Oliver is warm, gentle, and often finds himself a watcher before he’s a participant. This episode goes behind that reserve: an OE that started with forensics and ended in a London events agency, four formative years at Deadshot under Ali and Heather, a stint running Caretaker that taught him as much about people as it did about cocktails, and where he’s landed now — Panacea’s batch-built, whisky-forward bar, where the focus is the welcome. Along the way: an annual pilgrimage back to a European fencing club, a hostel night in Vienna that turned into an impromptu spirits tasting, a Prague bartender baffled by the very idea of batching, and the vintage Manhattan that’s about to disappear from the menu because the vermouth ran out decades ago.
In this episode
* On learning bartending from Ali and Heather at Deadshot: the technical skill turned out to be secondary to learning how to get a guest to tell you what they actually want when they say “I don’t know.”
* On the difference between fresh service and batch service: it’s not a downgrade in craft, it’s a different lens — creativity moved from the guest’s hand guiding you in the moment to designing for a much wider frame beforehand.
* On travel: an annual fencing reunion in Europe going back to his OE years anchors a month of travel every year, built around visiting old teammates from Belgium, Spain, Italy and the US.
* On hospitality across cultures: the standout memory is a Hungarian father, house-sitting for his daughter’s hostel in Vienna, sharing four bottles of his own homemade spirit with a handful of strangers at midnight.
* On regulation: a Prague bartender’s disbelief that Panacea can batch and store cocktails at all — in the Czech Republic, mixing has to happen in view of a camera in the walk-in.


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Fizzy For Good Sh*t
Tash sits down with Becs Caughey — the brand mind behind Cook and Nelson, importer/distributor of some genuinely excellent global products, and founder of Good Sht Soda — to mark the launch of their new Apple flavour. Becs unpacks how Good Sht became the world’s first pre- and probiotic soda, why fibre deserves “its full belt-singing moment,” and what four years of working with international scientists looks like when you’re trying to make a probiotic shelf-stable without refrigeration. The conversation moves from can design (deliberately uniform, deliberately legible — no shouty health claims, just the actual ingredient list blown up large) into the bigger picture: GLP-1 medications, an FMCG sector forced to do more with less food, and why “wellness” has quietly become a trust argument as much as a taste one. Becs and Tash also trade notes on apple and whisky pairings, because priorities.
In this episode:
* The origin story: a stalled shipping container, a tiny American brand and a decision to build something local
* Why the prebiotic fibre matters as much as the probiotic — “it’s like a dog with a bone”
* The science behind an ambient, non-refrigerated probiotic that “wakes up” on your tongue
* Designing a can that’s colour-blocked, uniform, and built to make the ingredient list the hero
* Apple flavour development: nostalgia, orchard-fresh aromatics, and getting the granny smith/braeburn balance right
* GLP-1 drugs, shrinking portion sizes, and what that’s doing to restaurant menus and bar pours overseas
* Why Good Sh*t makes zero claims on pack — and the food lawyer reality behind that decision
* Distribution: where to find it in NZ, and the early export push into Australia and Asia



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Tash speaks with Mark Teague about the evolution of Tasmanian whisky, the stories behind its growth, and why Tasmania’s distilling scene has become such a compelling global reference point. Mark shares how a lifelong connection to Tasmania and a deep love of whisky led him into event organising, whisky advocacy, and a central role in Tasmanian whisky culture.The conversation explores the true history of whisky in Tasmania, including early distilling on the island, the complexities of the laws that shaped the industry, and why the common “origin story” is often oversimplified. Mark and Tash also discuss how the industry has matured from a small cluster of similar distilleries into a much broader and more varied whisky landscape, with a growing focus on volume, innovation, and distinct house styles.The episode also looks ahead to Tasmanian Whisky Week, including the showcase, meet-the-maker events, bus tours, awards, and the community atmosphere that draws whisky lovers from across Australia and New Zealand. It’s a lively, insightful conversation about whisky, place, people, and the future of one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most exciting spirits regions.
Key topics
* Mark Teague’s whisky journey and connection to Tasmania
* The real history of distilling in Tasmania
* How Tasmanian whisky has matured and diversified
* Volume, cask strategy, and production changes
* Tasmanian Whisky Week and its signature events
* Community, tourism, and the culture around whisky lovers
Notable moments
* Mark explains how he became involved in Tasmanian whisky through events and tastings
* Tash and Mark unpack the myths around Tasmania’s whisky history
* The discussion turns to how distilleries are now building for scale and distinction
* Mark shares what makes Tasmanian Whisky Week such a unique destination event
* The episode closes with excitement around upcoming festivals, previews, and awards
Why listen
If you’re interested in whisky, Tasmanian food and drink culture, or how a regional industry builds identity over time, this episode offers a thoughtful and well-informed look at the people and ideas shaping the scene.
Mentioned in this episode
* Tasmanian Whisky Week
* Bill Lark
* Casey Overeem
* Sullivan’s Cove
* Belgrove
* Old Kempton
* Greenbanks
* Hunter Island
* Derwent Distillery
* Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania
Quote
“Whisky doesn’t matter where it’s from — it’s from everybody.”



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