Taste the spirit of adventure with new non-alcoholic drink

A horrible ‘mocktail’ planted the seeds of what was to become a booming business — distilling the first decent non-alcoholic spirit, writes Esther N McCarthy.

It’s a gloriously warm, bright, breezy day at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and I’m standing at the Seedlip pea garden. I’m watching Ben Branson chatting spiritedly to a large group of UK journalists.

I’m here because Ben has recently added Dunnes Stores to his list of suppliers for his Seedlip drink — the inspiration for this garden.

The beautifully designed bottle is billed as the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirit, solving the ever-growing dilemma of ‘what to drink when you’re not drinking’.

Looking very much like a gentleman gardener, with shaggy curls peaking out of his branded cap, worn wellies and jerkin jacket, 35-year-old Ben welcomes me into the ‘Peavillion’.

I step over a tiny red rope and lo! I am threading amidst gold — the garden just got the top nod in its category ‘Space to Grow’.

I pick my way up the garden path, made from circular pod-shaped pathstones, past bees buzzing around all things pea (his garden has attracted the most varieties and volume of all the gardens).

Here’s lovely lupins, which I was surprised to find out are tap-rooted members of the pea family, pale yellow sugar snap peas, deep purple shiraz peas, (Ben dyed 500 litres of sweetpeas in water and citrus acid, turning them purple) a Japanese Pagoda Tree, (I learn the flowers turn into 3-8 inch green pods that mature into yellow-green fruits), a carob tree, (which is a flowering evergreen shrub in the pea family, Fabaceae, duh).

This garden, designed by Dr Catherine MacDonald, is an ode to the humble pea, Pisum sativum, and three men (Mendel, Lamborn and Branson), from three different centuries, responsible for pioneering its cultural, culinary and scientific significance. It’s Seedlip’s second year in Chelsea - and they’re two for two on the gold medal front.

There are unusual varieties of sugar snaps and snow peas included as a homage to the late American pea breeder, Dr Calvin Lamborn.

The Seedlip Garden 2018 designed by Dr Catherine MacDonald

I spot edible pea shoots adorning the roof of the ‘Peavillion’ and miniature willow wigwams highlighting the peppy pea pods of yellow and red. Inside, there’s 1979 pea catalogues, vintage prints and pea-related old books.

Look, the man digs his peas, ok?

And why shouldn’t he? They’ve been the unlikely secret of his huge success.

Branson was from a ‘brand and land’ background. His father runs a design agency, Pearlfisher, and his mother is in farming, as her family before her was, for generations.

“I was running my own design agency, I had some nice luxury clients, a good team of us finding our feet, happy. Life was good, I didn’t have any ambition to make peas a business,” says Ben.

But all the while he was mucking about at the weekends with a small copper still and a copy of the The Art of Distillation written in 1651 and one Friday evening he went, with his fiancée, (the chef, food writer, entrepreneur and apparently a big fermentation fan, Nadra Shah) to a fancy restaurant and was served a “pink fruity horrible mocktail” when he asked for something non-alcoholic.

A seed of an idea was born.

“I was like how? Why? If you’re driving, if you’re pregnant, if you’re just on a night off, or it’s lunchtime —whatever, why isn’t there a decent non-alcoholic offering?” says Ben.

You can get such incredible food now, such incredible alcoholic cocktails but the options when you’re not drinking are so poor. When you want something with taste and flavour and complexity and so this was November 2013, that it was the start of it for me.

"The dots started to join. We have a farm, it’s not easy to make money maybe we could start to diversify what we do.”

And diversify they certainly did. And it has paid off in spades. (I’m wondering how many gardening puns I can get in, by the way).

Seedlip is now sold in 17 countries around the world, last year they were sold in just two. “We’re just getting started in Ireland and it’s exciting,” says Ben,

“Dunnes is a big win for us. My fiancée studied at Ballymaloe Cookery School, our horses on the farm are all Irish, and what’s going on in regards to providence in Ireland and supporting local farmers all ties into what we’re doing.

“The concept of unspoilt nature I think is really powerful in Ireland, in places like Midleton, farm to fork ideas, it feels even more amplified and intense in Ireland than it does in the UK, I think.”

Ben is hugely proud of his product and the focus on where things come from.

“The peas and hay come from our farm, our allspice comes from Jamaica, we know where all our ingredients come from, the cardamon we get from Guaautamaula, from a family of maize farmers who have a small cascarilla plantation there.”

He knows personally where every single ingredient is sourced.

Is he worried that the Irish people may not take to a drink that doesn’t have alcohol in it?

“We want to lead this movement and people should be offering good non-alcoholic options and we want to put that on the map, you’ve got to start somewhere. I think the Irish will appreciate that.”

Available in two expressions, Seedlip Garden 108 has top notes of the handpicked peas and hay from the family farm with a complex herbal base character of spearmint, rosemary and thyme.

Seedlip Spice 94 is aromatic with strong spice (All Spice Berries & Cardamom) and citrus top notes and a long bitter from oak and cascarilla barks. Both spirits are best served with tonic or as the base for martini or sour style non-alcoholic cocktails.

And Ben’s favourite?

“It depends. I drink Spice inside and Garden outside so I flip between the two. I get home from the day, and I’ll have a Garden and tonic, looking at my gizmos. It just signals the start of the evening, the switch off from work,” he explains.

And not one to rest on his laurels, Ben and co have a new product launching this month, available only via the website. He promises it will be something completely different – and exciting.

Space to grow, indeed.