Drink Asia Drink Asia March April 2019 | Page 36

Face to Face–Processing A BETTER WAY OF DRINKING VODKA In an exclusive interaction with Mandeep Kaur from Drink Asia Magazine, Mr Rakesh Sheth, Founder and MD of Artisanal Drinks Pvt. Ltd., and owner of ‘& Stirred’ Cocktail Mix shares his journey of launching first of its kind cocktail mix in India. T ell us about the beginning of this brand. How did you think of this brand? I have spent almost 15 years within the alcobev business marketing and managing lifestyle/luxury brands in India. Whilst working on various brands and categories, the one thing that always disappointed me was the limited/boring choice a consumer had while drinking at home especially with white spirits. All this while even today the majority of consumer’s choices are between tetra juices and carbonated sodas. That’s when a question popped in my head – There has to be a better option of making those amazing cocktails. This triggered the launch of ‘& Stirred’ cocktail mix. It presents the simplest and most convenient way of making perfect cocktails/mocktails. Anytime anywhere! in a consumer’s mind. The one filter that I usually keep while designing a campaign or a product is: keep it simple; relevant and unique. And the same way when I was developing ‘& Stirred’, I followed the same approach with questioning myself: what am I addressing? And the aim was to make home drinking better and delicious. W P I have a marketer’s mind. My life revolves around building right perceptions I think people believe, it is hat has inspired you to develop this innovative range? Drink Asia 36 eople are reluctant to make better drinks at home. In your opinion what are the current barriers? March-April 2019 difficult to make. Moreover, they do not have an idea of how to make these kinds of drinks. The cocktails involve too many ingredients and one usually doesn’t find everything handy at one point of time. But I strongly believe if one has his fundamentals clear in his head, he just needs to articulate it in the language that everyone can understand and that’s what I have done. ‘& Stirred’ will bring familiarity and eventually