What started with a conversation over a drink turned into an online bottle shop that celebrates female beer, wine, and spirit producers from around the world. Sip’er founders Jenny Cheng and Bree Nicholls tell their story.
It’s not surprising Sip’er began when and how it did. We were chatting with Chrissy Flanagan, the founder of Sausage Queen Brewing in Sydney’s Inner West, over some sausages and beer. She was talking about other beers she stocked, and the conversation shifted to women in the industry
It was a topic that kept coming up, so out of curiosity we started looking up different alcohol labels we loved, the producers and stories behind them.
The idea for Sip’er grew from there quite naturally and quickly. We found a lot of amazing alcohol brands headed up by women and realised how infrequently these women were being spoken about in the consumer-facing alcohol space.
The alcohol industry has historically been a very male dominated one. We wanted to address that in a fun and approachable way that reflected our tone of voice.
Clean skins
Usually when starting your own business, you leverage your skills and experience in an industry. We didn’t tick any of those boxes for starting an alcohol business beyond being self-proclaimed “adventurous drinkers”. We decided to leverage that into a platform where the language was the same for a consumer who also didn’t come from a background making or curating alcohol.
Our initial nervousness about how the industry might respond to us evaporated pretty quickly. Once we started reaching out to companies the response was overwhelming. We were fielding emails and calls from producers and distributors congratulating us and sharing our existence through their networks.
We started with a small hit list of wines, beers, and spirits that had their own style and story.
Every time we reached out to one producer, they would suggest another. It became an exciting evolution of brands supporting brands.
We now have more than 40 different labels on the platform, all of them Australian (except the tequila). There are fan favourite wine brands like Brave New Wine by Yoko & Andries, The Other Right by Alex & Galit, and Allevare by Alysha & Lucy.
Beers including cans from Mountain Culture by Harriet & DJ, and Two Metre Tall by Jane & Ashley are very popular, as are some spirit labels like Applewood Distillery made by Laura & Brendan.
We want Sip’er to be a site people can come to and feel comfortable enough to find something for themselves; whether they like classic or natural style wines, sour beers or whisky, that also encourages them to try something new.
Revelling in the characters
The most important part of Sip’er is what inspired us to set it up in the first place, the storytelling. We love hearing about the people who make the drinks we drink (and sell), it adds another level of appreciation and understanding as well as making the product more accessible.
Telling the stories and showcasing the personalities of these incredible women helps break down the (sometimes) intimidating walls between boutique drinks and consumers.
After those early chats at Sausage Queen Brewing with Chrissy Flanagan, it felt right for our first producer profile and first products on the platform to be Flanagan and her brews.
She is also hilarious, and regaled us with stories about online dating, Albo (Anthony Albanese) drinking her beer, and we love her unapologetic views on the alcohol industry, “dudes aren’t the only people that drink beer”.
And Bec Dugmore, with her side label Kin Wines, was not far behind. She owns wine label The Stoke with her husband Nick, but Kin is about her love of chardonnay and the Adelaide Hills.
Dugmore’s philosophy also resonated with ours: that if you have to talk yourself into liking a wine, it hasn’t done its job.
As Dugmore says, wine shouldn’t be controversially delicious or something you think you should like because everyone else does. It should speak to you and that is the only thing that matters.
Her insights on being a woman in a male dominated industry also reflect what we hear all the time.
Dugmore talks openly about how hard it can be to put yourself out there into a space that seems to be full of young “just had a go” guys who have the arrogance to stand up and be like “woah, look I made this thing, it’s amazing”.
For both Flanagan and Dugmore, one of their main aims is to remove any self-doubt their customers have and instead build their confidence to try new things.
Flanagan talks about fearlessness and encouraging everyone to “give things a crack”. She is the first to say that some beers will be easy drinking and delicious while some will just be too much or not up your alley. And as Flanagan says, “that’s cool”.
Talking to like-minded women like Chrissy and Bec solidifies everything we are trying to achieve.
Our aim for Sip’er is to celebrate women in the drinks industry and continue the conversation about female producers. We believe we’re headed in the right direction.
This article first appeared as the Rising Star feature in the April 2022 edition of Food & Drink Business.
