Norma Taps co-founders Dave Lincoln (left) and Luke Jones have been friends for years, and their shared passion for sustainable hospitality through keg cocktails is gaining popularity.
Norma Taps co-founders Dave Lincoln (left) and Luke Jones have been friends for years, and their shared passion for sustainable hospitality through keg cocktails is gaining popularity.
Luke Jones, of Norma Taps, talks with Tom Raynel about how he and long-time friend Dave Lincoln were inspired by the keg cocktail trend rising worldwide, and how they’ve brought it to patrons here.
How long have you known each other, and how did the business start?
Dave and Ihave been friends since the third form, we’ve been friends for a really long time. We’re both in our 30s and had a pretty good friendship over the last 20 years. We started Honest Spirits [the pair’s premium spirit brand] four years ago and we’ve won a few awards, which is pretty cool, it’s nice to get recognised. But I think being a premium spirit at the moment is a little hard in this environment we find ourselves in.
Last year, we travelled a lot, going to places like London, Melbourne and Sydney, and we’d seen this trend. It’s been around for a while, cocktails on tap, but we saw it growing a lot more, so it sparked our attention. We wanted to test the waters here in New Zealand, and so we set up Norma Taps.
The whole idea and the concept of the space was to run everything on tap. So we do keg cocktails that we make ourselves, but we also do beer and wine on tap, and we run our spirits through the tap as well.
The idea was to try and see if we can minimise as much waste as possible and see if it’s a viable business model. Then from there, we always had the intention of trying to build out the keg cocktails and move into wholesale. The reason why we set up Norma Taps was because we wanted to prove that it was viable and that it was easy to operate in that way.
We’ve had some pretty amazing feedback, not only on our cocktails but the service style and the speed, the consistency of the product as well. It’s been fun and interesting and painful at times, but rewarding at others.
The business offers plenty of cocktail options, including margaritas, negronis and even espresso martinis, all on tap.
What is a keg cocktail, and what cocktails do you offer?
I think there’s a few different ways to do it. The way that we do it is that we just make a big cocktail. We do it in volume, then we keg it. It changes a little bit when you start selling them wholesale because you have to make sure that they’re shelf-stable. When we first started, though, we were just making big cocktails in barrels, and then we were decantering them into kegs and then pressurising them.
We’re constantly changing them and updating them as well. I think the beauty of having the space that we have is we can have a cocktail, we can change it, we can tweak it, we can see if it’s working. If it’s not working, we get real-time feedback from the customers.
Can you tell us more about your new distributor?
We’ve partnered with Wine Diamonds. Dan, who is the owner of Wine Diamonds, predominantly sells kegged wine. We always wanted to talk to him about doing the distribution and thought it would be a good partnership. We had his wines on tap at Norma, we still do, and we spoke to him about six months ago saying, would you be interested in selling these cocktails wholesale? The conversation started, and we’ve sort of gone from there with him. It’s been a really great partnership because he’s gone through all the pain points that we’re going through. He’s given so much advice, it’s almost like a mentor plus a distributor.
The bar, designed by Luke himself, provides a contrast of mid-century modern styling with industrial architecture. Photo / Supplied
The Norma Taps Auckland location recently had a facelift, could you tell us about the inspiration there?
I actually designed it! I’ve got a passion for mid-century wood, it’s beautiful. We wanted to go for a sort of mid-century meets industrial brutalist architecture, which is obviously the building itself. The basis of the building was already there, including the kitchen, and then we reclaimed it and put the bar in with all the taps. It was very much a minimal look and feel that’s kind of just to my taste.
I think it’s just being aware of the environment that we have for our children. In New Zealand, the focus is on being clean and green, and as much as people say it, I don’t know if people preach it as much. We come from a hospitality background, maybe for about six or seven years across the lifespan of our working lives during and post uni. You see how much waste there is, it’s relentless. How much bottle waste there is, plastic waste, and just unnecessary things. People don’t realise the amount of plastic waste and bottles just going into the bin.
What would your advice be to other budding entrepreneurs?
This might sound odd, but just try not to spend too much money to start with. Get the idea out there and build on the idea, don’t invest a lot of money at the start. We’ve done that with products that we’ve invested money in and it’s not gone the way that we thought it would. Just start small and scale up, don’t be afraid to stay small for a while.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail.
