Mother of Pearl is a new Australian vodka that has been created for the female palate and one which Co-Founder, Nic Hancock and Nicola Thompson-Hancock hope bartenders will be able to have a lot of fun with, creating exciting cocktails.
In fact, one of the key messages that Nic had for the trade when he spoke with Bars and Clubs was, “we want the trade to try it, so get in touch and we’ll send you a bottle to work with”.
As many people will understand while it’s one thing to have an idea of what you want to create, it can be quite a different, and difficult, challenge to actually create it. Nic explained to Bars and Clubs the process he and Nicola went through, working with the distilling team at Melbourne Distilling Co in creating Mother of Pearl Vodka.
“We started off experimenting with a rice-based vodka, which is something I had experience a great deal of in Japan,” Nic said. “But that process was so convoluted and very manual it just wasn’t right for what we wanted. So while we didn’t just default to grapes, it was the most natural process to keep the heat out of the vodka.”
Getting the heat out of the vodka is crucial in creating a vodka for the female palate as females have more tastebuds, which pick up more of the heat and fire from alcohol spirits, “that’s not marketing, that’s just the make-up of Y and X chromosomes,” Nic explained.
This process of working on and creating the vodka was taking place during the pandemic, and what this meant was they actually slowed down on the process and so were able to take more time to make sure they get exactly what they were looking for and saw the team working with products close to the still’s home at Melbourne Distilling Co.
“This means we’re utilising the waters we can get from Victoria, which are really nice and green waters, which really help the vodka. We also have the Pinot Gris grapes from the Mornington Peninsula and so when you start bringing those things together and running them through our six metre still it makes for a beautiful combination and we had that patience behind it all, so we were able to let it go for three or four months and not do what gin does and do it in two weeks.”
And Nicola explained that while this is a gentler vodka that has been created to appeal to women, what it also does is offer a fresh, neutral base that is great for mixologists to work with.
“We have been working with the team and Franca and we went in recently and the mixologist there had been creating a few different cocktails with the vodka, and it’s really interesting, because yes we wanted to market it towards women but this is a great neutral spirit for mixologists to work with and show their talent. It was such a great moment to be sitting there with them and they are saying with done this Chocolate Negroni, and we’ve mixed this one and they were really excited to show off the drinks they made.”
Nicola adds: “We’re deeply inspired by Australia’s unrivalled natural beauty and incredibly pleased to be able to deliver a vodka that represents this – both inside and outside the bottle. Mother of Pearl Vodka appeals to a generation of women who are forging their own path with an appreciation for the distinctly unique Australian lifestyle.”
This is also a visually stunning bottle, with Nicola saying the idea was that it is something that bars will be happy to put front and centre on their back bars because it looks good alongside the Belvedere and Grey Goose bottles, then Nic added: “We will gift this for bars to trial, but the key message is this is a beautiful, soft, palatable, great base vodka that bars can experiment with and design their own unique cocktails and I really want to get that message out, if bars want to taste it and trial it, we’ll distribute to them at no cost – including freight.”
You can contact Nic and Nicola directly to find out more about trialling this vodka, through info@motherofpearl.vodka.
