What is a hard seltzer anyway? Ryan and Dean of Served tell all

When we came across Served Hard Seltzers, we knew these brothers were onto something golden. Dean and Ryan Ginsberg left the restaurant business behind to create their own line of hard seltzers. This new alcoholic beverage is quickly becoming a popular go-to, particularly in the worlds of wellness and healthy eating (and drinking..)

Served is made of very few ingredients – one of which is wonky fruit. By which, we mean fruit that wouldn’t make it onto the shelves at the supermarket. Instead of going to landfill, Dean and Ryan save the would-be waste and infuse it into their spirit and sparkling water cocktail. The resulting drink is pure, crisp, fewer calories than an apple, and delicious too.

But what is a hard seltzer anyway? And what took these former restauranteurs on a journey to create a social enterprise drink? Read on…

Tell us about your life pre-Served – you worked together running your own restaurant for over 10 years in Covent Garden. What were the highlights? 

Yes, we co-founded Cantina Laredo which was voted the 33^rd best restaurant in London in 2018.

Running a restaurant businesses is fraught with challenges, but the highlights can be amazing.

What was probably most rewarding for us personally, was working with and developing such a great team of around 60 people. Many of our team were with us from day one and it was great to see them develop over that period both personally and professionally.

As brothers and co-founders in your restaurant business and now Served, you clearly have a knack for working together. What tips do you have for running a family business?

We get asked this question regularly and working with your family isn’t right for everyone!

Ryan and I have a very similar work ethic and vision for our businesses, so we always pull in the same direction. We also have different skill sets, so complement each other well.

What’s most important to us is our relationship as brothers, and although it can be difficult, we try not to talk about work when we get together as a family!

Can you sum up for us what’s a hard seltzer, anyway? When did you first learn what a hard seltzer was and why weren’t you satisfied with what was out there?

Hard seltzer is the name given to a new and exciting category of alcoholic drink. Hard seltzers are typically made with just three ingredients: sparkling water, alcohol and flavourings.

As former restaurateurs, we were constantly surrounded by innovation and having worked with some of the best chefs and bartenders in the world, we became increasingly aware that the alcohol industry had been slow to react to the needs of the modern health-conscious consumer. We realised that we are living in an age where people really care about the food they put in their bodies – for both themselves and the planet. With this in mind, we couldn’t seem to get our heads around why companies creating alcoholic drinks all seemed to be packing them with sugar and cheap artificial ingredients and offering little to no ingredient or nutritional transparency. This frustration led us to what was at the time, the beginning of the hard seltzer movement in the US in 2016.

We loved what the pioneering hard seltzer brands were doing in the US – they had created an incredible lifestyle category focusing on the needs and wants of the modern health-conscious consumer. However, when we tried the products, we were not blown away by the quality. Although they used ‘natural’ ingredients, we found the flavour profile to be artificial and they often had a bitter aftertaste. We knew we could do better, and embarked on an extraordinary 12-month journey to make this a reality; from wading through crystal clear natural springs in rural Staffordshire, to handpicking wonky raspberries with local farmers in the heart of Scotland’s Strathmere valley.

Hard seltzers as a category is said to be booming. Why do you think that is?

Hard seltzers are so popular for a number of reasons, but primarily because they play into six current mega trends: wellness, sugar reduction, sustainability, lower-ABV, veganism and they are natural.

How did you connect the dots that you could save would-be food waste in creating your drinks? And why was that a route that’s important to you?

A staggering 50 million tonnes of delicious fruit and veg is thrown away in Europe each year for aesthetic reasons alone.

Have you ever been to the supermarket and bought some perfectly shaped, beautiful looking fruit, only to find it was lacking flavour?

At Served, we are not interested in what our fruit looks like as we infuse them into our drinks, but we do go to extraordinary lengths to find the world’s best tasting fruit, bursting with flavour.

As looks never come into it we are able to use bumped, bent and broken fruit that would have otherwise gone to waste. It’s important to us as a business that we do our bit to help reduce perfectly good fruit and veg ending up in the waste heap.

Your drinks also fund environmental projects and save critically endangered animals. Can you tell us a little more about the impact you’ve had and why you wanted to do this with your brand? 

We all need to make changes and do our bit to save our planet. That’s why we pledge to invest 5% of our profits into environmental projects and saving critically endangered species around the world.

We are particularly passionate about endangered species as we were born and spent our early years growing up in South Africa, where you are deeply connected to nature and incredible wildlife.

We have some hugely exciting projects planned for 2021 to support some of our most critically endangered species.

You’re the first hard seltzer globally to feature on the menu at one of the World’s 50 Best Bars. How did you make that happen?

The world’s leading restaurants and bars are always on the lookout for innovative products – innovation is part of their DNA and they set the trends for the rest of us. So it wasn’t a surprise to us that they were naturally curious to try Served!

The Artesian in the Langham was our first listing in one of the World’s 50 Best Bars – again, which came as no surprise. Anna Sebastian and her team are incredibly talented and innovative.

On the flip side of that, is there is no place to hide with the World’s 50 Best Bars! Your product has to be phenomenally good, or you don’t stand a chance.

As we’re all in lockdown, short of getting an order of Served in, what tips do you have for making the most of drinks at home?

Try and avoid complex recipes that contain a lot of sugar. Instead try simple recipes using a quality spirit and fresh ingredients.  

We’re all about community over here – which other social enterprise/s do you admire?

We believe that we all have a responsibility, both personally and in business, to do our bit to help save our planet and support those who need it in our communities.

What we are inspired by the most, are those businesses that are able to be successful, but to also make the world a better place. We are naturally a bit biased towards food waste and helping save critically endangered wildlife – so would have to say we love Rubies in the Rubble and a charity called SORIA who help save our rhino’s in Africa and India.

Tempted to try Served Hard Seltzers? Order your sample pack now.