When you’re drinking four nights a week, the contents of your can becomes a hot topic. Stories are told about that mean Byron Bay drink you had last Thursday, and how you can never go back to Part Time Rangers since you fucked out in the curb outside Rob Roy in first year. RTDs do more than intoxicate; they tell stories, hold memories, and they taste pretty damn good. As a result, they have formed a core part of Dunedin’s drinking culture.
But they haven’t been around forever. The first RTDs of our generation consisted of the likes of Cruisers, Part Time Rangers, Billy Mav’s, Cody’s, KGB’s and Purple G’s. Needless to say, there was not much of a range. According to Jamil, co-creator of Greenhill Seltzers, things have changed since he attended Otago in 2017: “The liquor store looked a lot different back then - lots of Billy Mav’s and sugary stuff. Walking into Leith Liquor is way different to what it was five years ago.”
Cruisers are now associated with Year 11 house parties, and the likes of Cody’s and Billy Mav’s have largely been annexed by the male population. When asked why he drank Billy Mav’s, one male party-goer replied, “Because they taste fucking awesome.” There was no suggestion of preserving his fragile masculinity at all. St Patrick’s Day saw the sale of countless boxes of green Cruisers, which one boy said was the “only appropriate time for him to shamelessly consume a Cruiser box.” Another girl said she didn’t understand why everyone hates on Cruisers: “I love them. Cruiser-haters can get fucked.”
Needless to say, the original RTDs have solid fanbases, and it's difficult to convert die-hard fans away from their timeless favourites. But recent years have seen Dunedin students attempt to do just that, creating a new wave of tasty RTDs which now define the modern Dunedin drinking experience including Greenhill Seltzers, Fizzliss, and Cheeky Hard Iced Tea. All three of these RTD brands were created by Dunedin students, each influenced by their experience with the party culture here. “We all did a lot of drinking. That’s where the idea came from,” said Jamil.
Max Broadhurst, co-creator of Fizzliss, graduated in 2021. He remembered drinking culture being a “big part” of his time in Dunedin: “Everyone kinda looks forward to the weekend and gets uni out of the way so they can party.” The idea came about in his second year during which he flatted with co-creator Zac in Death Star where they admittedly drank an “unhealthy amount…It got to the point where we were really sick of all the fizzy RTDs on the market. We started mixing juice and vodka so we had no bloating and burping and all those annoying side effects.” But the process of creating a product and starting a business while studying isn’t always going to be smooth sailing.
“At first, we had a bit of a nightmare... We didn’t do enough testing on everything, and people weren’t too happy about it.” But once they fixed the recipe, they sold well in Dunedin and Christchurch after “rebranding and professionalising everything.”
Oliver Despatis and Brendan Yielder are the creators of Cheeky Hard Iced Tea, having met in their second year at Otago studying marketing. They ended up starting their business through ‘Audacious’, a business programme that partners with the University. According to Brendan, they didn’t want to create a brand that took itself too seriously, hence the name ‘Cheeky’.
Brendan and Oli also faced challenges in the beginning. They started their business in 2020, the year of Covid. “We had only met two weeks before we started the business,” said Oli. After that, “for about two months we started the business on Zoom.”
Breaking into the competitive market of RTDs takes perseverance. Jamil said they were determined from the beginning to get Greenhill Seltzers into Leith Liquor. “If you get into Leith, that’s like the first hurdle for new brands.” Three or four years ago, the boys rocked up to Leith Liquor with a van full of their drinks. “People usually sort floor space out months in advance. But we had just driven down from Tauranga and had the van right outside.” After some convincing, “they said they would make room for us.” After that, they tried to get into Super Liquor on Cumberland St. “We had to send in 20 people and keep persevering.”
The small number of liquor stores in North Dunedin means that there’s a concentration of drinks, making it easier for brands to expand sales quickly from just a few outlets. “It’s special how there’s two or three stores that cater to everyone,” said Jamil. “It’s great for us, because we don’t need to hit up 20 stores, just the two main ones.” The liquor store culture is different to places like Wellington, where they “don’t even do tastings during O-Week.” The process is much more interactive in Dunedin, contributing to the atmosphere of excitement and anticipation that comes with trying a new RTD on your next night out.
Max says his experience in Dunedin has contributed to the success of Fizzliss “a huge amount…if I didn’t go down to Dunedin and wasn’t a part of all the parties and drinking, I would have never really noticed.” Being in the middle of it allowed him to get an insider’s perspective, saying that it was good “being able to have easy access to the future of drinking, and go to parties and ask people what they think about it. We could soon see there was a gap in the market.”
The Cheeky creators said that a flat party provided a solid opportunity for “market research”. Living in Dunedin “probably gave us a lot of meaningful insight with respect to an RTD brand that similar brands aren’t gonna have.” Before they even launched their product, Brendan and Oli “started making iterations in Brendan’s kitchen flat. We would make 20-40 litres of it, put it in cans, throw parties at the flat, and see what people thought of it.” That way, they could get “instant customer feedback…It was a good way to test the market.” Of course, testing the market is easy with such enthusiastic test subjects.
The flat party culture of Dunedin also contributes to the prevalence of RTDs. “Having an RTD is like bringing the bar experience of a cocktail to the flat party,” said Brendan. Since the closing of student bars and invasion of fresher-packed nightclubs, flat parties are the main way to socialise on a night out in Dunedin. “With flat parties, you’re spending a good portion of your night there. You’re gonna want to have an exciting, different drink. It makes sense that you want a pretty tasty RTD that you wanna sesh on all night.”
Ultimately, the sheer amount that Dunedin students drink makes us the most willing to give new things a go. “People are willing to try new things and back small brands. That’s the main difference between there and somewhere like Auckland. They’re more willing to give it a go,” said Jamil. “It probably helps that people drink three to four nights a week. People drink a lot so they get bored.” According to Max, Dunedin culture is “get it in ya, give it a try.” Dunedin provides the beauty of “word-of-mouth marketing.” If one person gets a new drink and they like it, it “spreads like rapid fire.” Oli also attributes a lot of their business success to the attitude of Dunedin students towards drinking. Had they not been in Dunedin, “it would have been completely different…In Auckland, customers would have been more scared to try something new. In Dunedin, if it’s a drink, people will try it.”
However, things are beginning to change as the University and Police are clamping down on party culture and the crazy antics of Dunedin students. “The whole world’s getting more PC about drinking,” said Max, referring to the new regulations lowering the alcohol percentage of RTDs. This also means drink companies are being discouraged from sponsoring Castle St events and displaying their banners on student flats.
One RTD brand came down for the most recent O-Week. “We got told by the cops and the Uni that we have to be careful with sponsoring - no banners. They wanna reduce the drinking culture, I guess. If parties have an alcohol sponsor and they’re promoting an alcohol brand, they think it's gonna increase the consumption and normalise it a bit more.” Drink companies rely heavily on Dunedin O-Week events to advertise their brands and get involved in the festivities. Now they’ve had to find loopholes to continue to get that exposure. “We just give flats drinks in return for some social media exposure, nothing related to any parties.”
Sergeant Stephen Jones is the head of Alcohol Harm Prevention at Dunedin Police. According to Sergeant Jones, the North Dunedin area and particularly Castle Street is “one of the most high risk and vulnerable communities for alcohol harm in New Zealand.” He says companies that use this area to promote their brands are attempting to “exploit this community by providing sponsorship through money, product, and advertising.” This often occurs when the community is “at its most vulnerable”, such as Flo/O-Weeks and Hyde St. “In doing so, these companies are engaging in the irresponsible promotion of alcohol and run the risk of being prosecuted under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012,” he said.
It’s unlikely that Dunedin’s drinking spirit will change anytime soon. RTDs and Dunedin have a symbiotic relationship - one fuels the other. RTDs provide a tasty and exciting drinking experience for Dunedin students, while Dunedin students provide RTD companies with the perfect market and testing ground for their products. It’s safe to say that, without Dunedin, RTDs would not have the same foothold they do today. “Dunedin is the heart of the future of drinking culture in the whole of NZ," said Max. “It’s probably our top place that sells the most, and we have the most recognition there. Dunedin is 100% the best place to start a drinks company.”