We just couldn’t find a clean, canned cocktail that made us feel as good as saké did. So, we went on a mission… 

Hello, Dan & Faith. Nice to meet you.

It’s lovely to meet you. We are excited to tell you all about our saké cocktails.

But you’re both from Scotland? Why sake?

Yeah, we are both proud Scots. Dan was raised in the south side of sunny Glasgow and moved over to Edinburgh for uni. Faith is from Elgin on the Moray coast. We both now live in London.

 We are the proud co-founders of Kwenched, a saké cocktail company. The business was born out of a real need and desire to make a cleaner, more delicious, canned cocktail – and saké is the cleanest, most delicious alcohol. Our flagship cocktails are a spicy saké margarita and a saké strawberry daiquiri.

How did you meet?

Ironically, we met in a cocktail bar. Faith was out with her friend, and Dan was working in the bar that they went into. We didn’t get each other’s number when Faith was in the bar – but she messaged the bar’s Facebook page to pass her number over.

But surely you’re from a whisky region, why Kwenched?

Faith’s grandad, Frank, was a stillman in both Aberlour and Glenallachie whisky distilleries. Hopefully, he would be proud of us carrying on his work in the alcohol industry – just with a different spirit.

After suffering with asthma and allergies, Dan couldn’t drink a lot of traditional alcohols like wine and beer due to the sulphites, tannins and histamines. Also, when Faith drank a lot of the time, she felt bloated and sluggish, especially after drinking canned cocktails which were filled with cheap alcohol and high levels of sugar.

Dan travelled in Asia and was introduced to saké – Japan’s oldest and most popular alcohol.

A lot of people won’t know this but saké is naturally clean with no sulphites, it’s really low in allergens and has gut-friendly properties as it’s made from rice and koji (a healthy bacteria). And it didn’t trigger any of Dan’s asthma or allergies.

Back in the UK we just couldn’t find a clean, premium, canned cocktail that made us feel as good as saké did. So, we went on a mission to make the most delicious, canned cocktail on the market .. and Kwenched was born.

How is it being produced?

We are proud to partner with an award-winning Japanese brewery – one of only four breweries to supply the Japanese royal family. So, we import saké from Japan, and blend with our high-quality ingredients in Devon. Our
premium canned saké cocktails are all 200ml and 8 per cent
ABV. 

Where can people buy it?

From October we will be in a partnership with Amazon, so you will be able to buy on Amazon Prime and can get Kwenched on next-day delivery.

If you want to buy online before Amazon, you can get them from DELLI market online. We are also in stores across the UK. Check out our stockists on our Instagram
@kwencheddrinks

 What have your learned about being young entrepreneurs?

So much. We have learned that actually what we thought were our downfalls at the start of this journey like being young, not having experience in the alcohol industry, being naïve etc… these have all become our superpowers.

We don’t know all the answers but that’s the beauty of what we are building. Our tag line for Kwenched is that it’s not a name, it’s a feeling – and we want everyone to feel something when they are drinking our cocktails.

What excites you now about your business?

What excites us the most is when people try Kwenched, people who have never had saké before, or even better, people who think they don’t like saké – and then Kwenched becomes their favourite cocktails. Our mission is to make saké mainstream, and we are doing that by making it accessible and affordable through our drinks.