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What Australia's top drinks critic said about our drinks

Max Allen has been writing about drinks in Australia for 25 years. He's the AFR's drinks columnist. He reviews wine and spirits professionally, and he's not known for being gentle. In February 2023 he tasted our range and wrote about it in a Valentine's Day round-up. Here's what he said — and why it matters.

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CONTEXT

Most coverage of non-alcoholic drinks falls into one of two categories. There's the wellness angle — functional, health-forward, the drink as self-improvement. And there's the substitution angle — how close does this get to the real thing?

Max Allen doesn't write from either of those places. He writes about drinks the way a serious critic writes about food: what does it taste like, is it well-made, and does it earn its place at the table. His February 2023 AFR piece was framed around Valentine's Day and FebFast — but the underlying question was straightforward. Are non-alcoholic drinks actually any good now?

He tasted five products. He included three of ours.

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WHAT HE WROTE

On the Kakadu Kitchen x ALTD Native Peach Bellini

Allen led with the Kakadu Kitchen collaboration — a limited-release bellini made with family-harvested an-marabula (native peach) sourced by Bininj man Ben Tyler from Kakadu. It was the first in a planned series of seasonal drinks built around Indigenous-owned bush food.

That last part — the earthy, bittersweet botanical note — is the thing worth paying attention to. It's the quality that separates drinks built around real native ingredients from drinks that are just flavoured with something vaguely botanical. The an-marabula brings genuine character. Allen noticed it because it's there.

The Kakadu Kitchen collaboration was the product of a specific sourcing relationship, not a flavour brief. That comes through.

On the HIGHR Negroni Spritz and Gin & Tonic

Allen also covered the HIGHR range of pre-mixed cocktails — specifically the Negroni Spritz and the Gin & Tonic. His description was precise in the way useful drink notes are:

Tangy. Not-too-sweet. Those two words do a lot of work. Most non-alcoholic pre-mixed drinks fail on one of those axes — they're either flat and thin, or they compensate with sugar. The HIGHR builds were developed to avoid both. The Negroni Spritz runs bitter and dry, modelled on how a proper Negroni actually behaves. The G&T is built around yuzu and tonic, not sweetness.

Getting those calls right isn't an accident. HIGHR was developed with an award-winning drinks team specifically because the category standard at the time was low. We wanted drinks that would hold up under scrutiny from people who actually know what they're drinking.

On ALTD Golden Emperor

The Golden Emperor — ALTD's take on Italian orange aperitivo bitters — got its own note, separate from the HIGHR range:

"Convincing" is the right word for the Golden Emperor. It's not trying to pretend it has alcohol — it's trying to deliver the flavour experience of a well-made aperitivo. The bitter orange character, the warmth, the way it sits in a glass with ice and changes as it opens up. Allen's serve suggestion — lime and soda — is also exactly how we'd recommend drinking it.

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WHY IT MATTERS

Non-alcoholic drinks get reviewed, generously, by wellness writers and sober-curious bloggers. Getting written up by Max Allen in the AFR is a different thing.

Allen has been writing about wine and spirits for 25 years. He's not rooting for non-alcoholic drinks to succeed. He's applying the same standard he applies to everything: is it good? His Valentine's Day round-up included French Bloom (stocked at The Ritz Paris and The Beverly Hills Hotel, at $58 a bottle), Eins Zwei Zero Riesling (his pick for the best alcohol-free wine he'd ever tasted), and Heaps Normal, the benchmark Australian non-alc beer. Three of our products sat alongside those.

That's the company the drinks were keeping. We thought it was worth noting.

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TRY THEM

All three products mentioned in the AFR piece are available now through No & Low Drinks Co:

The HIGHR Negroni Spritz and HIGHR Gin & Tonic — four-pack of 350ml bottles. Built without compromise, designed to be sessionable.

ALTD Golden Emperor — 700ml bottle. Italian-style orange aperitivo. Drink over ice with lime and soda. No alcohol, full character.

Kakadu Kitchen x ALTD Native Peach Bellini — 250ml cans. A genuinely different drink. Indigenous-sourced an-marabula, limited seasonal production.

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