One night, and a herb neither of us had heard of.
It started the way most of these things do, one big night of drinking, and someone going down a hole looking for something better to make. What came back was the damiana margarita, the way it has been made in Mexico for generations. We put our own spin on it, and that turned out to change how we shake everything else.
Five ingredients
No artificial flavours, no preservatives, no added sugar. Made in Australia from natural ingredients.
Lime juice
Fresh, not from concentrate. Most of what is in the bottle.
Water
Enough to take the edge off the lime and carry the rest.
Organic agave
The only sweetener, and less of it than you would expect.
Damiana
A Mexican botanical with soft floral notes.
Salt
In the mix, not only on the rim.
The reason we have never needed to add sugar.
Damiana is a shrub from Mexico and Central America, used in margaritas there for generations. It is the one ingredient people ask about, and the one that makes the drink taste like it has been made rather than mixed.
It is not a sweetener
Damiana carries the drink where sugar normally would, without the weight sugar leaves behind.
It is why the list is short
Get the botanical right and you stop needing the other eleven things on a mixer label.
What is not in it
A short ingredients list is only worth something if it stays short.
No added sugar
The agave and the damiana do the work.
No artificial flavours
Nothing in the bottle you could not name.
No preservatives
Which is why an opened bottle lives in the fridge.
No gluten
And no dairy, if anyone asks.
Byron Bay, and two of us.
We mix and bottle in small batches on the Northern Rivers and deliver a good deal of it ourselves. That is the whole operation, and it is the reason a venue can ring on a Thursday and have stock by the weekend.
Where to buy it