PodcastsFebruary 21, 2019

The Kiwi ‘brain drink’ sold all around the world

Business is Boring host

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Angus Brown from Arepa.

There have been quite a few functional drinks that have popped up in the supermarket fridges lately, drinks that claim to help you focus and recover. But many of these drinks (I’m looking at you Vitamin Water) are actually packed full of sugar and dubious science. So many over the years in fact that you might be forgiven for thinking they were all empty claims.

But not so with Arepa. After seeing the impact of cognitive illnesses on families, he set out to learn more about things that help the brain. That journey took him to launch a functional drink that’s backed by patents, research and formulated with a professor of psychopharmacology from Melbourne. Our guest is Angus Brown, founder of Arepa, a drink that’s now found all across the world. He joins us to chat the entrepreneur’s journey, discovery and selling a drink with a bit more to it.

Either download this episode (right click and save), have a listen below or via Spotify, subscribe through iTunes (RSS feed) or read on for a transcribed excerpt.

How did you get into this field of nootropics (aka cognitive enhancers)?

I worked for a very large energy drink company and during that time I struggled with the concept of selling sugar and caffeine to the masses. I had a moment where I’d sold quite a lot of these large serving size cans and I saw a nine-year-old kid walking out of a dairy with one and I thought: ‘Am I doing any good here?’

Then I lost a couple grandparents to brain-related illness, and saw friends and family struggle with things like anxiety and nervousness heading into interviews or social situtations. I also watched the movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper where he takes the magic smart pill and becomes a genius and turns his life around.

So I started to think: ‘What does a smart drink or brain drink look like?’ and I kind of fell into the world of nootropics. From there, the start of the rabbit hole began

How does one get into that rabbit hole? Were you thinking that maybe there could be a drink that was good for the brain as opposed to hopping you up on sugar and caffeine?

Yeah, I guess I’m an optimist, I have an imagination, and I kind of thought ‘why not?’ So while working for this energy drink company, I had all these ideas and originally I was pitching to the company I worked for who are very large, very successful and if you live in New Zealand you’ve probably consumed one of their products. But they weren’t really listening and they were thinking ‘oh that’s a nice idea but you should just sell more of our energy drinks’ . So I thought ‘bugger it, I’m gonna do something myself.’

I came across this facility called The Food Bowl funded by Callaghan Innovation and it’s a $30 million modular food factory, kind of like a Willy Wonka. They can literally help you make anything you can conceive. I went there as their fourth ever client and we’d done some really rough research and we knew that berry fruit was good for you, New Zealand pine bark was good for you, and we just did some bucket chemistry and mucked around and made the concept of what a brain drink would look like.

Google helped and there were some products overseas that were pointing towards the space of foods for the brain and for some reason beverages were a bit of a format. We didn’t wanna go with a pill cause the traditional formats were in nootropics and nootropics came from 1970s research for flighter pilots, army personnel and then a lot of research came from treating people with ADD/ADHD.

Keep going!

KaiFebruary 19, 2019

Food podcast: Fritters, cocktails and the resurrection of Al Brown

Dietary Requirements

Guest writer

Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms.

Back in January, we had Al Brown round for a barbecue and recorded a podcast while we were at it. A grand time was had by all, but as Simon Day poignantly relayed here, disaster struck. The recording was lost.

We went through all the stages of grief but eventually regained enough composure to ask Al to join us again, this time in the studio, where there was less chance of technology fucking us over again. There was no barbecue, but there were several different kinds of fritters (sorry again about setting off the fire alarm, Duncan), plus Simon’s delightful watermelon cocktail (see recipe below) and, as always, banter galore.

To listen, use the player below or download this episode (right click and save). Make sure to subscribe via iTunes, to the RSS or via your favourite podcast client. And feel free to share Dietary Requirements with your friends. Get in touch if you have any questions or requests aliceneville@thespinoff.co.nz

Al Brown, Alice Neville, Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day (Photo: Tina Tiller)

WATERMELON AIR CON FOR YOUR MOUTH

It’s way too hot. Insufferably hot. And there is but one true remedy – watermelon. Even better is fresh watermelon juice; best of all is watermelon juice, mint, vodka and a dash of cranberry juice. This is a cocktail I’ve named “air conditioning for your mouth” (it’s also a recipe I stole from a friend, Terry Gould, who deserves credit for this absolutely delicious drink).

There are three key guidelines to picking a good watermelon.

First, it needs to feel heavy for its size. Shop around, compare the weights of different melons. The heavier it is, the more water it’s got: a sign it’s nice and ripe.

Next, look for a big yellow mark on its underside. Watermelons develop sitting on the ground so the bigger the mark, the longer the melon has been given to ripen on the vine. Look for a darker yellow colour, not just a pale green or white.

Finally, give it a good knock with your knuckles. You’re looking for a light hollow sound, signalling it is full of water. A deeper, solid sound suggests it’s still unripe. This validity of this technique is still argued over, but I’m all for it as it makes you look cool at the supermarket.

If you can, however, the best way to ensure you get a delicious, juicy, super-sweet watermelon is to buy it from the Clif’s Gardens stall at the Parnell Farmers Market in Auckland on Saturdays, or the Waikato Farmers Market in Hamilton on Sundays. Their melons are huge, sweeter than any I’ve tasted, and absolutely full of water. Their trick is to let them ripen on the vine right up until the day they sell them. You can absolutely taste the difference.

Simon Day in action, and the finished product

Serves 4 (or 2, as you’ll want at least a couple of these)

enough chopped watermelon to make 1 litre of fresh juice
a big handful of mint, plus extra to garnish
400ml vodka
cranberry juice

Muddle the watermelon, mint and vodka together. I’ve found the most effective way to do this is in a tall jug to prevent spillage, using your bare hands to squeeze the chunks into a pulp.

Strain into 4 glasses filled with ice and top up with a dash of cranberry juice, which adds a nice sharp touch to the melon’s sweetness.

Garnish with mint.

Drink and feel your body temperature drop by at least half a degree.

– Simon Day