42 BELOW

The 42Below story starts back in 1999, when Y2K was a thing and New Year’s Eve was a new Millennium. Founder Geoff Ross distilled a thought: New Zealand, the land of purity, needs an equally pure Vodka. So, setting up a base in Wellington (naturally, his garage), Geoff started producing vodka, initially selling to his friends and local bars, and eventually expanding across New Zealand. With success comes ambition, bucketloads of marketing and international competitions. Having achieved great success with the latter, this humble vodka can now be found across the globe, firmly embedded as a European favourite.

Fast forward 20 years, and things have changed somewhat. Global reliance on single-use plastics, ill-equipped recycling and refuse infrastructure and population growth driving intensification in our primary industries has starting to take its toll on vodka’s key ingredient, water. Like many Kiwis today, 42Below have taken steps to protect their ‘super pure’ brand through improvements in sustainability.

Examples of such initiatives include hosting the Cocktail Earth Cup challenging bartenders to design eco-friendly, zero-waste drinks, and reusing cocktail lemons to make Eco Soap that is then sent back into the bars. Now 42below can add 100% recyclable and sustainable packaging to their ‘eco-lades’, saying good bye to painted logos and plastic caps, and hello to paper labels and metal lids. Smart and smart-looking, it goes to show one doesn’t need to be an eco-warrior to make an eco-difference.