She didn’t just build Seedlip. She helped invent the Non-Alc category
Emma Wykes is a legend - there is much to learn from in this post.
Emma Wykes didn’t set out to reinvent drinking. She just didn’t want to go to university.
Instead, at 19, she walked into what she thought was a real estate office and ended up working at the oldest wine merchants in the UK. That accidental move led to a decades-long career across spirits, wine, and eventually non-alc. She helped take Seedlip from Ben Branson’s kitchen counter to 40 countries and a Diageo acquisition, back when “non-alc” was not a category.
Now she’s doing it again. This time with Sylva, a zero-proof dark sipping spirit made from trees, sonic waves, and the relentless desire to create something that tasted good and had real quality at its core.
Sylva isn’t flavored water or tea. It’s not a functional beverage. It’s something else entirely - the first non-alc sipping spirit (and I’m going to try it next week when I’m in London - will report back!).
Here are a few things Emma said that every brand builder should hear:
Stop building brands like it’s 2012.
There’s tribal knowledge out there that’s very important when it comes to this industry. I will never discredit that. But the idea that you need to “start on-premise. Get bartenders to care. Climb your way to retail” doesn’t fully apply anymore, especially not for non-alc.
"We had to rip up the old playbook. It’s out of date,” Emma said.
Today’s consumer discovers a brand on their phone. Especially when it comes to non-alc, which doesn’t have the same shipping and distribution restrictions as alcohol, they buy it direct. They try it at home. Then they might see it on a back bar. Another brand that comes to mind that’s really leaned into D2C non-alc is Little Saints. They really only took off once they nailed their content strategy. I have yet to see them in a bar (though I know they are!) but nevertheless hear their name all over the place.
On-premise still matters for non-alc, but it’s not the starting point. It’s the confirmation, not the discovery. Honestly, the same may also be true for alc these days. More on that in next week’s interview…
Alcohol is not evil, guys.
Seedlip was never about abstinence. Neither is Sylva. It’s about having options between the extremes, between all-in and tapped-out. For people who drink, but don’t want to always drink.
"No one’s saying ‘Let’s go moderate tonight.’ It’s boring. But zebra striping? That sounds fun."
You don’t need the barrel to get to the tree.
I admittedly did not know this until Emma told me: one 100-year-old oak tree makes only two whiskey barrels.
Sylva skips the barrel, instead extracting flavor and color from toasted wood branches (that don’t require cutting down or harming the tree) using sonic vibration. Their first release used Padauk, olive wood, red oak, and white oak. Their second, Hazel and birch from Ben’s own forest.
"There are 76,000 species of trees. That’s our flavor pantry." That’s a poetic statement if I ever heard one.
This type of creative thinking around flavor and process is what makes Sylva and the entire world of Emma and her gang so unique: it’s like they are saying “let’s keep the authentic, the good, the tasty, but completely re-think assumptions of how we get there.”
Building a new brand doesn’t mean you are building something truly new.
Seedlip had no comps. No shelf. No competition, at least for a while.
"We weren’t just explaining what our brand was. We were explaining why this entire category should even exist."
That’s the real work, and the real opportunity. Brands that build something truly new, like a category, an occasion, a rethinking of something left behind, a new option, a new world - those are the brands that win.
I walked away from this conversation thinking less about non-alc specifically and more about how many brands, alc and not, are still playing by rules that are, truthfully, outdated and borderline irrelevant.
Emma and her career path is proof to me that there is always room for something new. Something that solves an unmet need. Something that is captivating, quality, and authentic.
The clips for this interview are slightly longer, and I really encourage you to watch them all.
Here, Emma maps the rise, fall, and reinvention of the UK drinks world through her own path.
How Seedlip did it. How Sylva will do it.
More on Sylva - how its made, what it tastes like, what it does. Very inspiring TBH.
I’m getting a bottle of Sylva soon and will report back ;)
Next week, I’m talking to the CEO of James Gin, a UK brand that is crushing D2C sales in the US against all odds “D2C isn’t a real sales avenue for spirits brands” — they said, says who? More on that coming soon…