POUR FEMME

Sip’er is a new online bottle shop, putting female-produced beer, wine and spirits at the forefront. The idea came to fruition last year after co-founders Bree Nicholls and Jenny Cheng got chatting to a female brewer, which sparked curiosity about where they could find more drinks driven by women. “Outwardly it’s a very male-dominated industry. Even though there are more women starting things or have been working in the industry for a while, it’s often the men that get the credit,” says Nicholls. After doing some research online and finding there wasn’t a platform that amalgamated female-founded drinks, the women leapt in feet-first, contacting suppliers and building the website. Across the site you’ll find notes on each of the female producers, sharing the stories behind the bottles, as much as what’s in them. “Alcohol can sometimes be an intimidating thing to buy – you walk into a bottle shop and often someone’s talking at you with a lot of jargon you’re not familiar with – and it can be overwhelming,” says Cheng. “So we took that on to try and speak in a language that consumers understand and make it relatable.” The pair also point out that it’s not just female-exclusive operations – there are husband-and-wife duos, siblings and partners; and they take on brands where females are the brains behind the operations as much as brewers, distillers and winemakers. “We never wanted to shy away from the fact that men are involved too, or hide that – but to give the female part of those relationships more recognition, and to tell the story from a different point of view,” says Nicolls. sip-er.com.au