Wonder Horse owner creating boutique bottle shop in Made
A boutique bottle store with a side of cocktail classes and a “tavern tasting room” is setting up shop in Made.
Neat is the brainchild of Alex Hudson, owner of Hamilton’s famous cocktail venue Wonder Horse.
The new venture will be “a tasting experience of a little intimate bar meets a little intimate bottle store,” he said.
Between Made’s market and mess hall you will find a curated list of “deep and high quality range” spirits, representing Hudson’s 15 plus years of experience of tasting, finding and tracking down interesting bottles of liquor.
“It's not boxes of Pals or RTDS in the fridge, there’ll be some cool beers, wines, it’ll be a small but heavily curated offering.”
On the wall, there will be bottles of whiskey, tequila, mezcal, gin, and basically “as many things as we can possibly find and fit in there”.
But that’s only the off-licence aspect. There will also be a bar, “like a tavern tasting room type hybrid”, and the on-licence will allow Hudson to do master classes and tastings.
“So you'd be able to pay to come and learn how to make a mojito and then purchase the things to make that mojito at home.
“Or you might stroll in on an afternoon and be interested in purchasing a nice bottle of whisky as a gift or for yourself.
“And we can offer tastings that are pretty intimate and almost tailored to suit the individual.”
And in the future, they would look into batching and bottling cocktails to take away.
Hudson has been in the hospitality industry for 17 plus years and is getting tired of working until 3 or 4am every weekend.
“[It] sometimes makes it difficult to have a healthy, meaningful lifestyle... it’s a bit of a young person's game.”
However, Hudson loved making drinks and the “world of booze”.
“Neat is a progression of myself and of that idea where we're not going to be open until 3am.”
The boutique bar and bottle store will open at 11am every day. It’s set to close about 8-9pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday nights, and 10-11pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
Hudson said the new venture was based on “quality over quantity”.
“You can wander in and probably give some pretty vague description of what you might be interested in.
“And in a room full of interesting, tasty delights, there will be somebody that can take you through kind of this exciting library of liquors.”
While the idea existed in many countries, Hudson claimed Neat would be unique and “perhaps the first of its kind” in New Zealand.
“This is the genesis of 15 years of visiting bars in New York, London, Tokyo, Melbourne or Sydney.
“It's kind of this weird conglomeration of ideas.”
Neat is set to open in anywhere between four to eight weeks, with May 1 the latest hard opening date.