Ungovernable cider Sxollie will shout revolution from the tables
WHAT does it take to start a revolution? For Karol Ostaszewski and his business partner and wife, Laura Clacey, the first ingredient of revolution is education.
“Globally, cider is a huge category and it is booming,” he says. “There’s a revolution happening in the US, there’s a revolution happening in Australia, and there’s a revolution happening in the UK. And as with everything, SA is going to follow on from the US, from Australia, and from the UK. Mzansi is going to have a cider boom,” he says.
According to Chicago-based market research firm IRI, cider sales in the US surged 75.4% to reach $366m in 2014. This makes it the fastest-growing segment, with craft beer sales increasing only 21% (albeit from a higher base). In Australia, cider has been growing at an annualised rate of 34% in the past five years, according to figures from IBIS World. And according to TheJournal.ie, premium cider sales in the UK grew 25% in one year, with total cider sales reaching £3bn in 2014.
“With the growth in the craft beer movement, we saw SA as the next big opportunity for cider,” he says. “By dollar value, SA is in the top 10 countries worldwide for cider consumption. It’s driven largely by the big commercial brands, and the craft component is still small, but that’s exactly the niche we’re looking to tap into.”
After returning from Australia in 2014, Ostaszewski (a trained chartered accountant) and Clacey (an archaeology graduate) produced their first cider in May last year. But rather than be content to sit in the background and wait for consumers to find their product hiding on a bottle store shelf, he wants their brand to be “standing up on tables, kicking and screaming and telling the world about the cider revolution”.
WITH a range of craft competitors (including Cluver & Jack, Dragon Brewing Company, Everson’s Cider, Orpens and Windermere), an aggressive approach is the only way to challenge the likes of Hunter’s and Savanna, the Distell brands that make up 95% of the market’s volumes, according to a Euromonitor International report in 2014.
“Who do you want fighting for you in a revolution?” Ostaszewski asks. “You want somebody who can convince, somebody who can hustle, somebody who can break barriers, somebody who can jump over the obstacles. And we know that the skollies (defined by Urban Dictionary as a rebel or revolutionary who rejects the status quo and seeks a higher purpose) are the people who drive change.
“That’s why we called our cider Sxollie.”
Although the correct pronunciation of the brand is SKOLL-ee, many South Africans see the X and pronounce it with a click. But Ostaszewski explains that this was more about the design. Specifically, the Xs on the ancient Sotho drinking jugs represented a crocodile’s back. And given Sxollie’s decision to make handcrafted cider using fresh apples (mass-market ciders use concentrate), he believes this sign of strength fits the brand.
“SA doesn’t always make it easy for entrepreneurs,” Clacey says. “There’s something beautiful and opportunistic about the way things operate here, and Sxollie was born out of that idea: that you have to hustle to get ahead.”
The eight-week production process starts with apples from orchards in Elgin in the Western Cape. The juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks, using Champagne yeasts to bring out the elegant flavour profiles.
“Since we’re at the vanguard of the revolution, we wanted to choose ciders that people are familiar with,” Ostaszewski says. “We didn’t want to confuse them with complex apples that are used in traditional cider-making. We wanted to make it easy to understand what flavour profile you’re getting. And every time you go to Woolworths or Pick n Pay, you make a decision between your Golden Delicious and your Granny Smith.” It’s for this reason that they started with a single varietal, Golden Delicious. (Granny Smith is coming soon). As Africa’s most famous apple, representing more than 50% of all apples consumed. Ostaszewski describes it as “sweet, light and fluffy, with perfect fruit to bring out the soft, juicy, almost honey-like flavours”. “Why is cider brilliant?” he asks. “Because you can use it in cocktails and you can pair it with a number of foods.” This becomes clear with the crisp, dry Packham Pear “perry”. Not only does Ostaszewski believe it pairs well with something indulgent such as dark chocolate fondant, but it works well in cocktails containing, for example, bourbon whisky and a stick of cinnamon. “Like wines, ciders perry are designed to pair well with food,” he says. “Golden Delicious is a perfect match with pork and Asian cuisine, Granny Smith is fantastic with a cheese course or oysters, while Packham Pear perry goes wonderfully with a sweeter dessert like chocolate brownies.”
LOOKING ahead, Ostaszewski admits that the brand has some work to do. Production is about 40,000-litres a month, with new demand coming from the US as Trevor Noah shines the spotlight on SA. The exchange rate also makes exporting favourable, so the brand is looking to expand further afield into Australia in the next six to 12 months.
“Our goal is obviously world domination, but we’ll start here in Mzansi,” he laughs. “We’ve got a whole nation to convince about the benefits and the beauty of cider. But we are the ones who will witness this cider revolution from the get-go. We have an amazing product that we can be proud of: a product that celebrates Africa through its raw materials, its flavour profiles and its exceptional branding,” he says.