good book 42Below’s founder Geoff Ross has writ­ten a book with his wife Justine about the story behind the vodka called Every Bas­tard Says No. They’re hav­ing a book launch this Fri­day at the’Ho that’s sup­posedly invite-only but we bet you could sneak in if you were smart enough. In order to pro­mote the book, I got to inter­view Geoff and Justine via email (my choice, things are crazy hec­tic this week at the Wel­ling­tonista towers), but of course since it’s not released until April 30, I was­n’t sure what to ask. Vari­ous Wel­ling­tonis­tas help­fully sug­ges­ted I should enquire about the War Memori­al Scan­dal – but that’s not related to the book – or the allegedly homo­phobic ad cam­paign in the USA, but I know noth­ing about that. And I don’t want to risk hav­ing my oppor­tun­it­ies for free booze taken away from me. I’m a blog­ger, not a journ­al­ist, after all. So, after the jump, I lob some soft balls at them, and Justine in par­tic­u­lar impresses me with her love for Wel­ling­ton. 

Ques­tions and answers with Geoff

1. Why did you start with vodka? What is it about the spir­it that drew you to it?  

I drunk it. And actu­ally more spe­cially I saw more and more Vodka Cock­tails emer­ging. Vodka is the Switzer­land of Spir­its – it goes with any­thing. And with the re birth of cock­tails I could see it being the uni­ver­sal ingredi­ent. Also New Zea­l­and seemed it might have some cred with Vodka. We couldn’t do Tequila or Scotch because of Provence – but Vodka kind of fit­ted. (someone  once told me New Zea­l­and was the Sweden of the South pacific) 

2. Was Wel­ling­ton ini­tially recept­ive to 42Below, or did you have to look else­where for val­id­a­tion first? 

Wel­ling­ton was. I knew a lot of the bars I first sold to. But even bey­ond that, Wel­ling­ton did adopt 42 Below. Prob­ably bet­ter than any oth­er city. Maybe because it was a home town brand. But prob­ably more because there is a self con­fid­ence in Wel­ling­ton. They didn’t need to be told what was ‘cool to drink’

3. With so much of a Cuba influ­ence going on here, how­come it took you so long to start mak­ing a rum? And what’s the fate of Sev­en Tiki now that Bac­ardi’s stepped in? 

I believe Sev­en Tiki is all go. I love the whole Paci­fica thing. And found a great Rum dis­til­ler in the sug­ar cane fields of Fiji. That was where our Rum came from – rather than a Cuban thing. 

4. So why the bloody hell are you now based in Auck­land when every­one knows Wel­ling­ton is the centre of the world? 

Spear fish­ing. Bet­ter Spear fish­ing in the north. (Less of an octopus threat too, maybe! – ed)

5. Finally, what’s your favour­ite way to drink 42Below? 

Mar­tini with a cit­rus twist.  Very very cold.

Ques­tions and answers with Justine

1. Giv­en that every­one in Wel­ling­ton seems to know everything about every­one else’s busi­ness, was that a help or a hinder­ance when it came to try­ing to recon­struct the life of 42Below? 
 
In those days (’90s)in Wel­ling­ton we were young, child­less and highly social so we loved that every­body knew every­body’s busi­ness. Social net­work­ing was an import­ant cumu­lated advant­age in estab­lish­ing the 42 below brand (and indeed our own respect­ive pro­fes­sion­al repu­ta­tions) so the answer to your ques­tion is that the tight nature of Wel­ling­ton soci­ety was an advant­age.
 
2. Although I haven’t read the book yet, I’m guess­ing from everything else I know about 42Below, there may be some flights of fancy and cre­at­ive embel­lish­ments in the book. How import­ant do you think it was to tell the truth versus telling a good story? 
Truth is everything. I am a vora­cious read­er and I can always smell a fab­ric­a­tion or a lie and as a read­er I resent it. There were no flights of fancy or cre­at­ive embel­lish­ments – there is the truth. There are how­ever sub plots and plot exten­sions that we did­n’t have room for in the book. If I was wor­ried about put­ting some­thing into the book Geoff would say … “is it the truth” – if the answer was YES I put it in. The same applied to the busi­ness we always told the truth – that way you stay out of trouble.
 
3. Do you feel inspired now to write the stor­ies of oth­er Kiwi icons, or was this more of a per­son­al task? 
 
In the late ’90s I went to the Lon­don School of Journ­al­ism, I wrote and researched doc­u­ment­ar­ies and I actu­ally wrote a column for Cap­it­al Times in Wel­ling­ton – I’m sure all writers hope one day to write a book. The pop­u­lar story of 42 Below and my know­ledge of it provided me with a first exper­i­ence. I have loved it and hated it. I am writ­ing a busi­ness book for teens at the moment and I have two oth­er books in pro­gress but let’s see how Every Bas­tard Says No goes first. There is noth­ing P.C. about my writ­ing style and my cyn­icism won’t be every­one’s cup of tea.
 
4. As a pub­lished author, can you recom­mend some oth­er good books about or from Wel­ling­ton? 
My heart broke a little when I saw Blind­Sight by Maurice Gee in a book store win­dow in 2005. The fig­ure ‘Gor­don’ on the cov­er hunched over buck­et in hand was a fig­ure known to every­one who trod the streets of cent­ral Wel­ling­ton in the 1990s. Bless Maurice Gee for immor­tal­iz­ing his story. Years ago I bought War­wick Roger­’s book The Oth­er Side with extracts from his magazine and news­pa­per work. I remem­ber vividly the impact his piece, ‘The Charm of Wel­ling­ton’ had on me. I too was an Auck­lander try­ing to make a life in Wel­ling­ton and I too gained a huge amount pro­fes­sion­ally from my time there. Geoff did­n’t fall for Wel­ling­ton like I did and when I read that piece I real­ized a born and bred Auck­lander can fall for the charms of our cap­it­al – I was not alone.
 
5. Finally, what’s your favour­ite way to drink 42Below? 
Favor­ite drink is a lunch­time 42 Manuka Honey Capiri­oska or a Bellini from Harry­’s Bar.