Six Barrel Soda

Pals since the 90s, Joe & Mike have shared years of questionable fashion choices and ridiculous business plans. In 2012, they were mixing drinks in their Wellington dive bar – but they couldn’t find a decent cocktail syrup for the life of them.

After some dodgy batches and plenty of experimenting, they discovered the perfect formula for delicious real fruit syrups that worked in cocktails, mocktails, or as a soda. This is how Six Barrel Soda was born, and how the soda industry became forever shaken up for the better.

For 10 years, we’ve been making experimental soda syrup batches and flavours that pop in our Wellington soda kitchen. We have grown to a small team of soda lovers who make wonderful drinks worth savouring. Our drinks are made with real ingredients, like New Zealand citrus, organic ginger, Central Otago cherries, and Fair Trade organic cane sugar. Our drinks are free from preservatives and artificial sweeteners, colours and flavours and contain around 30% less sugar than most sodas.

We’re also committed to being a force for good in the food & beverage industry. Soda was originally made to order in soda fountains and drug stores in the USA and many other communities have traditions of mixing drinks for special occasions. Somewhere along the way we became accustomed to sculling back drinks from plastic bottles whenever we want. But it doesn’t need to be that way. From 100% recyclable packaging to a bottle return scheme, here are some of the things we’re doing in the sustainability space.

We are Living Wage Accredited, Independently NZ owned, one of Cuisine Magazine’s ‘100 Tastes of NZ’, Winners of the NZ 2021 Artisan Awards for non-alcoholic drinks and Capital Mag’s Best Artisan Food & Drink Winner 2023. The rest of the world is catching on too, with our syrups and sodas now being enjoyed in Australia, Japan, United States, Hong Kong, Canada, Kuwait and more coming soon.

Flavouring water just got easier. Our Seltz Drops are a low-waste, sugar-free way to make delicious, naturally flavoured sparkling water. Forget about stacks and stacks of cans, just add a flavour drop or two to a glass of cold still or sparkling water from your Sparkler, SodaStream or other home soda maker.

Seltz Drops are a great no-sugar beverage option for diabetics, people on a keto diet, or those trying to reduce their sugar intake. Each bottle of water drops makes 50 drinks – that’s 50 cans of aluminium saved from the recycling bin.

FYI: Our real-fruit soda syrups have 30% less sugar than other sodas on the market, so are still a great low-sugar drink option.

How to make amazing natural sodas at home?

Simply mix our syrups with soda / sparkling water over ice and add a garnish if you’re feeling fancy. We usually mix them 1 part syrup to 5 parts soda or sparkling water eg. 30mL syrup 150mL water but you can make them stronger or weaker, it’s up to you.

What are some healthier soda options?

Our syrups are made with real ingredients, from plants. We use Fair Trade Organic cane sugar to accentuate the flavours rather than artificial sweeteners and they are all lower sugar than leading soda brands. Using our syrups you can also make them to your taste, use half the syrup for a less sweet option.

I’m using other syrups and they taste nasty!

Make sure you use Six Barrel Soda syrups, they are delicious and better for you.

Sustainable Soda

Soda was originally made to order in soda fountains and drug stores in the USA and many other communities have traditions of mixing drinks for special occasions. Somewhere along the way we became accustomed to sculling back drinks from plastic bottles whenever we want. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Here are some things we are doing to help.

Low-Waste

We can’t keep using plastic bottles. Recycling is a partial solution at best, reduction and reuse are key. By using concentrated products (bottled in glass!) and making your own sparkling water you can drastically cut your plastic consumption. Glass is much easier to recycle so even if you can’t return your bottle to us for reuse (see below) you’ve saved a good stack of plastic from getting made. Plus you’ve had better drinks in the meantime. Go you!

Living Wage

We’re NZ Living Wage certified, meaning we pay our team at least the hourly wage a worker needs to pay for the necessities of life and participate as an active citizen in the community.

Organic & Fair Trade

All of our sugar sweetened syrups are made with raw Fair Trade Organic Cane Sugar from Cooperativa Manduvira, a farmer-owned co-operative in southern Paraguay. Many of our ingredients are organic, including all of our ginger, flowers and honey. We prefer to use single strength, NZ grown juices to imported organic juice concentrates.