British musician, songwriter, and producer Dave Stewart’s daily rituals include a rocket-fuel cortado at midday and a vodka martini at 7.48pm exactly. In between, he’s usually in a recording studio or working on one of his many creative projects. So, it makes sense that when the co-founder of the Eurythmics suggested to Swedish-born, Switzerland-based entrepreneur Johan Holgersson that they start a business together at the beginning of 2022, he gave him three options: coffee, music, or vodka. “Within five minutes, we decided on vodka,” recalls Johan, of that fateful call.
The pair had first met a year before, through a mutual investment in a music company. “I grew up with the Eurythmics, they were my band, so I said to the CEO of the music business, if there’s ever an opportunity to meet Dave, I would love to do that,” says Johan. Shortly after, the pair had lunch at a London hotel. “I took along my favourite Eurythmics piano sheet music and we had a very nice time chatting but I didn’t think I would ever see Dave again.” So far, so fan-like. But Dave – who usually turns down lunch because it’s not part of his routine; he prefers brunch – followed up with an e-mail conversation that soon became a friendship. “I have a homing instinct for certain types of people who are genuine and interesting to talk to and like me, Johan is a creative person as well as a businessman,” says Dave, citing a second get together at his home in Nashville, where they spent another long afternoon talking, as being equally memorable.
A vodka martini has been Dave’s go-to cocktail ever since the 1980s when, off the back of the success of the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams album, he bought a pied-à-terre in Paris and one day wandered into La Coupole brasserie in Montparnasse – a famous haunt for artists, writers, and Hollywood stars (including Picasso, Hemingway, and Ava Gardner). “I was a bit overwhelmed and didn’t know what to order so the barman suggested a martini. It came ice-cold, in a tiny glass, and made with vodka, which was unusual at the time, as many people were drinking gin martinis,” says Dave. “After I’d drunk about half of it, I could feel a letting go, that space between thoughts for creativity to come in. I started writing poems in one of the little black moleskin notebooks that I always carry with me. Since then, I’ve always had a single vodka martini every night. It draws a line at the end of working day.”
By the time Dave met Johan, he had the concept for Poetry Vodka – a playful yet refined drink aimed at artistic free spirits – but was looking for a partner to help turn it into a real product. “I understood straight away that Johan would know about the next step,’ he says. Which he did. One of Johan’s ongoing client projects is a hotel in Warsaw so he made some calls and was put in touch with a family-run, third generation Polish producer who agreed to help. Unlabelled samples were sent to London and the duo conducted a blind tasting with a panel of friends. “It started out very scientifically, gurgling, spitting and writing down our comments about each one… then we got into advanced martini mixing and it became less scientific,” remembers Johan.
Nevertheless, they all chose the same wheat-based winner. “Over the years of making martinis, I’ve tried every vodka you can imagine and there was something about the taste of this one, with its viscosity and smoothness, that was completely different,” says Dave. “Ours has a touch of rye, for a hint of marzipan,” continues Johan, who limits his own vodka martini habit to the weekends. Seven months after the idea was born, the first bottles arrived just in time for Dave’s celebratory 70th birthday show at The Fire Station, a live music venue in his hometown of Sunderland. “We opened a bottle backstage before the show and all the artists and the band were doing shots; it was really good fun,” he says.
Next, there was a visit to meet the producer family in Poland. The pair chartered a tiny plane that landed in the middle of the family’s field as they were celebrating an anniversary of the distillery. “I thought it was just going to be the family and a few of their friends but there was a huge tent and a stage. I ended up playing with the local band; the whole thing was wild,” says Dave. “We were meant to leave before dark because there was no landing strip but of course that didn’t happen. There was a real connection with the producers and since then they’ve been to a few of my gigs.”
As with many start-ups, it has been a rollercoaster ride. “I’m thankful every day for naivety because without it, none of this would have happened; it’s a massive learning curve,” says Johan, who has put the infrastructure for the business in place, and who brought marketing and events expert Tess on board in 2023 to establish the brand design, activation and positioning. Plenty of hurdles have already been overcome, from stolen shipments to trademark issues and a batch of several thousand bottles that were unsellable in the US due to the word ‘pure’ etched on the glass, which isn’t allowed as a product description (the solution: divert them to the Bahamas, where Dave lives part of the time, instead). “I think of it like getting a band off the ground but instead of needing a van, equipment, a PA system, lighting and visas for gigs, we need mountains of paperwork, registrations, importers and distributors,” says Dave, who has already made a ‘Poetry’ jazz album, which he plays while sipping his nightly cocktail. “Everything has to be in place before you promote your first single and it’s the same for Poetry Vodka.”
Dave’s freewheeling energy and inherent belief that anything is possible (“everything has its ups and downs. Instead of worrying, lets experiment, and the fun of it will transcend into a beautiful thing,” he says) is perfectly tempered by Johan’s commercial mind. “Our sense of how we approach the world and value people aligns, and we bring similar but also very different qualities to the table. Dave comes with a lot of ideas and I’m one step further in the business direction, but as a working partnership, somehow, we complete each other.”
