Aaron Shuttleworth: Director of Dispatched Imports
Published 20 January 2026 | Behind the Bar Podcast, Episode 4
This week on Behind the Bar, I sat down with Aaron Shuttleworth, Director of Dispatched Imports. Aaron's career spans bars across Sydney, Montreal, London, and New York before he moved brand-side in the States. Back in Australia, he helped set up Crown Sydney's bar operations, then struck out on his own—founding a consultancy, a whiskey cask investment fund, an independent bottling label, and most recently, the drinks distribution business Dispatched Imports.
We covered the reality of starting a distribution business from scratch, how Dispatch evaluates which brands to bring on (spoiler: taste comes last), why pre-chilled glassware beats every bar gadget ever invented, and the simple philosophy that ties it all together. Aaron's got one of the sharpest minds in the game—this one's worth your time.
Key Topics
- From bar manager to multi-business founder
- The Australian Whiskey Fund and cask investment model
- Starting a distribution business: barriers, cash flow, and sacrifices
- How Dispatch evaluates new brands (packaging first, numbers second, taste last)
- Why ESG isn't a checkbox—it's table stakes
- Picking up Ruby: the right fit at the right time
- The "help company" philosophy: distributors as problem solvers
- What's next for Dispatch in 2026
Full Transcript
Ronan: Thanks so much for doing this. And yeah, I think it's really interesting that you moved from being a bar manager before you moved into this role.
Aaron: Yeah, I had a variety of different bar roles. I worked between Sydney, Montreal, London, New York—internationally—but worked brand side as well for a long time over in the States. So yeah, I had a pretty good all-around grounding of a lot of different facets of the industry, and came back here for a few years at the end of 2018 after being overseas for the best part of five years. Fell back into bars, running multi-site operations first for QT Hotels and then helping set up Crown in Sydney. Got to the end of a two-year stint with Crown kind of when they got bought by Blackstone, and thought—I'm pretty sick of working for other people. And went from there.
Ronan: And what was it like? It was your first time setting up a business, right?
Aaron: For myself, yeah. We first set up a consultancy. I think as a lot of people do, it's an easy step into working for yourself.
Ronan: Was it still called Dispatch?
Aaron: No, it was the Antipodean Hospitality Company. Which still exists—we hold on to, I think, only two long-term clients at the moment because that's about all I have bandwidth for. But there's so many consultancies now as well. There's a lot of them out there.
And I think we looked at it from a more overarching standpoint than a lot of other people do. It was: how can we look at your venue's financials first, and then pinpoint where you actually need help throughout your food and beverage operation. Sure, we can come in and write a cocktail list—which is what a lot of people do—but is that cocktail list going to be profitable? Is it going to make your venue money? Is it going to engage your staff, your guests? Is your procurement all set up correctly? Are your contracts all written to set you up for success? Looking at your staff costing and your wages—is that all in line? Looking at everything kind of as an ecosystem, but always from a point of: can this positively affect your P&L? As opposed to just putting out good drinks, which lots of people can do.
So yeah, we were lucky. We picked up a few clients and ran with that for a while. The biggest thing it gave me was time to explore a lot of different conversations. It's a really hard thing to do when you're five-plus days a week in service.
Ronan: Absolutely. You're tired, constantly trying to manage your health and get to the gym or your fitness—offsetting all those late nights, being on your feet, the drinking that goes with it.
Aaron: So that gave me time to explore a lot of really interesting conversations with a lot of interesting people I got to know over the years. And that led to myself and two current business partners starting two whiskey businesses. First, a private cask fund where we went to market and raised a good portion of private capital to invest in whole casks of whiskey as an investment vehicle.
Ronan: So you sort of buy them off distilleries?
Aaron: Yeah, distilleries directly and brokers. I think in this country we're lucky that the industry is really young, still fairly unregulated to a degree, and there's a lot of good value to be found. It's called the Australian Whiskey Fund. We wanted to support the local industry as much as we could, and a great way to do that is literally by buying stuff. For a lot of distilleries still in their startup phase, five, ten, however much for a cask goes a long way to them being able to continue their operation.
We bought multiple casks across several distilleries—three or four casks for each. So we've got a good little portfolio, sitting at about 45 casks.
Ronan: They must be almost ready for bottling at this point?
Aaron: No, that was about two years ago. By the time we got everything set up, there was a good amount of reticence in the Australian market on the back of a few other dodgy schemes around the world. The cask market is pretty fast and loose. Also with stuff like Nant and what happened with the empty casks. So we made a real point of flying around to every distillery we wanted to work with, getting to know the guys, introducing ourselves and how we saw the relationship developing. That was really key.
So by the time all was said and done, casks have been sitting there for about two years. Most were new make, but there are a few at varying levels of maturity. We've got a minimum of three years till they can potentially start being bottled. Whether we bottle them ourselves remains to be seen.
To give ourselves the best chance of exiting successfully at the end of that five-year term, we started a bottling company as well last year—bottling mature whiskey and building that brand up. So if push comes to shove in a few years, we can start buying casks directly from the fund, bottle them through the bottling company, at the rate of return we need—but knowing we have a customer base who can effectively purchase those bottles.
Ronan: Does that mean you can put your own brand on the casks you own?
Aaron: The casks we can't. But after they've been bottled—yeah. As long as we reference the distillery, where it's from, the cask it was in, dates, all of that stuff—which is the transparency you want as a consumer anyway. No one knows what Wayne's Whiskey is, but everyone knows Linkwood, right? So we went and bought a 17-year-old barrique of Linkwood at cask strength and just bottled that straight. It's within our best interest to reference a distillery that has a lot of pedigree and everyone likes.
That's a first iteration. It's always good to get the first one out—it gives you a starting point. It's never going to be perfect.
We've just consolidated a bunch of our Scottish casks under one warehouse with a business called Vulpan Castello, and they do integrated bottling end to end. We're looking to get a more developed pipeline this year. We just bought a really cool Glen Elgin that's sitting at almost 14 years—probably by the time we bottle it, it'll have ticked over. I think it was finished in a port pipe. Anyway, I should know that—I bought it a couple of days ago.
We're looking for stuff that's funky, a bit left of center. Fun is the big thing—it should be fun. Our branding: we got a local artist, Lita, who's a sculptor, to do some of our artwork, and worked with a really cool designer, Justin Strader, to bring that to life. Following along the lines of Whisky Sponge, Whiskyland—those guys who bring brevity and frivolity to whiskey, which is what it should be. Serious whiskey but in an unserious format. We'll keep going with that, finding cool stuff we like, both overseas and onshore.
Ronan: I didn't realize—it sounds like you've got your fingers in a few different entrepreneurial sides of the beverage world, not just distribution.
Aaron: I guess coming back to it, time was a big thing. I had time to explore a lot of these things. Consulting can make you a lot of money if you set it up properly, but for me what it did was give me a degree of consistent work where I could delve into all these fun things and start setting them up.
Dispatch, our distribution business, was one of them. A chance coffee with a friend turned into a conversation about helping bring some agave spirits to market. I was like, "Well, this isn't my business. I can help write some pricing strategy through our consultancy and put you in touch with a couple of people." And he turned to me and said, "Is there any reason we can't do this ourselves?" I went, "Well, no. I mean, we can do anything, I guess."
We looked at the market a bit more. It's fairly stagnant. Distribution in most countries isn't overly exciting. There's a pretty big disconnect—definitely in the on-trade—into what distributors do and what gap they fill. So we saw this opportunity to, flowing on the theme from something like Wayne's Whiskey, make it a bit more fun, make it modern. Inject some things we believe from a moral and ethical standpoint into the business. Work with brands that were like-minded. Build something that was both sustainable and representative of where the market is now, as opposed to where it was 20 years ago.
My business partner John Atul did that really successfully in Asia Pacific with a business he successfully exited. He was living down here, somehow got him back in, and yeah, we've been trading for a bit over a year now. It's been slow, but it's getting there.
Ronan: You guys grew very quickly, which is awesome.
Aaron: We have grown quickly. It's a business that's always built on relationships, but there are so many barriers to entry. It's a hard time to be starting a business regardless. You used to be able to go to a bank with a business plan and they'd fund that. Banks are a lot harder to get on board these days—they need proof your business is working. There are huge barriers in terms of getting bonded licenses, your excise being so high. It's a really cash flow-heavy business, and to have those reserves in the first part to burn through is obviously hard to get funding.
So we're lucky that we're at a point where we can say we survived our first year of trade. Definitely in the latter half of the year we started to really hit our straps. We're in a really positive position starting a new year—expanding at a rate of knots, both with new brands, personnel in new states, expanding out to WA and Queensland. And also getting a bit clearer messaging and picture about what Dispatch is, what the brands are that we represent, and how they get into bartenders' hands, venues' hands, and then consumers' hands at the end.
Ronan: I'm curious—besides funding, were there any other struggles you ran into that you didn't foresee?
Aaron: Oh mate, there's a laundry list. Hindsight's always... you look back and go, "We should have done XYZ." The building blocks—once you've done it once, if you were to redo the last year of Dispatch, you'd figure it out pretty quickly. But you need to make those mistakes. You need to go through those challenges.
Ronan: Totally. I think we'd make a lot of different mistakes, but there still would be.
Aaron: Definitely smoother sailing, though. Looking at global logistics, time on water for stuff to get here—the speed has slowed dramatically since COVID. That's something we would probably change in our forecasting. And again, then you're consistently running behind the eight ball with your cash flow. That is the big one.
We'd probably get more money in the door to start with. Year one probably would have been a little bit easier if we had a bit more backing. We had a number in mind, we went light on that, thinking it's better to get started than to wait.
Ronan: Absolutely.
Aaron: And look, you make it in the end, don't you? You sacrifice a hell of a lot to get where you need to. And we're still sacrificing. As founders and owners, we paid ourselves something in November after the best part of 12 months, finding ways to make it work. There's a lot of sacrifice that goes into it, but it's all pretty necessary. It's good to have those failures and learning opportunities—if you can learn quickly from them and, to use a horrible corporate word, pivot really quickly, then it's going to be a hell of a lot better for you as you move forward.
Segment: Horrible Products
Ronan: I've got a little segment. Dispatch has to take on a new product. The twist is they're all pretty horrible products. You've got a wasabi liqueur.
Aaron: Sick.
Ronan: Or a garlic-infused gin.
Aaron: No one needs another gin. So I'd go wasabi liqueur.
Ronan: Now you've got to choose between wasabi liqueur and bubblegum and bacon vodka.
Aaron: Bubblegum and bacon vodka. Definitely over the wasabi. I think your ability to put that into canned shots and sell it way higher.
Ronan: Bubblegum and bacon vodka or lavender and hot chili tequila?
Aaron: Bubblegum and bacon vodka.
Ronan: Or smoked salmon whiskey?
Aaron: Bubblegum and bacon vodka.
Ronan: Or cheesecake cream liqueur?
Aaron: Oh, that could also do well—flowing on from a Baileys thing. Cheesecake cream liqueur.
Ronan: Cheesecake cream liqueur or pepperoni pizza schnapps?
Aaron: Cheesecake cream liqueur.
Ronan: Or a tofu vodka?
Aaron: Cheesecake cream liqueur.
Ronan: Or a kimchi brandy?
Aaron: Cheesecake cream liqueur.
Ronan: Last one: cheesecake cream liqueur or cotton candy bourbon?
Aaron: Ooh, cheesecake cream liqueur—I think it has legs. It's got potential. Anything with that element of sweetness that you could put in a mass-marketed shot—think about Baileys and what they've done.
Ronan: Well, Derano tried to do it with their Velvet. I don't know how that went. Never tasted it. But the potential for mass market domination is with easily recognizable sweet flavors. Huge in a liqueur. Mint.
Aaron: Unreal.
Outside the Industry
Ronan: What do you do when you're not doing anything beverage-related? Any hobbies or interests outside hospitality?
Aaron: Loads. Starting any business is pretty all-encompassing, especially that first year—you're waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, "Are we going to go under tomorrow?" Fitness is big for me. Over the years I've played sport at various levels. At the moment: yoga, Pilates, swimming, running, getting in the gym and picking things up and putting them down.
Ronan: Dude, you've got to come to Bitter Miles—Freddy Branker's running club.
Aaron: Love to. Let me know the details.
Ronan: Every two weeks, different places around the city.
Aaron: Wicked. Love that stuff. I'm also reading a lot—I've always been a big and avid reader. I love going to the movies by myself, that's a really nice escape. Picked that up a long time ago when I was traveling a lot. We're really lucky that with work domestically I'm on a plane way too much. November was 10 flights.
Ronan: Are you staying in other locations for a while or is it just go there, business meeting, come back?
Aaron: A lot of it's a couple of days in market. Up in Queensland, we're starting to see uptake all the way down to Byron, from Brisbane, and definitely on the Gold Coast in Burleigh. Over in WA, we're starting to really see traction in Perth—we work with Liquid Mix over there, a big wholesaler. Down to Melbourne regularly, over to Adelaide every now and then—that'll increase this year. Looking at smaller states and territories, it'd be really cool to get up to the Northern Territory this year, and down to Tassie, and all the coastline and interior areas in between. There are a hell of a lot of people that like good booze and drink good booze, so we're keen to get out to them.
We're lucky that we work with a lot of imported brands. A lot of our brands are centered around Europe, but we're starting to import from Mexico—we just picked up Mijenta tequila. The US, we have one or two things we're looking at. Obviously Takamaka with the Seychelles, where we do at least one brand trip every year. Starting to explore what Japan looks like as well—I think I'll be there in February. Japan's one of those nice places where you need to be there to get the business done. No one's going to turn down a Japan work or leisure trip.
I'm getting back into writing. I've written for a bunch of publications—Australian Bartender, Riddle Magazine, Diageo.
Ronan: What do you love about writing?
Aaron: It ties in with my love of reading. It's an outlet—I find it really cathartic. I started writing in a big way when I lived in New York. Any new city you move to, it takes a while to ingrain yourself, and having an outlet to really put your thoughts down on paper, or to help other people see what you're saying, is kind of cool.
It went through a lot of different iterations—writing for myself, writing for other people, writing about the bar industry and not about the bar industry. Last year, when Substack started to really gain a huge following, I started a little Substack—which has all of 40 followers. But last year was so jam-packed that putting stuff out and giving myself time to write was really difficult. So that's something I want to get back into this year. Looking at observations about the industry, our business and how it fits into the wider world, and a lot of different industries that both interest me and where I see collaborative opportunities—whether that's fashion, music, sports, anything.
How Dispatch Evaluates a Brand
Ronan: Can you talk about the process of how you take on a brand? Is it the same for every single one, or something you navigate brand to brand?
Aaron: It's always something you navigate brand to brand. Nothing's going to tick every box—you want five of those seven to really get you excited about something. It's similar to ordering a cocktail in a bar: you look at it first, you drink it with your eyes. That gets you excited first, then you might smell it, then taste it.
The first thing we usually see is packaging, because that's accessible on a computer. Or people send us samples. But first thing you're doing is looking at it. Does it look good? Is it going to look good on a back bar? Does the bottle feel good in my hand? All of those little things. Are the labels nice? Are the stoppers nice? Does the glass feel nice? Then, can you see application? Is it going to stand out on a back bar? It could be really nice but paired-back branding that in a dark bar will just get lost. Is it going to stand out on a shelf in a bottle shop? Is it going to look nice in someone's home bar? That's first.
I want to say taste next, but honestly that's usually the last part. You can get through a lot of the process by not tasting something—you kind of know by the end, with what you've read and everything, is it going to be good or not.
We look at numbers, to be frank and boring. It's got to make sense. It has to fit at a price point where we can usually have at least one SKU that can get into a cocktail. Given cocktail pricing these days, we usually look at about a $25 cocktail as your baseline, running at 25-30% COGS for a venue. Can we get 30 to 60mls into a drink, and will that work for a venue? Then you add in duty, freight, exchange rates—if we're importing something, the AUD has not been kind to us the last few years. And is this something within a competitive set that we can see a place for? If it's at the higher end, is there enough advertising and promotional budget to potentially discount down? What's the brand doing overseas? What other markets are you in? Do they have a robust export strategy? Are some of the things they're doing cool?
With Dispatch, a big thing from the beginning was ESG—environmental, social, and governance. Coming back to us injecting our ethics and morals into what we do. We want the brands to be representative of that. Whilst not all of them do the same thing, everyone's doing something.
Takamaka just transitioned their distillery fully to solar energy. They do a lot of work donating back to ocean conservation, and work with local farmers on the main island of Mahé buying up all their sugar cane—a regenerative cycle. Muyu donate back to reforestation in the Amazon. Two Drifters is a carbon-negative distillery—I could talk for days about those guys, they make delicious rum out of Devon in the UK. Renegade Burp is carbon-neutral, upcycling burgundy grapes which they distill in Beaujolais and send over to the UK into another B Corp distillery. Mijenta—female-led, B Corp, I think the only B Corp tequila at the moment.
Everyone's doing something to give back, and that's something we look at. We always ask: okay, all of this makes sense, the numbers make sense, packaging is good, the booze is delicious—what are you doing? Usually that's part of their story anyway. If it's just Mark Wahlberg's tequila getting made at some shitty NOM, then we don't really care. Regardless of how much money it's potentially going to make us.
Ronan: It's almost like you're not just looking at a product—you're reverse engineering it.
Aaron: And nothing's ever going to tick every single box. You've always got to make some concessions. We also look at: where's it from? Can we consolidate with other products we have in that area? As we grow, we're generally not putting full 40-foot containers from one brand on the water. So how do we get as much from different brands into that container? Amsterdam's a really big port for us—we have about four brands warehousing through there. So we can get an eight-pallet order into a 20-foot container on the water, which gets to us quicker than waiting for containers to be filled.
Ronan: Ruby—how exciting was getting that?
Aaron: Stoked. We were big fans of the brand for a long time, from back in the Bulletin Place days. We've seen them develop as a business. Aperol had a huge spritz moment, and Ruby were there at the right time—such a high-quality product in such good packaging, and it's local. There's such a huge push to local spirits in the Australian market.
We were stoked to pick that up, but also really excited to develop and see what we could do with the brand. Help them get in more people's hands and be that first call off a back bar or out of a bottle shop—not just for the spritz moment, but as a modifier, something over ice with soda water. There are so many different applications for it, which is something we love about a number of our brands: they're not one-dimensional. We picked them up in August, had a really hectic run into Christmas with big activations, and we're really excited for a big 2026 with them.
Ronan: Who had them before—Vanguard? Was it just a contract end, or was there a reason they weren't with Vanguard anymore?
Aaron: Without going heavily into it, businesses change over time. Vanguard started as something—obviously when it sold to Lion it became a different business in a lot of ways. They're owned by a big multinational, focused on different things, and some of the smaller brands in their portfolio they're just not as well geared to manage and develop. There was an opportunity for us to come in.
Ronan: It sounds like Ruby wanted to stay independent.
Aaron: They're not owned by anyone. All the brands we represent are independent—not owned by any of the big guys, because they all have their own supply chains. We were just in a good position as a business with where we are in our life cycle and growth trajectory, and where they are, and things just aligned. It's been a good few months with them. We're in all our planning stages with all our brands at the moment, looking at what the year looks like, how we can build on some strong transition months and really catapult the brand.
Segment: Bar Luxuries
Ronan: Aaron, you're back in bar managing. You've got to choose between some bar luxuries. Vertical rinser or pre-chilled glassware?
Aaron: Pre-chilled glassware. What is a vertical rinser?
Ronan: You know how when you've got shaker tins and they're dirty? You just push it down.
Aaron: No, definitely pre-chilled glassware. You can use a tap.
Ronan: Pre-chilled glassware or an iSi whipper?
Aaron: Pre-chilled glassware.
Ronan: Pre-chilled glassware or a smoke gun?
Aaron: Pre-chilled glassware. I love how smoke guns come back into vogue. Are they a thing now again?
Ronan: Yeah, the Flavour Blaster smoke guns—huge. Everything that was naff is now new again.
Aaron: I love how everything goes in cycles. No, definitely pre-chilled glassware. Pre-chilled glassware or cocktails on tap?
Ronan: Pre-chilled glassware. Or a custom ice stamp? Pre-chilled glassware. Or a custom bitters and tinctures library?
Aaron: Pre-chilled glassware. Pre-chilled glassware wins every time.
Ronan: Love it.
Aaron: All of that other stuff is noise. The only thing—if you're running a high-volume venue, cocktails on tap is super useful if you're pumping stuff out left, right, and center. But at the end of the day, you're looking for cold drinks at a correct dilution, at a good temperature, that are tasty. Pre-chilled glassware is going to help you get there.
Ronan: That's so interesting. I've done this segment with a few different people and everyone's got a different answer.
Aaron: Well, I guess the others are wrong. No, I think it depends what type of bar you gravitate to and what you want to open. But freezer use for me—yeah, pre-chilled glassware would be up there. Freezers are mint.
Quietly Proud
Ronan: What's something you're quietly proud of that doesn't really get talked about? Personal or business.
Aaron: Getting to a point where you can pay yourself consistently from a business you've started. That's something to be proud of. It's very difficult to get there, especially when you have employees—they always come first. We lived that through 2025. We didn't pay ourselves till the back end of November, and we're still on a percentage of what our salary should be to help get us through. But when you have other people you're responsible for, to be able to build that community and build a workplace in that way, and then get to a point where you're sustaining yourself and it's something that works—that's something to be proud of.
Segment: Trend or Trash
Ronan: Trend or trash—is it sticking around, or overhyped and not worth it?
Aaron: This is going to be great. I think most things are overhyped.
Ronan: Hyper-localized ingredients behind the bar.
Aaron: That's a trend that'll stick. We've been gravitating there for a long time. Localized—maybe not hyper, maybe not the patch of grass outside your bar and the foraging thing—but stuff that's local, definitely.
Ronan: Cocktail delivery kits.
Aaron: That has legs. That's been going for a minute. People like the interactive at-home stuff.
Ronan: Augmented reality bottles—you scan with your phone and they start talking to you.
Aaron: That can get in the bin. That had a moment a couple of years ago and everyone was just like, "Oh, sick for cocktail menus." Great example: Compass Box have a QR code on the back of their bottles that takes you to a flavor wheel showing every cask that's gone into that bottle. Something like that I find really cool—a good use of technology. Anything else, no.
Ronan: There's a right way to do it.
Aaron: We look at AI and try to steer clear as much as we can with what we do at Dispatch—not just because it leeches into your brain space, but it's also a huge drain on the environment, which isn't something we believe in. I'm a firm believer in: you get more out of actually doing the work. So it's better for it to take maybe a minute or two longer but you actually do the work, because there's reward in that. Anything that kind of cuts that corner, I'm not a huge fan of.
Ronan: Clarified cocktails—milk punch clarified cocktails. Going anywhere?
Aaron: Sticking around. Everyone loves them. They still pop up on lists and I think they're going to for a while longer.
Ronan: Functional ingredients—cocktails with electrolytes, probiotics, vitamins.
Aaron: The whole nootropics movement. There was a big push in the US with CBD cocktails for a while. I think that's probably a fad. It makes sense, but at the end of the day, everyone knows that booze is bad for you if you drink a lot of it, especially over time. I don't think throwing lion's mane into your drink is really going to offset that much.
Ronan: Agreed. Barrel-aged cocktails.
Aaron: Something that's kind of come full circle. I don't see much use. Sure, it can add a different flavor component, maybe smooth out some edges. But the beauty of living in this day and age is we've got such a vast array of products that can do that job for you. Maybe you're looking at smoothing out the edges of an Aperol—grab a bottle of Ruby, which is a fair bit softer than Campari. You've got an array of aperitifs and aperitivos that can have that same effect. It's a nice gimmick, a nice story to be told, but I think it'll continue to go in cycles. Leave the barrels for whiskey and rum.
What's Next for Dispatch in 2026
Ronan: Last thing—what's next for Dispatch Imports? What's on the cards for 2026?
Aaron: Really establishing ourselves as a considered player in the market. That takes a bit of time for that messaging to get through, both to the on-trade and to the consumer. A bigger push into off-premise while keeping our bread and butter, which is the on-premise, and growing that business.
Looking outside of major markets—we're really excited. Everyone says people aren't drinking these days. Drive half an hour west or half an hour up and down the coast, people are punishing piss. So looking at the less hyped places where we can give a hell of a lot. The inner city of Sydney and Melbourne are battlegrounds—big brands throwing brand dollars left, right, and center at bartenders who are happy to lap it up, and there's not a whole lot of loyalty there. If you look to develop those relationships outside of those really concentrated centers, there's so much to be had and so much to develop. That's what we're excited for.
Consolidating our portfolio—we just picked up Mijenta. Stauning comes into our portfolio under really red-hot new packaging. One of the only distilleries in the world still doing floor malting, with such big pedigree in Denmark. Maybe one or two other things to come in—conversations that are ongoing.
Developing our team—getting more spread throughout the country. WA, Queensland—having more bodies in place in key markets is really cool. And just being there for venues, listening to what they need, what bartenders want, what they need.
And it's such a silly thing, but my partner got a flat tire last night. Called roadside assistance—NRMA—and it ended up being just around the corner from our place. This dude was just lovely, took the time to show Cat how to change a tire and stuff. NRMA have rebranded themselves as a help company. And I think distributors get a bad rap because it's been so much about sell. Sales is such a dirty word for most people.
But at the end of the day, we're in the business of problem solving. We're trying to solve a problem for a venue—how they potentially find creative ways to sell products—or the consumer—finding ways to drink it. All of these things, they're just problems to be solved. So we always try to tell our guys: forget how much you can sell—that'll come down the road. How can you help a venue? What problems are they trying to solve? If we can do that effectively, everything will flow on from there. But let's first come from that point of help, how we assist people, because that's the business we're in.
It's hospitality at the end of the day. You guys are trying to do one thing, and we also—like I just said, sales is a dirty word. But what are you doing over the bar every day? You're in a high-volume sales capacity. You sell cocktails, beer, wine, spirits, food, experiences. We're just doing the same thing—helping people realize that and attain it. On-premise to you guys, but also off-premise retailers and how they can do that for end consumers.
That's what I'm looking forward to most: having more clarity in how we do that this year. Coming from 2025, which was about establishing ourselves, survival, getting through the year—to a point where we now have our feet under us, and we can look to do all of these fun, altruistic, but also exciting things with both Dispatch and the brands we represent.
Ronan: Unreal. Aaron, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for letting me pick your brain—you've got a lot of experience and a wealth of knowledge that you've shared.
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