The Oh! Group is one of Wellington’s hottest new drink companies and the first food and beverage company accepted into Grow Wellington’s incubation programme Creative HQ.

“The Oh! Group’s vision is to develop a leading brand company that is known for its inherent quality, old skool cool, and providing a real, viscerally uplifting consumer experience,” says founder Neil Fitzpatrick.

Classier than beer, funkier than wine and more sophisticated than RTDs, the company’s first product range Loud&Lola®, is a collaboration with Dominion Breweries.

Loud&Lola cocktails are 100% natural, using real fruit juice, premium spirits and liqueurs and absolutely no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. Containing 9% alcohol, the result is a delicately balanced fusion of flavours that appeal to the sophisticated drinker that demands premium quality and taste. The Loud&Lola® cocktails range includes four timeless classics stylised for the modern drinker: Cosmopolitan, Margarita, Mai Tai, and Boston Iced Tea.

The launch of Loud&Lola’s Margarita cocktail was delayed due to months of diplomatic wrangling with Mexican tequila authorities. The problem is that tequila is a controlled brand, like French Cognac, Champagne and Bordeaux. To be true tequila, it has to come from Mexico, bottled and labeled with quality ensured, thus there is a blanket ban on all bulk export except to the US. The Oh! Group formed a successful partnership in Mexico making them one of the few companies in the world to successfully import tequila in bulk.