High Country at Home brings experiences into you and friends

Victoria’s high country businesses are bringing their products — and, even better, their expertise — to you so you can share a special experience with your mates. Find out how.

REED & Co Distillery owner Hamish Nugent has had to move quickly to deal with each challenge 2020 has so far delivered to North East Victoria.

First there were bushfires. And now coronavirus has struck, which has impacted both the direct sales and wholesale areas of the business.

And, perhaps hardest of all, there is no clear end in sight.

“We were really fortunate with the bushfires in that we only lost direct distillery customers in the bar. We had another tier of the business — wholesale and online sales — so we could float through that quite well, but we were still down about $150,000 for the month,” says Hamish.

“And it had a finish date — we knew going into the fires that it wasn’t going to burn all year, or we would have a couple of months and then get back on the job.

“This one is a bit more tricky. We didn’t foresee this one coming, and we’re still not sure about how and when and what’s going on at the moment.”

Video link: Rachel Reed and Hamish Nugent from Reed & Co Distillery.

But thanks to technology and a bit of advanced planning, businesses in Victoria’s high country can now deliver their products to consumers — and, even better, their expertise — without the consumers having to leave home.

Tourism North East launched a takeover of its website on Monday called “High Country at Home”. And the big initiative is creating interactive experiences with their businesses that people can enjoy at home.

The first online sessions available to book are tastings with Bright Brewery and Bridge Road Brewers; a gnocchi-making class with A Tavola! cooking school; a foot therapy session with The Spa Beechworth; and a cocktail class with Reed & Co bartender Adam Eaton.

Participants simply need to organise their group of friends or family, and book in a session. They are then all sent a package with the ingredients, or samples, or products they need to take part (any extra items participants need to have on hand themselves are listed in the event details).

On the appointed day and time, the guests will connect with their host via video meeting platform Zoom to take part in their session.

More experiences will become available to book in the future, including a gin tasting session with Hamish himself.

Going virtual will put Hamish outside his comfort zone.

“To be honest, it’s not really what I would normally do,” he says.

“We’re really hopeless about putting ourselves out in front of social media and doing all that stuff. We just like making things.

“It’s going to be a huge learning curve, but I think in this climate it’s just what you have to do.”

Hamish says the distillery has lost all its wholesale business with other restaurants and bars forced to close due to coronavirus, as well as their own direct sales, so they are relying on online sales.

But he says those are going “relatively well, considering it is all organic growth — we haven’t done any marketing or push for the online sales”. “We are working on trying to fast-track a lot of new products to get online.”

Victoria’s High Country website also has a online market place so visitors can browse and shop local retail stores and producers.

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