Shortly after the turn of the 21st century, Charles Rolls was ready for another challenge. The inspiration for his next endeavor came from an insight he had while reviving the Plymouth Gin brand: distillers dedicated significant time and resources to the production of high-quality spirits (liquors), but that wasn’t the case for mixers. For a gin and tonic, where the tonic is the majority of what’s in the glass, Rolls argued that these cheap, low-quality mixers with artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and flavors were diminishing the spirits (“It fundamentally undermined the idea of why you created a premium gin, if everything just tastes the same when you make a G&T”).

When Rolls met advertising executive Tim Warrillow in 2003, the two discovered they shared a similar vision: “The mixer category was long-forgotten and overlooked; it was dominated by large conglomerate brands [like Schweppes and Canada Dry] who were focusing more on manufacturing efficiency than quality or flavor…. People were willing to pay ever more money for high-quality spirits, yet they had no choice with increasingly artificial mixers.” That insight led to the creation of Fever-Tree (“FT”), which launched its first product, Indian Tonic Water, in the UK in 2005. (Warrillow has been FT’s CEO since 2014, the same year the company went public.)