Three Families was created in partnership with three Sri Lankan families to combine traditional bitters methods with fruit distillates and extracts, using ingredients such as coriander seeds, rambutan, lemongrass, and peppercorns.
“Bitters are an amazing category, and integral to the world of cocktails, but with some of these ingredients we found their applications to be much wider - we’ve had friends use them in everything from dishes to beer to ice cream with great effect - and of course in classic and modern cocktails. But we also noticed that with the brighter tropical flavours, they worked in a wider sense than the base notes of a traditional cocktail bitters, so thought the term seasoning felt more applicable,” Chetiyawardana told DI.
Three Families, inspired by the families behind it, was made in collaboration with Amal de Silva Wijeyeratne, managing director of Rockland Distilleries and Dilhan Fernando, chief executive of Dilmah, a Sri Lankan tea producer.
On the partnership, Chetiyawardana added: “We’ve been working with Amal and Rockland Distillers for several years, and over forming that friendship, we realised there were many similarities in what we had as goals. One was highlighting the flavours of Sri Lanka and trying to find ways to make some of these unusual ingredients part of a wider cocktail repertoire.
“We were all attracted to some of the tropical flavours that we noticed didn’t get much attention in a meaningful, or authentic manner in cocktails. We also pooled on some of the emotive feels of different locations in Sri Lanka and used these as a springboard for a different mindset of ingredients,”
The new range will be available in the UK, Singapore and Australia in 2025. On expansion into further markets, Chetiyawardana added: “There’s so much these products help with - given the nature of tropical fruits, using them with consistency is hard even in the markets they’re found in, and we’d love to see these profiles of flavour find footing in a much wider distribution around the world.”
The range of seasonings include: Ceylon Sour with calamansi, tamarind and coriander seed; Verdant Sinhaya with preserved mandarin, wildflower honey and lemongrass; Pettah Market with rambutan, jasmine and arrack; Sunset Pekoe with Pekoe tea, turmeric and toasted oak and the Amethyst Punch with green tea, mangosteen and peppercorn.
