{"id":3533,"date":"2026-03-17T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3533"},"modified":"2026-03-17T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:00:00","slug":"meet-the-fashion-model-whod-rather-be-mixing-drinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3533","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Fashion Model Who\u2019d Rather Be Mixing Drinks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best known for his long-spanning modelling career, Jarrod Scott has since turned his attention to the alcohol industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"jarrrod<\/div>\n

Yet when we meet over a video call, I get the feeling his modelling career is at the back of his mind. Instead, our conversation turns to harvesting seaweed, tracking down rare eucalyptus, and the differences between rose and jasmine when they hit the tongue.<\/p>\n

For the past five years, Scott has been building something very different from a fashion career. Goldenbird<\/a>, his ready-to-drink cocktail brand, is not just another celebrity backed venture. Scott is its founder, creative director, and sole recipe developer.<\/p>\n

Back home in Australia<\/a>, Scott\u2019s obsession with flavor goes back to his childhood. \u201cI was raised in a really poor family, just with my mum in the countryside of Melbourne,\u201d he says. \u201cMoney was non-existent, and food was not great, so I started making things for myself. I wanted tasty food, so I\u2019d constantly be out picking things, smelling things. It became an obsession.<\/p>\n

Sign up to the\u00a0World of Fine Spirits newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for more spirit stories.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"goldenbird
Scott wears many hats for his drinks brand Goldenbird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\u201cIn summer, I’d spend days foraging native botanicals, flowers, and seasonal produce. I\u2019d supply restaurants with Mirabell plums, strawberry eucalyptus, sea blight, samphire, seaweeds, all kinds of things. I had a lot of time to think about how I could utilize those ingredients and I’d go home and start tinkering around with them, whether in cooking or making drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Scott\u2019s tinkering happens on a larger scale. At various points, his garage has been packed with drying eucalyptus, jars of botanical extractions, and the occasional unwelcome spider colony. His fridge currently holds around 70 macerations and experiments, and the family car has been relegated to the roadside.<\/p>\n

When his interest in flavor combinations grew beyond experimentation, his first stop wasn\u2019t cocktails, but Scotch whisky. He drew up a business plan and sent his partner, Brioney Prier, to Scotland to meet with master distillers, but nothing stuck.<\/p>\n

See also: Scotch Has Lost Its Way. Can It Come Back?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"goldenbird
Scott works with his partner Brioney Prier on the business<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make whisky more fun and enjoyable,\u201d he says. \u201cBut whisky is a long game. It takes a long time to make a small amount of money We were always going out and drinking cocktails anyway, so we asked, why aren\u2019t we just doing cocktails?\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s journey eventually came full circle in Grasse, the perfume capital of southern France. There, he found Comte de Grasse, a self-described \u201cliquor tech\u201d company that was distilling spirits using techniques borrowed from fragrance extraction.<\/p>\n

Prier, Goldenbird\u2019s co-founder, recalls their first meeting with the team. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want a cookie cutter product from a contract bottler,\u201d she says. \u201cWe wanted something that really spoke to craftsmanship. When we met the team in Grasse it just hit the nail on the head.\u201d<\/p>\n

That team includes master distiller Marie-Anne Contamin, a woman with decades of experience in sensory development. When Scott first arrived with bags of foraged delicacies and 60 recipe concepts, she encountered ingredients she had never worked with before. \u201cIt was a really meeting of minds,\u201d Prier says. The way Jarrod layers his recipes with flavor is exactly how perfumes are constructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

See also: The Most Exciting Whisky Right Now Isn\u2019t Scottish \u2013 It\u2019s English<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Of all his original recipe concepts, Romance Apocalypse sits closest to Scott\u2019s heart. The website describes it as a \u201csexy bouquet of French lavender, damask rose, and Egyptian jasmine combined with fruity acidic hints of strawberry eucalyptus\u201d. It\u2019s vibrant pink color, shimmering through the fragrance inspired bottle, would not look out of place on a perfume counter.<\/p>\n

\"goldenbird
Goldenbird’s packaging is minimalist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI love floral drinks,\u201d he says, \u201cand I wanted to create something that was like getting slapped in the face by a bunch of flowers. Usually, when you get a floral drink, it only uses one flower, because they’re such intense flavors. Rose hits you straight away on the nose. Jasmine has more of a honey note. Then you\u2019ve got lavender, which is earthy and floral.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott worked on the balance drop by drop. It took 160 variations, and then a few more on top of that. The result is a drink that unfolds in layers, much like a fragrance. Even the color comes entirely from flower extracts.<\/p>\n

By the end of development, Scott was so attuned to the recipe that he could detect even the slightest misalignment. One of the first batches from Comte de Grasse had used the wrong type of coconut water. Scott picked it up instantly. \u201cI just knew it was wrong,\u201d he says. \u201cThey had used a brand of coconut water that had 5.5 grams less sugar, and I just knew it didn’t taste right.\u201d<\/p>\n

See also: Upscale Parties Call for These Champagne Cocktail Recipes<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Scott finalized a few recipes with Comte de Grasse, but Goldenbird was still a long way from launch. It still needed a website, and licenses to sell in markets with very different legal requirements. But when Scott came across Global Spirit Masters, he couldn\u2019t wait. \u201cWe had finished the R&D and I just thought, why not?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The judges were intrigued. Goldenbird arrived with no public profile, no launch plan, yet the drinks stood out. Several of Scott\u2019s entries picked up gold medals, including Romance Apocalypse, proving that his garage experiments could hold their own against leading mixologists.<\/p>\n

Justification secured, Scott doubled down on his efforts to launch Goldenbird only to find that ready to drink cocktails take just as long to bring to market as Scotch whisky. It wasn\u2019t just his modelling career or regulatory hurdles, but the arrival of Scott and Prier\u2019s first baby that sent Goldenbird into hibernation. Now officially in launch phase, Goldenbird offers its four award-winning recipes with another two launching in April. Those six will be Goldenbird\u2019s first permanent collection with seasonal variations to follow.<\/p>\n

\"Brioney
Goldenbird is a family affair, with Scott and Preier working together to launch the brand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking ahead, Scott already has plans for the brand\u2019s next chapter. \u201cI’d like to see, years down the line, we will eventually have a flagship bar somewhere,\u201d Scott says. \u201cFor now, we\u2019ve been doing pop ups through Fashion Week, and we’ve had a lot of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Goldenbird\u2019s earliest customers are cocktail bars, which have been buying Scott\u2019s concoctions in bulk to serve as a base for recipes on their menus. They take the pre-bottled mixtures, apply bar-appropriate tweaks, and serve. That, Scott says, is where more cocktail bars will go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of bars now are using pre-batching,\u201d he says. \u201cYou get a high-quality liquid with stability and consistency without the hassle of trying to teach someone how to get it right. It plays into a faster service, reduces staff costs\u2026 it’s a win, win for everyone. It\u2019s not everywhere, but it’s going to be the way of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s claims ring true with at Tay\u0113r\u00a0+ Elementary, a London bar that consistently finishes in the top ten of the World\u2019s 50 Best Cocktail Bars. There, they have adopted pre-batching of non-perishable ingredients not just to speed up service or reduce costs, but because some of their recipes have become so complex, they\u2019d be impossible to make to order.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the bar told The World of Fine Spirits: \u201cWe batch because we use highly concentrated distillates, extracts and flavorings which when broken down often contain less than 1ml per individual serving (we measure to 0.25ml). It would be impractical and literally impossible to measure this in service.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter where Goldenbird goes, it will remain a deeply personal pursuit for Scott, who has not only developed the recipes but designed the fragrance-inspired bottles. He\u2019s not just the face of the brand, but the substance behind it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Best known for his long-spanning modelling career, Jarrod Scott has since turned his attention to the alcohol industry.\u00a0 Yet when we meet over a video call, I get the feeling his modelling career is at the back of his mind. Instead, our conversation turns to harvesting seaweed, tracking down rare eucalyptus, and the differences between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}