Delivery platform Uber Eats has partnered with Australian distillery Bundaberg Rum to bring a new drink to life: Maison de Bundy’s Blanc de Cane.
The partnership is a play on Bundaberg’s long-lasting nickname as the ‘sugar cane champagne’, with the drink being served in a champagne bottle, with a champagne-style label and name, but filled with a new blend of Bundaberg’s alcoholic ginger beer.
Only 1000 bottles of the special drink were bottled, and all of them will be given away for free in three venues in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
At The Civic Hotel in Sydney, The Sporting Globe in Melbourne, and Leonards and Dawn in Brisbane, customers can show bar staff their Uber Eats app as of 5pm on Friday, 10 June, and receive a complimentary bottle of Blanc de Cane.
The drop has been timed to coincide with Uber Eats’ expansion of alcohol delivery into Queensland – something it already offers in New South Wales and Victoria.
“What better way to celebrate being able to get a tipple through Uber Eats along the east coast of the country than by partnering with a storied Australian brand,” Uber Eats’ general manager of retail Lucas Groeneveld said.
“We’re overjoyed to have been able to collaborate with Bundy to create this exclusive item, [and] while the name is tongue-in-cheek, the product is world-class in every way.”
Uber Eats has long supported eateries looking to reach their customers, but this is the first time the business has dabbled in product development on this scale, even through collaboration.
And, at the collaboration’s reveal event held on Tuesday, Groeneveld said Blanc de Cane is just the start of a partnership between Uber and Bundaberg, and that he was excited to see what else the businesses could do together.
Demand for alcohol delivery has spiked during the Covid pandemic in recent years.
In 2020, the New South Wales Government said it was cracking down on online alcohol sales to ensure that delivery people are checking that customers are over the age of 18.
“Online alcohol sales have grown significantly in recent years, in line with customer demand for other food and beverage delivery services,” NSW customer service minister Victor Dominello said at the time.
“In a world where you can now get alcohol delivered to your door in under 30 minutes, we need to ensure best practice harm minimisation is adhered to in all circumstances.”
Uber Eats confirmed to Inside Retail that it has checks in place to ensure that delivery people that are delivering alcohol follow best practice, and if they do not, they are held to account and barred from future alcohol deliveries.
