I would like to introduce you to Adapt Drinks – a functional beverage company making adaptogenic herb based drinks to help you accommodate the varying physical and emotional stressors of daily life.
I have been working on this project all year and I am super excited to be able to finally announce it! In the challenging time it has been in Melbourne so far in 2020, this project has brought me so much joy. I have absolutely loved working on a product that I know will help other women. To help me bring this drink to market, I have partnered with an amazing company based in Ballarat called Brink Drinks.
I am going to take you on a behind the scenes tour of the creation of Adapt Drinks, so read on if you would like to hear about that. But if you already know you want to taste it – click here to support my project.
Adapt Relax is the first of a range of adaptogenic herb-based functional beverages that Adapt Drinks will make. Functional beverages are non-alcoholic drinks containing ingredients like herbs, vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc that are designed to provide health benefits beyond their base nutritional value. They are drinks that provide a function as well as being a beverage! You would know many of the traditional functional beverages on the market like sports drinks, energy drinks, probiotic drinks, enhanced waters etc.
The global functional beverage market is currently experiencing significant growth and innovation with ingredients being used in functional drinks. It is forecast that Asia-Pacific will be the fastest-growing region for functional beverages as consumers are becoming increasingly more health-conscious and looking for products that fit in with their busy lifestyles.
I have chosen to make Adapt Relax the first functional beverage from Adapt Drinks, as I felt this was a drink that could help provide a remedy to a rising health issue amongst women – feeling stressed. I wanted a drink that women could turn to help them unwind at the end of the day that wasn’t alcohol based.
What are adaptogenic herbs?
Readers of this blog would know that I am a tinkerer in the kitchen. I have taught myself to brew my own kombucha, ferment vegetables, make staple items like taco seasonings, chilli sauce, dukkah from scratch and from whole food ingredients.
My curiosity in the power of foods to heal and help us led me to investigate and play with adaptogenic herbs. Adaptogenic herbs are powerhouse herbs that help support the body’s natural response to stress.
Stress comes in all forms and levels but our body responds the same to stress regardless of the source. We can have plenty of good stress (eustress) in our lives, for example, you could be applying for a promotion, chasing an audacious goal or training for a marathon.
To our body, all of this stress is the same and it responds by getting us ready for the fight or flight response – increasing our heart rate and our cortisol levels. And this is where adaptogens can shine. Adaptogens help our bodies by increasing our ability to resist stress and decreasing our sensitivity to stressors. This means that when you regularly consume adaptogens you are able to withstand more stress before the stress response is kicked off and when it is kicked off, it won’t be so high.
The making of Adapt Relax
It was in my own kitchen where I brewed up my first adaptogenic drink using powdered herbs. I loved the way the drink made me feel, but it didn’t look great and the taste wasn’t awesome either!
From there, it was experimenting with adaptogenic herbal liquid extracts and the creation of a much more palatable functional beverage!
Convinced of the power of this little beverage, it was at this point that I engaged the team at Brink Drinks to assist with tweaking and enhancing the flavour profile of the drink, so all could enjoy its benefits – not those just game enough to try my homemade concoction!
What is in Adapt Relax?
The adaptogenic herbal extracts in Adapt Relax are:
- Schisandra berry extract (Schisandra chinensis) – a performance enhancer that also helps reduce anxiety and cortisol.
- Panax ginseng extract (Panax quinquefolius) – has been proven effective for improving mood, immunity, and cognition.
The other ingredients in Adapt Relax are:
- L-Theanine – is an amino acid that is not common in the diet which promotes relaxation without drowsiness. Studies have also found L-theanine reduced stress and anxiety in people who were experiencing stressful situations.
- Native strawberry gum extract – is made from the leaves of the trees found mainly around the New South Wales area. Indigenous Australians traditionally chewed the leaves to enjoy the unique sweet berry flavour.
- Monk fruit – is a natural, plant-based sweetener that does not contain fructose or glucose. It has zero sugar and zero calories.
- Rosemary extract – is a natural preservative rich in antioxidants. (5)
- Red radish extract – helps to give Adapt Relax its gorgeous light pink colour.
- Carbonated water
Adapt Relax is zero sugar, zero calories and 100% natural!
How you can buy Adapt Relax
To help bring Adapt Relax to market I have set up a Pozible Campaign. This is basically acting as a preorder system. If you are not familiar with Pozible, it allows people to pledge support to a campaign so you can raise funds to get it up and going.
To have a full-scale production run of Adapt Relax there are some large expenses I need to undertake. By creating a Pozible campaign I can take preorders and then finance the run. You order now and will receive your tasty beverages in November!
For example, for the $50 reward for pledging $50, if the campaign is successful you receive two 2 x ADAPT Relax 4 Packs + a recipe e-book bundle.
The mechanics of the Pozible campaign works as follows:
- You can check out all of the rewards available here pozible.com/profile/adapt-drinks
- If you like what you see, you pledge to support the campaign for the reward that suits you.
- You put in your payment details, but no actual payment is taken at that time. (A bit like a hotel taking a swipe of your credit card.)
- Pozible is all or nothing funding, so I only receive your funds if I raise the full $20k by the end of the campaign date. If I don’t raise the target amount, you don’t have to pay anything and I don’t have to send you your rewards. If the campaign is successful, your credit card will be charged and I will send you the appropriate reward by the end of November.
The campaign is currently not set to public at the moment so readers of Planning With Kids can have the first opportunity to choose the rewards they might like to take up. It will go public at midday on Monday 20th September. Some of the rewards have limited quantities, some have only a few of each reward, so get in quick!
If you like what you see I would love it if you could support the campaign by pledging. It would also be super helpful if you could share the link pozible.com/profile/adapt-drinks with friends who you think might like it too.
Any questions please let me know! Thanks in advance for you support. Nic