BEHIND THIS STORY

From behind the bar. Into the bottle.

BORN AT THE BAR

Sonic Tonics started as an experiment behind the bar at Behind This Wall – our basement bar on Mare Street, Hackney, where Alex has spent over a decade obsessing over one simple idea: better ingredients make for a better whole.

No artificial additives.
No unnecessary sugar.
No shortcuts.

From the house spirits to the syrups made from scratch behind the bar, the philosophy never changed. What started as a music blog in 2012 became a club night, then a terrace pop-up, then a bar, then a record label, then a CBD honey syrup that people kept asking to take home.

Each stage a step toward something else.
Sonic Tonics is the latest step.

WHERE IT BEGAN

During lockdown, with the bar shuttered, the experiments continued. Nootropics, flavour, function. A small run of bottled drinks blending alcohol and CBD – and something clicked.

Not a gimmick.
Not a canned cocktail rehash.
Not a "healthified" placebo with no discernible effect.

Something original. Something intentional.

A new kind of drink was possible – and we were the people to make it.

THE IDEA

At the core of Sonic Tonics is one deceptively simple idea.

I'm not a good surfer, but I'm a keen one. And there are two thrills in surfing: the takeoff – the drop-in, determined by the size and ferocity of the wave – and then the ride, drifting across the green water, processing the thrill.

That's alcohol and CBD.

We taper the alcohol across the range – 0%, 4.5%, 7% – to shape the size of the takeoff. The CBD stays constant at 10mg across every bottle, always there for the ride. You choose the wave. We make sure you enjoy it all the way in.

Cold-pressed CBD – not isolated, not processed – doesn't mute the experience. It rounds it. Brightens it. Opens alcohol out into something more textured, more layered, more considered.

The result isn't less.
It's more precise.

We're not trying to cancel alcohol.
We're trying to tune it.

WHY WE EXIST

Because drinking has always been about mood and nobody has ever given you the tools to manage that precisely.

You know the difference between the first drink of the evening and the third. You know the difference between a good night and one that got away from you.

Sonic Tonics is a drink for the moment that shapes your whole evening. Made for the modern drinker – curious, intentional, present. Handmade in Hackney Wick. Born behind a bar. Finely tuned.