Okay, so a little while back, we’re at home watching an episode of the hit 1990’s series “Bush Tucker Man.” and Les Hiddens (in the middle of nowhere) starts talking about a native plant with a funny name. As it turns out, this is not just any old native plant but one that's been endemic to Australia for thousands of years (predominantly in Queensland) and goes by the common name ‘Dogs Balls’! (Grewia Latifolia in Latin).

Unsurprisingly from Les, we learn that our First Nations Peoples have already been using ‘Dogs Balls’ for all sorts of reasons. Apparently if you dig up the roots, mash and boil them you can use them to treat a nasty case of the runs. If on the other hand you’re a bit on the fang and keen to have a crack at the red coloured berries, it has a kind of apple strudel flavour. Anyways, after a little more digging, it seems as though there’s also a connection to old mate Captain Cook and his botanist on the Endeavour, Sir Joseph Banks. Apparently it was Banks who first coined the name ‘Dogs Balls’ after famously stumbling across them the day he set foot on the Queensland coastline in 1770. It’s commonly believed that Banks had a couple of greyhounds in tow and clearly saw the funny side of it!

So, with that little history lesson out of the way, how the heck did we come up with Slab God!? Well with a solid background in natural commercial ingredients, Dee immediately saw the potential for the little red berries to develop a great Australian Drinks brand. A drinks brand however called ‘Dogs Balls’ seemed a little risky, so as with most things in life, we had a couple of vino’s, got the creative juices flowing and looked at it another way. By turning it around and spelling it backwards – Bingo! - enter Slab God!