Meet the Fashion Model Who'd Rather Be Mixing Drinks

"I was raised in a really poor family, just with my mum in the countryside of Melbourne. Money was non-existent, and food was not great, so I started making things for myself. I wanted tasty food, so I'd constantly be out picking things, smelling things. It became an obsession."

"In summer, I'd spend days foraging native botanicals, flowers, and seasonal produce. I'd 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."

Scott, a model, has spent five years developing Goldenbird, a ready-to-drink cocktail brand where he serves as founder, creative director, and sole recipe developer. His passion for flavor stems from childhood in rural Melbourne, where financial constraints motivated him to forage native botanicals and create his own food. He supplied restaurants with foraged ingredients including seaweed, eucalyptus, and seasonal produce. This experimentation evolved into systematic flavor development, with his garage now housing extensive botanical extractions and macerated ingredients. Initially pursuing Scotch whisky production, Scott eventually pivoted to cocktails, building a venture grounded in authentic culinary exploration rather than celebrity endorsement.

Read at Elite Traveler