Two Dutch sisters turn a master’s dissertation into a mixer brand.

Double Dutch takes its name from its founders. Joyce and Raissa de Haas are identical twins, born and raised in the Netherlands, who came to London to study; the start-up magazine Maddyness reported in August 2023 that both completed an MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship at University College London. Their joint dissertation looked at gaps they saw in the drinks business, and it became the plan for the company. The company says the dissertation came top of its year and won seed funding, and Maddyness reported that the plan won UCL’s Bright Ideas award, which paid for the first production runs and a year of free office space in London.

The twins had been experimenting before that. The company says they made their own sodas as students and tried them out on friends, who started calling them the “Tonic Twins.” According to Maddyness, the founders also credit their Dutch heritage for their interest in the gin and tonic, describing the Netherlands as the original home of gin.

The brand launched in 2015 with two flavours: Cucumber & Watermelon and Pomegranate & Basil, as Raissa de Haas told Maddyness. Pairing two flavours in one bottle became the house style; the company describes its range today as dual-flavoured tonics and mixers. The twins aimed first at five-star hotels in Mayfair and then at cocktail bars and restaurants, Maddyness reported, before moving into supermarkets. Harpers Wine & Spirit reported in June 2020 that the range was then stocked by Waitrose, Ocado and Amazon as well as by bars, and by 2023 Maddyness added Tesco to that list. The twins also won a food-entrepreneur award presented by Richard Branson, Maddyness and RetailDetail reported.

Two flavours, two founders, and a new bottle at ten.

The idea of doubling runs through the brand. The company’s own story page plays on doubled expectations, energy and fun, and its website is decorated with illustrations of birds and butterflies, and the company presents itself as playful and party-led. The flavour names carry the same idea: each one pairs two ingredients, joined by an ampersand.

In 2025, the brand’s tenth anniversary, Double Dutch overhauled its bottle. The Spirits Business reported in March 2026, citing the company, that the new bottle uses lightweight glass and carries more vibrant labels, and that the company presented the redesign as part of its sustainability commitments. The company also says it is a certified B Corporation.

One product has already changed its name. In September 2025 Double Dutch launched a tonic for bars called Riviera Tonic Water, built around thyme, rosemary, wormwood and lemon. In March 2026 the company renamed it Sun & Sea Tonic Water; The Spirits Business reported that the company said the new name broadens the drink beyond a geographic reference and secures clear global trademark ownership as the brand expands, and that the liquid was unchanged. The rename began in the United Kingdom, with the European Union to follow within six months.

The company names the members’ club group Soho House as its exclusive mixer partner, and Maddyness listed Nobu, Dishoom and The Mandrake among the bars and restaurants serving it in 2023. UCL wrote in 2025 that the mixers appeared from Soho House and the Four Seasons to Etihad Airways and Formula One paddocks. The company also runs a Female Bartending Scholarship, which Maddyness reported was set up to support women’s careers in hospitality.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all mixer and alcohol-free names: Canada Dry, Q Mixers, Thomas Henry, Franklin & Sons, London Essence, Double Dutch and Clausthaler. Mixer and alcohol-free brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from small companies that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a cocktail bar.

A mixer or alcohol-free brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the promise it makes, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its drinks are actually made and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its drinks are made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A founder-led brand with a brewing family behind it.

The best-known backer is a brewing family, not a brewery. Harpers Wine & Spirit reported on 12 June 2020 that the Heineken family had bought a minority stake of just under ten per cent in Double Dutch Drinks, the family’s first move into mixers, and that Michel de Carvalho, husband of Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, had joined the company’s supervisory board. Raissa de Haas called the match a “perfect cultural fit.” At the time, Harpers reported, the brand was sold in 26 countries and was selling more than a million bottles a month. In September 2025 UCL reported that the twins had raised further funding, mainly from the de Carvalho family, to grow in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Exports became a large part of the business. In 2024 Double Dutch received the King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade, UCL’s School of Management reported. Maddyness reported that the brand entered the United States in 2022, and UCL said in 2025 that its mixers were served in more than 45 countries, from hotel bars to airline cabins.

The name needs a little care online. Double Dutch is also the name of a skipping game played with two ropes; the mixer brand’s own site is doubledutchdrinks.com.

For a design guide, Double Dutch shows how a founders’ story — two sisters, two flavours per bottle — can become the organising idea of a brand, carried through product names, illustration and a bottle redesigned for its tenth year. Compare Fever-Tree, the London mixer brand that opened the premium category, and Franklin & Sons, the British mixer brand. For this guide we use pomegranate, watermelon coral and cucumber green with a display serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Double Dutch’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.