In 2024, Sophie won Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars. Then she needed a reset. She worked with Dean Kilby, a biochemist specialising in metabolic health, on what was essentially a diet and mineral intervention. The part that surprised her was how much of it came down to fundamentals. Enough fluid. The right minerals. So she went looking for something convenient to keep doing it with, and the hydration aisle turned out to be the wrong shop. Almost everything on shelf was heavy on salt, bright with dye, and tasted closer to confectionery than fruit. All of it dosed for marathons or for illness. Which left all the other moments. The early flight to New York. The long walk on a hot day. The presentation you are up at 5am for. The morning after you stayed up too late finishing a series. The ten minutes between a hot pilates class and being at your desk. None of those are emergencies. They are just a life, being lived by someone who is not training for one.

So she made one.

Most drinks are made by people who never meet. A flavour house sends a sample, a contract formulator sends a spec, and nobody is ever in the same room. Sophie already had both people, and they sat on opposite sides of the problem. Mr Park produces Seoul Tonic in Gyeongju and grows the fruit himself, so he thinks in taste, season and soil. Dean thinks in minerals, ratios and what a body does with them. One knew exactly how it should taste. The other knew exactly what should be in it.

So they all collaborated. 

What came out of it was a formulation built around an ordinary day rather than a hard workout. Equal parts sodium and potassium by weight, rather than a salt load. Magnesium at 107mg. Real yuzu and lemon, grown in Korea. No colour at all, because electrolytes in water are clear.

The brief for the taste was something Sophie already knew she loved, the refreshing and perfectly crisp taste of a cold glass of water with a squeeze of lemon on a hot day. 

That is the spark. Not the big moments. The small ones that quietly make a day better than it was going to be. She named it for those.