Craig Hamilton - Every Square Centimetre

When you ask Craig Hamilton about his official capacity at Wimmers, he sort of shrugs and says he doesn't have one. That's because titles aren't important to someone like Craig, who has spent his entire working life with the family owned soft drink maker.

Craig is as local as you could possibly be.

Born in Cooroy Hospital, educated at the local school, he lived at the Victory Hotel, where his grandfather was the licensee, and which just happens to be across the road from the Wimmers factory.

He knows every square centimetre of the Wimmers operation and has had hands-on involvement with all the major changes over the past two decades.

Working side by side with Geoff Wimmer, Craig learned the trade of cordial and soft drink making and today has finely-tuned senses of taste and smell, which allow him to blend flavours perfectly. If you were to bestow a title on him, Chief Syrup Maker would surely be the most fitting.

"I'd only been working for Wimmers for a couple of years when Geoff asked my father to mix a Lemon Lime & Bitters for him, he wanted to make a cordial to match it. Lemon Lime & Bitters was always considered a lady's drink, but Geoff reckoned he could make it into a soft drink," Craig said.

Of course, Geoff did exactly that and from the moment it was launched on the market it was an enormous success.

In Craig's early days of work, Wimmers was a much smaller operation taking up about a fifth of the footprint of the current factory, and it was extremely labour intensive.

All of the bottles were made of glass which in those days were returned and hand-washed before being refilled. They were then hand-turned during the packing stage to mix the syrups.

Craig remembers the day, when the team produced 10 pallets in a single day, "Geoff had a big smile on his face," he said.

Today depending on what size is being bottled, a day's production is typically between 50 and 70 pallets.

While automation and quality systems brought about bar codes, moulded caps and capacity to adhere up to 800 labels a minute, the recipes are original, some traditional that is, Grandfather Franz Wimmer's own blends that date back to the 1800's.

"We source ingredients which are as close to the original flavour essences as you can get. That level of quality makes a big difference, people always tell us that they can taste the fruit in our soft drinks," Craig said.