An infatuation with cream liqueur has resulted in a remarkable family saga — one starting with failure and ending in sweet, sweet victory.

Words: Cari Johnson  Photos: Jane Ussher

Bill Cameron didn’t know his ill-fated attempt to invent a cream liqueur would haunt his bloodline for nearly half a century. It was the late 1970s when the founder of national bottle-shop chain Robbie Burns Liquor began tinkering in his Dunedin factory, intending to add a Baileys-inspired tipple to his house brand. It turns out that cream and spirits don’t play nice together, and Bill’s fickle concoction refused to do anything but split.

Failure is often the father — or grandfather, in this instance — of success. Wills Cameron, one of Bill’s grandsons, has devised a winning method for producing Remarkable Cream, a silky cream liqueur that’s gained favour in chilled tumblers, hot coffees and posh cocktails since its launch in 2020.

Wills, raised in Dunedin and now based in Auckland, is adamant his creation wouldn’t have been possible without the flops of his forefathers. It was a sip of his dad Neil’s now-defunct brand of cream liqueur that inspired him to make something similar in 2019.

“Cream liqueur was an experiment into which my granddad hadn’t put much thought. But for my dad, it was more of a damaging obsession, one he should have walked away from multiple times,” he says.

Neil had joined Bill’s liquor empire by age 20 and found he immensely enjoyed developing products in the factory. He enjoyed it so much that when the Robbie Burns chain sold in the 1980s, he leased a little factory on Dunedin’s Clyde Street. His sole mission? To finally invent New Zealand’s very own cream liqueur.

One day, thanks to modern technology, he nailed it. In 2000, Neil began selling his vodka-based cream liqueur, Otago Goldfields, into supermarkets at a bargain of $12 a pop. But those sweet days of supermarket sales ended abruptly four years later. “Selling a product derived from vodka in supermarkets was technically illegal,” says Wills. “Dad somehow got away with it until one day, the supermarkets went, ‘Oh, we’re not allowed to do this.’”

It was a massive blow, with supermarkets accounting for 95 per cent of Goldfields’ sales. Still, Neil carried on for another decade, mostly selling the liqueur as a part-time passion project. In 2018, he finally discontinued the crème de la crème of his life’s work. “Dad gave everything to that project. When he lost it, everyone viewed it as a failure. If Remarkable Cream works out, I hope it helps reverse the past 20 years for him as well,” says Wills.

Wills hadn’t given the beverage industry much thought until his father sent him the last of some near-expired Goldfields stock in 2019. It was a product he recalled helping to bottle as a child but never really tasted. One swig convinced him it was worth another shot.

“My siblings all said, ‘Whatever you do, do not try to do what Dad did,’” says Wills, whose work experience ranged from hospitality to Bitcoin investment. Neil, too, warned his son that cream liqueur was a moot cause. Wills waved them off and carried on anyway.

In devising a new recipe, he paid homage to his father’s toffee-flavoured liqueur, tweaking here and there to suit the modern palate. Halving the sugar and cranking up the cream resulted in a velvety mouthfeel and a Goldilocks touch of sweet butterscotch. And, thanks to his father’s guidance, the product didn’t split.

That’s right, Neil couldn’t let his son have all the fun without him. His cautioning of Wills had been futile, so he sold his mobile home in Alexandra, moved up to Auckland, and poured his cream-liqueur wisdom into his son’s new drink. Meanwhile, Wills scraped together what support he could from family to fund the first batch of Remarkable Cream through a contract manufacturer.

Whatever could go wrong with two Camerons at the helm? “Well, about 100 things,” says Wills. “Uncontrolled evaporation. Wrong solids content. Wrong pH. Too much calcium. You could have emulsifying problems.”

In 2021, they approached the Auckland FoodBowl, a government-funded production facility that helps food and beverage companies develop their products — especially tricky ones. “They told us that Remarkable Cream was the most difficult. Even up to the last day, it was not a smooth operation,” says Wills.

The Camerons invested in a homogenizer, a powerful piece of equipment that is key to creating a stable cream liqueur. This year, after scraping together profits and some cash from their sole investor, the three-person team (Wills, his partner Jiarong Li and Neil) has set up shop in a 150-square-metre factory in Ōtāhuhu. Here they mix, emulsify and (painstakingly) hand-package every part of Remarkable Cream themselves.

There’s no slowing down the Cameron clan now. Remarkable Cream’s newly launched flavour, Dark Chocolate, is in the spirit of “less is more”. There’s no artificial colours or additives — just pure, dark cocoa. Remarkable Cream’s two flavours, its flagship Butterscotch and the Dark Chocolate, are made almost entirely with what New Zealand does best — dairy. Whey vodka (derived from milk), fresh cream, and milk protein sourced from Fonterra make up about 80 per cent of the beverages.

It’s a Kiwi-as legacy with which Bill, who died in 1988, would be chuffed. There’s provenance in the Remarkable Cream recipe as well as its name — the pun referencing the Cameron family’s tradition of skiing in The Remarkables. Wills’ goal is to move operations back to Otago, ideally somewhere between The Remarkables and Dunedin, where his family’s story began so many years ago.

REMARKABLE CREAM: NOT IRISH

Baileys, the world’s most famous cream liqueur, made its splash in the 1970s in the United States before quickly gaining traction globally. Marketers dubbed it “The Impossible Cream” for its somewhat mystifying combination of Irish whiskey and fresh cream. In 2015, the European Union awarded Irish cream (also known as Irish whiskey) geographical indication protection. Copycats not welcome.

Even if it were made in Ireland, Remarkable Cream (14 per cent ABV) could never be deemed Irish cream because it’s spiked with whey vodka, not whiskey. Wills says vodka helps keep the flavour clean, emphasizing the fresh cream rather than alcohol or artificial flavours. “Many customers tell us Remarkable Cream tastes richer than Baileys, even though they can’t identify what makes it so. The reason for that is we use more fresh cream than Baileys. The minimum requirement in Ireland is about 27 per cent — we use about 40 per cent,” says Wills. Remarkable Cream is available online and at select liquor stores around the country. remarkablecream.nz

---

Remarkable Tiramisu

Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS

8 tablespoons espresso coffee
8 tablespoons Remarkable Cream Butterscotch
300g mascarpone
100g greek yoghurt
75g condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
6-8 ladyfinger biscuits

METHOD

Set aside four small glasses. Mix the coffee and Remarkable Cream in a shallow dish and set aside.

Mix mascarpone, yoghurt, condensed milk and vanilla bean paste together in a separate bowl until smooth. Break the ladyfingers into small pieces and dip them in the coffee/Remarkable Cream mixture.

Put a few pieces of the ladyfingers at the bottom of each glass. Sprinkle a little cocoa powder over the ladyfingers. Add a layer of the mascarpone cream mixture. Sprinkle once again with some cocoa powder. Add the remaining fingers and top with the remaining mascarpone mixture.

Dust with a final sprinkling of cocoa powder. Chill for at least six hours before serving.

---

Spiced Dark Chocolate Cocktail

Combine three parts of Remarkable Cream Dark Chocolate with two parts of spiced rum. Shake with ice, then serve.

Love this story? Subscribe now!