Early days
Brighter began with the addition of an Oktober can seaming machine to Danny Olivas and Elizabeth Varnell’s Santa Monica kitchen. After tinkering with drinking shrubs and other vinegar-based blends for years, the couple dreamed up a new way to serve and share health-boosting daily doses of raw organic apple cider vinegar in shiny, infinitely recyclable aluminum cans that happened to bear a keen resemblance to their beloved travel trailer.
A canny decision
Years of blending culminated in Brighter Tonic, an expertly measured and mixed refreshing dose of ready-to-drink ACV. The distinctive sound of its top cracking open evokes childhood memories of road trips, bike rides to convenience stores, picnics and barbecues.
Sip the optimum dosing-to-flavor balance between ACV and our four flavors: Yuzu Pink Grapefruit, Blood Orange, Lemon Lime and Lemon Ginger Turmeric. Each can’s tab opening allows the bold plant oil fragrances in our recipes to slowly decant. Aluminum cans are also the most recycled beverage packaging available.
Along the way
Danny Olivas, a natural foods veteran who helped steer the expansion of farm-to-table grocery stores in California while broadening private label and local producer programs, has been crafting and serving vinegar-based shrubs for years. He found himself drawn to the complexity vinegar brings to sodas and cocktails, and spent years refining flavors while also reducing the amount of sugar needed to create a vibrant drink.
After stints with real estate developers and specialty grocers including Whole Foods, Danny established his own brand development consultancy, working with such regenerative farming-driven companies as Belcampo. He’s always been partial to purpose-driven, emerging brands and has spent his career helping to develop small, innovative good-for-you products.
Now Danny’s crafting one himself, a sparkling tonic with a daily dose of ACV in a can that’s ready to drink whether he’s surfing, airstreaming or suiting up as an average—but highly ambitious—high-intensity workout enthusiast.
Elizabeth Varnell, a magazine editor covering health, wellness, art, architecture and fashion for the past 20 years in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles first spotted apple cider vinegar at a Santa Cruz co-op in the late 90s. While visiting tincture-laden health food shops from Greenwich Village to Russian Hill to Venice, she and Danny often imagined reworking and improving such venerable staples as ACV.
Elizabeth mined conversations over the years with such luminaries as Paloma Picasso, Philippe Starck, Azzedine Alaïa and Rick Owens to develop Brighter’s design aesthetic. Josef Hoffmann glassware and Bauhaus sketches also inform the can’s minimalist bent.
A frequent contributor to Vogue and C Magazine, Elizabeth runs daily and rehydrates with Brighter post-workout.
