The London Drinks Avant-Garde: Inside the Minds of the Creative Siblings Behind Malik Acid

Brother and sister duo Missy and Cameron Flynn don’t just care about nice drinks.

Through Malik Acid, the agency they co-founded in 2024, they make some of the best (and best-looking) cocktails around. It is work that has seen Malik Acid become the go-to boutique agency for some of the biggest legacy and most now fashion brands and restaurants around: Burberry, Jacquemus, Telfar, JW Anderson, Studio Nicholson, Hunan, and Rambutan are among their clients in 12 months fast months.

But they want you to know that what you see—and you will see it: their work is loud, it’s bright, it’s fun, it’s energetic—is merely the end product of what they believe is a truly creative process. Less a drinks agency, they think of themselves as creative consultants who produce drinks. They’re 12 months in and they’ve got grand designs on working with the most cutting-edge brands in the world, not necessarily by meeting their needs, but by being at the cutting-edge themselves: pro-active, embedded in multiple disciplines—fashion, art, music, and restaurants. Because that’s where they are. Missy has been working in hospitality in London since 2012, one of the founders and front-of-house at Rita’s, the cult-followed bistro she runs with her partner and chef Gabriel Pryce, in London’s Soho. Cameron, for his part, has worked at Belon in Hong Kong with James Henry and Daniel Calvert, at Bao and the Standard in London and has been immersed within the UK drinks scene for a decade.

It seems it was just a matter of time for the close-knit, multidisciplinary pair to collaborate on a business proposition that would enable them to do the things they’d been on the edge of for years: for Malik Acid to enable them to become the storyteller, not be the story itself.

This weekend, to unofficially mark Malik Acid’s one-year anniversary, they will put on their first self-designed event. Taking place at Awaykin, the three-tier fashion boutique on the edge of London Fields in east London, the Mango Listening Bar is a collaboration with Shivas Howard Brown, whose Friendly Pressure will provide the sound system for a collection of DJs, Lost Explorer mezcal, and Charm’s ice cream. It will be a day of music, food, and drinks – all orientated around mangoes (skin, flesh, stone), a fruit they prize deeply, and which has a personal importance. It’s a shop-window to their values, their creations, their world.

At the start of July on a hot day, Something Curated’s Adam Coghlan met the Flynn siblings on the second floor at Awaykin, a concrete-walled air conditioned sanctuary, to talk about their past, the present, and where they plan to go next.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Adam Coghlan: Let’s start at the beginning. How did Malik Acid come to life – what’s the story behind it?

Missy Flynn: Cam and I have worked in parallel for years. We both grew up above pubs, so hospitality was part of our DNA from the start. Since the start of our careers, around 2012, we’ve collaborated informally—me through Rita’s, and Cameron through larger corporate and creative roles across drinks, hospitality, and branding. People would come to us separately for opportunities, but due to brand constraints, time, or conflicts, we couldn’t always say yes. Malik Acid became the space to say “yes.”

Cameron Flynn: We wanted a place to combine our creative energy—free from the restrictions of our individual projects. It allows us to be both conceptual and deeply technical. That space didn’t exist for us before.

AC: And the name? Malik Acid is quite distinctive.

MF: It works on several levels. Malic acid is something you hear all the time in wine, which we both work with. But “Malik” is also our mother’s surname. I don’t use it day to day, but it felt good to reclaim that name and put it front and centre. It’s powerful, evocative.

CF: I liked that Missy was firm on not calling it something like Studio XYZ. “Acid” brings an edge: It’s not soft and it disrupts the Eurocentric, overly curated vibe of a lot of contemporary food and drink agencies. It reflects the sharpness and energy we bring.

AC: You mentioned growing up above pubs. What was that like?

MF: Wild. Our dad managed and flipped pubs all over central London, so we moved constantly. We lived above probably a dozen pubs. It was a mix of chaotic and communal. I remember watching East Enders and Coronation Street thinking, “Yep, that’s us.” It really shaped how and where we feel comfortable—in hospitality spaces.

CF: We had this revolving cast of pub staff living with us—from ex-policemen to Brazilian bartenders who became family. I changed schools constantly, which was hard in hindsight, but we adapted. There’s something beautiful about that—both weird and normal.

AC: How do brand collaborations come about for you both?

CF: Mostly through creative relationships and production agency contacts. We’ve worked with Jacquemus, Burberry, and others. Sometimes we get briefs with a bit of freedom, like just a colour palette—and those are the best. Other times, it’s someone asking us to recreate an image from Pinterest, and that’s never really a fit for us.

MF: Yeah, we want to work with brands that appreciate what we do and allow us to bring our full selves to the table. We think holistically, from concept to flavour to hospitality. That means everything—including the soft [drinks]—matters. We won’t compromise on quality.

AC: What are your criteria when deciding whether or not to work with a brand?

MF: We’ve got a strong values filter: quality, hospitality, equity, and how creative we can be. If the client is just looking to white-label something without acknowledging our input or craft, we’re not the right fit.

CF: It also matters how people treat our work and our team. Who gets hired, how much creative freedom we have, even things like whether branded ice cubes make sense environmentally. We try to advise clients strategically, not just aesthetically.

AC: Are there projects you’ve turned down?

CF: Absolutely. And usually we’re glad we did. We know the red flags. It’s tempting to say yes for financial reasons, but staying aligned with our values pays off long term.

MF: We want to be hired for what we do best—not just to execute someone else’s vision. We know our worth, and we know when something isn’t right for us.

AC: What are some of your favourite past projects?

MF: The Theaster Gates dinner at White Cube in Bermondsey was amazing. Rita’s handled food, Malik Acid did drinks. The brief was inspired by Malcolm X’s archive in Japan, and the drinks explored American and Japanese flavours. It was conceptual and collaborative.

CF: Also, our work for Rambutan [Cynthia Shanmugalingam’s restaurant in Borough Market] was special. We developed six drinks rooted in Sri Lankan flavour but with contemporary twists—like a ghee, bourbon, umeshu, jaggery and mezcal cocktail. That felt like the perfect Malik Acid expression.

AC: Do you get credited for your work on menus?

MF: Sometimes, like at Hunan [in Pimlico], we do. We’d like to do more of that. It’s not about ego; it’s about transparency and giving credit where it’s due. There’s too much obsession with doing everything in-house. We think collaboration makes things better.

CF: It’s something we’re moving towards. We’re building our name and reputation, and over time, we’d love people to recognise a Malik Acid drink the way you might a Mr. Lyan one.

AC: What kind of split do you see in your work—client vs self-initiated?

MF: Right now, the client side pays the bills. We’re both full-time on Malik Acid, with an office and growing team. But we want to do more of our own creative work.

CF: The Mango Listening Bar [on 12 July] is a great example of that. It’s our first major self-initiated project: a listening bar inspired by mango season. It’s nostalgic, cross-cultural, and joyful. A bit silly, a bit sweet. It brings people together in a very real way.

MF: And it’s a way to open the doors to our world. Malik Acid has mostly been behind invite lists; this was a way for people to come in, taste it, and see what we do.

AC: Why mangoes?

CF: Mangoes mean so much to so many people. They’re cultural, emotional, intense. There’s even a kind of underground scene around them. People text us about mangoes now! It’s a fruit with lore, with identity.

MF: And they’re beautiful to work with. We’ve used Alfonso and honey mangoes in drinks and ice cream. Pakistani chaunsas will be featured on the day. It’s a flavour that spans continents.

AC: It feels like you’re doing something different in the scene. Would you agree?

MF: Definitely. We’re inspired by fashion, music, design, anthropology—not just food and drink. That keeps our work from being derivative. We don’t replicate trends; we create from instinct.

CF: There’s a lot of copying in the food design world. Everyone’s doing the same Pinterest tropes. We don’t do that. And if someone wants a Pinterest recreation, we’re not the right team.

AC: What do you think of London’s drinks scene right now?

MF: It doesn’t get the global credit it deserves. While the restaurant scene is looping on nostalgia, London bars like Tayēr + Elementary and Three Sheets are genuinely innovating. That should be celebrated. There’s room for improvement in the mid-tier though, the sort of places that can compete with all the wine bars.

CF: We went to New York recently and honestly, it confirmed how good London is. The bar scene here is more ambitious, more flavour-focused. But culturally, people still see bars as secondary to restaurants.

AC: What are your influences?

MF: I’m a bit romantic about food. I’ve done formal studies in anthropology and food design, but I also care deeply about emotional connection. A beautiful drink should taste incredible—not just look good on Instagram.

CF: I think in campaigns and concepts. I want the Mango party to feel like a creative campaign, with music, visuals, energy—a world you step into. I’m influenced by fashion, visual culture, and hospitality.

AC: How do you manage production?

CF: We do it end to end. We’ve got a brilliant team of freelancers and a couple of agencies we love. The people who work with us are so invested, and it really shows.

MF: We split the work well—Cameron leads creative, I handle production. One of us always shows up to the event. We want the drinks to be perfect and the service to reflect our values.

AC: What does the future look like for Malik Acid?

MF: More self-initiated work. More drinks menus with credit. More opportunities to bring our emotional, creative, and technical ideas to life outside of client constraints.

CF: We’re building something lasting—not a studio, not a service, but a platform. A space where drinks are the beginning of the story, not the end.

Adam Coghlan is one of the editors at Something Curated. Michaël Protin is a reportage photographer living in London.