In one sense, selling spirits to the British consumer is not difficult. Gin sales were worth more than £2.6bn in the 12 months to June 2019, Scotland is the home of the international whisky trade, and rum, brandy and much more besides have always found a grateful market amongst British drinkers. There are now almost 500 distilleries in the country; it’s clear that few places around the world are as keen on distilled drinks as the UK.

This growth makes it hard to break into the market, though, especially given the COVID-19 crisis. It has made direct-to-consumer sales more important than ever, since all bars and pubs in the UK were closed when lockdown was announced on 23 March. If you’re completely new, you’ll need to arrange a personal license and a premises license; it’s a little time-consuming but, assuming you’re professional and prepared, it shouldn’t be a problem.

That’s just set-up, though. Once you’re legal, how do you ensure that you can sell your product?

Find your niche

Just like on a shelf in the store, you have to give customers a reason to buy your product rather than the thousands of others like it. It’s not enough to just be a nice person, although that’s a niche that might work depending on how authentic you are.

You might decide to focus on some (questionable) health benefits, as with Collagen, or go for a modern, stylish approach that defies perceptions of your product, like Edinburgh’s Sweetdram. One time-honoured way that is easily replicable wherever you might be, though, is locality. If you can make a virtue of your geography, then that’s a great way to sell booze. Customers like stories.

One distillery that has made a good job of this is Copper Rivet in Chatham, Kent. Based in a magnificent, red-brick Victorian pumping station, on the former naval dockyards in Chatham, they make great play of their physical location and the fact that all of their grain is grown in the surrounding Kentish countryside.  

Innovate

Innovation is one of the most over-used words in the English language, alongside ‘disruptive’ and ‘groundbreaking’, the latter of which is just another way of saying innovative, anyway. Most things are not new, everything has been done before, you can’t reinvent the wheel nor can you reinvent selling things.

That said, there are some ideas that - while perhaps not completely new - are used in a fresh and interesting way. Take Victory Spirits, for example, a producer of botanical spirits based in Walthamstow, East London, and run by a couple, Max and Máire Chater. Their online shop - or ‘MiniMart’ - offers a variety of options for those who might be unsure about buying a whole bottle. There’s the letterbox cocktail set, for example, or spirits packaged in a refill pouch, for ease of sending, for as much as 20 percent off.

Manchester Gin, based in the city of the same name, has used the current lockdown to build appealing options, like the ‘Gin Lockdown Package’ and ‘The Ultimate Stay Home Gin Tasting Experience’. 

And then there’s Beaufort 57, where the innovation is in the liquid, made with whisky barrel-smoked water.

Build Credibility

No-one is going to spend £40 on a bottle of whisky, gin or whatever if your website doesn’t come up to snuff. In a business defined at least partly by the smartest marketing and branding around, any sense of amateurism will have customers heading for the hills, unless those customers happen to be related to you. And no-one has enough relations to successfully run a spirits business.

So how do you make sure you’re credible? Like Sipsmith, you should ensure that your website is elegant and simple. Copy needs to be crisp and clear: if you can’t do this yourself, pay a professional. It’s also worth collaborating with brands that complement your own: Sipsmith offers a gift set taking in a bottle of Orange and Cacao Gin, and chocolates made by London chocolatiers Charbonnel et Walker, plus a gin made in collaboration with fashion design Paul Smith.

Victory have done something similar, with the Blackhorse Box available on their website taking in gin from Victory, beer from Exale - who share their Walthamstow home - and coffee from Wood Street, also E17-based. That’s a good way to build credibility and local appeal.

Social Media

If you’re selling online, then you need to be selling in as many places online as possible. Put it this way: who's more likely to buy your product - someone who’s just heard about it in a newspaper, but has to get to a computer first, or someone clicking on a link on twitter or facebook? It’s obvious.

There are a number of ways to do this. If you’re a whisky producer based in an attractive part of the world (like Scotland), then landscape images will obviously be part of the mix, as they are for Laphroaig. Another way to engage is humour, like Wendy’s in the USA or Pilot Beer, a brewery in Edinburgh. There’s not much of that in the spirits world. Now might be a difficult time to start, but if you’re funny and - crucially - inoffensive, it might be worth a punt.

Subscription

This is the crucial one in terms of keeping customers. Social media might attract sales and a snazzy website will convince wavering punters, but how do you ensure that drinkers buy from you on a regular basis? Subscription is the key.

 So how do you make subscription work? The Batch Distillery in Lancashire, England, offers a variety of options, from monthly dispatch to every three months, and from gin only to ‘all spirits’. There are specials that only subscribers get, a smart way of boosting the value of subscription. 

 At Chase Distillery in Herefordshire, meanwhile, drinkers can ‘subscribe’ to their favourite spirit, such as this rhubarb and bramley apple gin. It’s cheaper on a per-bottle basis and you can choose to receive every 30 or 90 days.

 Need Help getting your spirits into customers’ hands? Sign up today at Get Drinks Delivered to ensure consumers can buy your bottles.