The challenges of starting a new whisky brand

When new businesses are founded and launched, there are numerous financial and business models that help get the product to market.  There might be schemes to raise capital; funds assigned to support marketing and promotion; and then comes the down-and-dirty process of actually selling the goods.  It’s obviously a very diverse and varied minefield to tread.  If you’re wondering how to start a new whisky brand, or even how to start a new whisky distillery, the minefield is particularly tricky to navigate…

The whisky industry is an example of a sector where that diversity and variation is most evident:  There are brands and businesses that go large scale and are backed by investors who put up millions of pounds/dollars, and there are – quite genuinely – “mums and dads” businesses that are launched off little more than sweat and elbow grease in combination with passion to create a craft, artisan product.  And, in more recent times, there are distilleries that get established off the back of crowdfunding or barrel investment schemes – with mixed degrees of success.

William Grant and his wife
William Grant and his wife.  Were the challenges of establishing a whisky distillery and brand much different in 1887 to today?

A question often pondered is whether or not the process of getting a whisky business off the ground is easier or harder than it was in the past?   There’s a multitude of different factors and considerations.  William Grant, together with his family, spent over a year physically building Glenfiddich with his bare hands and started distilling on Christmas Day in 1887 to establish his own brand.  In contrast, if you’re armed with a website, a social media account, and access to some spirit distilled at Cooley, it seems you can quite easily launch an Irish whiskey brand overnight – complete with an impressive backstory!

In the harder basket, distilleries setting up today have planning and environmental controls that their predecessors didn’t have to worry about.  Council and municipal applications and approvals can take years to get through, and the days of casually discharging distillery effluent and by-products back into the river downstream are long behind us.

In the easier basket, as we’ve seen already, the internet and social media marketing means you can broadcast and promote your brand to a wider audience than ever for relatively little money.  Online sales via your own website mean you don’t even have to fight anymore with wholesalers or distributors to get your product on to the shelves of retail liquor outlets.   The days of Tommy Dewar hopping on a ship and spending months sailing around the globe to get sales are also well and truly behind us.

Let’s look at a few distilleries and brands from around the world that have forged very different steps in very different landscapes to see how the process unfolded….

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Hyde Single Grain Whiskey – The Aras Cask releases

Want to know about Hyde Irish whiskey and the new Aras Cask releases?  Read on…

Every whisky drinker has his or her favourite category or variety of whisk(e)y.   Once upon time, many were firmly camped in one category and rarely ventured outside it.   You might have been a Scotch person who never touched Bourbon.   Or a fan of the Irish stuff who found the malts of Scotland a bit too robust.   However, with the explosion of whisky bars around the country and diverse ranges of spirits more readily and affordably available to try by the dram, people can now explore categories of whisk(e)y outside their comfort zone without too much grief.   It’s one of the reasons that people are expanding their horizons and – whilst we all still have our favourite – at least we’re embracing other categories.

For obvious reasons, it’s about this time every year that people suddenly decide to check out Irish whiskey.   St Patrick’s Day means different things to different people, but – if nothing else – for whisky drinkers, it’s a good excuse to insert an ‘e’ into the word and try a drop of the pure.

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Hyde Irish Whiskey & the 10yo President’s Cask

Irish whiskey is continuing its rapid climb and resurgence. Just as we hear all about new distilleries opening in Scotland, so too are new ventures commencing in Ireland.  In addition to new distilleries, we are also seeing new Irish bottlers and brands appearing hand-in-hand with the resurrected industry.  Hyde whiskey forms part of that narrative.

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