English spirits company Cotswolds Distillery is on a mission to bring English craft whisky and gin to the global travel retail and world stage.
The Moodie Davitt Report Brands Editor & Digital Marketing Manager Hannah Tan-Gillies recently visited the distillery to learn more about the company’s launch plans, expansion and aspirations for the channel.
Founded in 2014 by former finance executive Dan Szor, Cotswolds Distillery produces whisky, gin and other craft spirits using traditional methods. Former Bowmore Distillery Manager Harry Cockburn and renowned whisky maker Dr. Jim Swan lead the distillery’s operations.
There are currently 40 English whisky distilleries with Cotswolds Distillery ranking as one of the biggest. As part of its mission to showcase the depth and quality of English whisky, the company fully engages with the Cotswold community, making the locals an integral part of the production processfrom harvesting to bottling.
The Cotswolds Distillery is currently distributed in UK off-trade and online channels. Internationally, it is available in 34 countries with the US, Germany and Japan as some of its most important markets.
In travel retail, the brand is available with Harding+ onboard P&O Cruises. With the aim of building awareness in the channel, the Cotswolds Distillery exhibited for the first time at the recent TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.
Commenting on what the brand can offer to travel retail, International Sales and Global Travel Retail Director Lynsey Eades says: “We’ve taken the whole portfolio — including potential travel retail-exclusive concepts — to Cannes and have taken steps to launch into travel retail in a major way.
“We’re part of the new world whisky movement led by Japanese brands and other world whiskies like Welsh and English whiskies. I think that travel retail can sometimes be a bit safe with its spirits offer. However, in the post-pandemic landscape, we have a real opportunity to offer something new, engaging and innovative to passengers.”
Cotswolds Distillery Global Whisky Ambassador Rob Patchett adds, “Going into COVID, everyone was happy with the status quo. As people progressed their interest and palates in craft spirts, they had more of an opportunity to discover brands like us. People are spending more money on higher quality small-batch spirits, which is where we shine.”
According to Eades, travel retail, and especially cruiseline retail, will be an important growth channel for the company. As reported, the distillery hosted a series of engaging brand activations onboard P&O Cruises which involved cocktail experiences and pre-trip engagement. “Every customer gets a tailored 360-degree marketing approach,” she explains. “We just had an amazing launch with Harding+ onboard Britannia and Iona. We placed a beautifully designed, barley-filled Land Rover on the ship and even onboarded our life-sized sheep mascots, Baaah-bara and Wool Smith.
“Before boarding the ship, passengers get a pre-notification that they can purchase our brand onboard. Once onboard, they see our fully branded stores and bars and are greeted by our brand ambassadors. We adopted a sensorial approach for this launch and so we put Apple trackers on Baaah-bara and Wool Smith and played a game on social media asking our followers to find them on the ship. These activities generated social media engagement and hype about the cruise and our brand. The sheep were a big hit!
“Working with Harding+ has allowed us to demonstrate what we can do as a niche brand,” Eades adds. “We’ve had amazing partners to work with and now we’re rolling out to the whole P&O fleet. We’re also doing some very interesting things in Cunard that will be specially made just for them. The cruise channel recovered very quickly post-pandemic and so it was an immediate first step for us. Airports are next in our plan when we scale up.”
Notably, whenever a customer buys a Cotswolds Distillery product on a cruise, they are gifted a voucher for a distillery tour, extending the Cotswolds Distillery experience beyond the ship. Patchett says, “When customers get the tour voucher from the cruise, our team gets notified. So, when cruise customers arrive at the distillery our team greets them by saying ‘We hope you enjoyed your cruise’. It’s a great follow-on for our cruise customers.
“Onboard cruises, we have really invested so our customers can get to know us,” he adds. “For example, our brand ambassadors have bubble guns where they can create bubbles on cocktails that contain various aromas. For Harding+, we leaned on our cloudy gin USP and the fact that we used locally sourced lavender. The whole cocktail experience then becomes a memorable and enjoyable way for customers to get to know us. We also have a WhatsApp group with our brand ambassadors so they can get updates on new launches and what’s happening with the distillery.”
Today, Cotswolds Distillery is undergoing a significant expansion. The company is set to increase capacity from 125,000 litres annually to 500,000 litres annually in order to meet increased demand from both domestic and travel retail channels.
Patchett comments: “The expansion has been a reaction to the excitement behind the brand. When Dan bought the stills, we forecasted that by 2025 we would reach our ceiling. The new distillery is a reaction to this. With the expansion, we’ll be the largest English distillery around and the only one in travel retail.”
