Jamie has put the spice into lockdown life
An Erskine man behind one of Scotland’s newest distilleries believes lockdown has helped sales of their Spirit of Rebellion rum soar.
Jamie Smith helped found Jacobite Spirits last year with a group of friends from various professional backgrounds.
Now the distillery’s 45 Scottish spiced rum has taken the country by storm, with lockdown providing them with an unexpected boost as customers looked to buy local with bars around Europe also buying into the brand’s unique message.
Jamie, 42, said: “We just managed to get production underway in March and then lockdown hit.
“Thankfully, as we’d already started to get things running, we were able to continue with our launch and the response has been incredible.
“Normally when you’re launching a new drink you’re really reliant on bars and pubs pushing your product out to people.
“But we’ve actually been able to just go straight to the consumer. The engagement online has been amazing because people have been at home and looking for products they can get delivered.
“So, in a way, lockdown has actually helped us really hone in our target audience. We’ve probably grown a lot quicker than we would have in normal circumstances.”
As well as home deliveries, Jacobite Spirits has signed a deal with distribution partner Craft 56 that is allowing them to stock bars around Europe in countries like
Ireland, Portugal and Germany.
Jamie, who works in advertising, believes the brand is riding high on the back of two growing trends.
He said: “Even though the Jacobite cause was a lost cause, we’re positioning ourselves as having the spirit of rebellion. It wasn’t about winning or losing, it was about having a meaningful cause.
“Even though we have the significant number 45 in our name, we’re not waving saltires around. We’re just independently minded in terms of our brand. We’re not scared of being on either side and we’ve had terrrific engagement with people who sit on either side of the fence.
“Rum is very much on the rise at the moment too and we were definitely ahead of the curve in that we saw the market moving that way.
“We’ve had the craft beer phase and the gin craze, now it’s moving onto rum and we’re here just at the right time.”
With a new TV advertising campaign and a growing customer list, Jamie hopes the company – with a distillery based in Glasgow – can grow despite the difficulties that Covid-19 has thrown up.
He added: “Rum is actually in a third of the world’s cocktails so it’s a lot more versatile than people realise.
“The TV campaign is helping us to get our name out and we’ve seen sales jump as soon as that hit.
“We’re just a normal bunch of eight pals who put our hands in our pockets to see what we could achieve.
“Fingers crossed we can continue to grow because this has been a lot of fun so far.”