Drink News
SPIRITS SOAR AT ROBINSONS, THANKS TO BROCKMANS GIN
One of the oldest family brewer and pub operators in the country has embraced one of the newest gins on the market – and it is proving a tonic for spirits sales.
The multi-award winning Robinsons Brewery has successfully operated for almost 180 years and has nearly 300 tenanted and managed pubs, inns and hotels across the North West of England. The Group is keen to celebrate tradition – one example being that its Old Tom beer is brewed to a recipe first created in 1899; yet its secret of success is that it is also forward thinking and able to combine the very best traditions with the very latest thinking and products.
Gin is a case in point. Spirits remain a relatively small part of the offering but Brockmans Gin is helping to boost spirits sales. David Bremner is Director of Marketing and the Spirits Buyer for Robinsons and based at the Brewery in Stockport, Cheshire.
David Bremner says: “Our connoisseur gin collection is up 98% and Brockmans Gin is now number 3 (based on the last 3 months) leaving 10 more established gins in its wake. We now have 55 stockists of this gin so we still have plenty of opportunity to grow the brand within our portfolio. They all love Brockmans – we do tastings with the managers. Brockmans was my favourite and it helps that our Telesales Manager, Rachel Trusdale, was such a fan that she was buying it for herself from local retailers even before we stocked it.”
The managed division of the Group was only recently revived. “Having started the managed division two years ago, we plan to drive the Brockmans message to these landlords to help promote sales even more strongly,” says Mr Bremner.
Volume sales across the group for spirits have increased by 11% so bucking the market trend.
According to David Bremner, “Brockmans has only been with us for 3 months and already it is the 4th biggest seller and will soon be the 3rd best seller, overtaking Sipsmith and behind the heavy-hitting brands Hendricks and Tanqueray.
“Brockmans is the gin that opened up the category to the sales teams. We recommend the Brockmans Perfect Serve Gin & Tonic, garnished with blueberries and pink grapefruit zest. Brockmans is the gin brand that has the biggest impact and we’ve done that by putting the right gin in the right glass with the right ingredients.”
18 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017
David Bremner says he anticipated other craft and new style gins would also sell well. “I thought Martin Miller’s would sell as well with its garnish of strawberries and black peppercorns, but in practice we’ve only seen a quarter of the sales for this offering compared with Brockmans”.
He puts success for gins and vodkas down to “encouraging our pubs to become fruit shops!”
Recognising that ice and a slice doesn’t resonate any longer, Mr Bremner believes that serving each product in the correct way makes all the difference. “Brockmans with grapefruit and blueberries is delicious,” he says. “It helps staff and customers start thinking about gin and different gins in a way that they hadn’t before.”
To get the message across to the pubs, the price list includes recommended garnishes so that at point of purchase there is already a perceived taste difference even for those licensees who are not familiar with Brockmans yet.
Brockmans will be taking part in the Group’s Trade Show at St Helens Stadium on the 14th of March and David Bremner predicts this will be a useful showcase for the brand.
The Group offers a portfolio of 25 gins and the biggest gin stockist lists 16 gins with 83 outlets having more than 5. All of top 12 pubs, inns or hotels stock Brockmans with the most successful of all, the George and Dragon in Holmes Chapel, selling and astonishing 10 litres in the three months since Brockmans was listed in the Cheshire pub in September 2016.
The Tenant there, Martin Barnes, says that because they recognise that the gin sector is in good growth, they stock every gin that Robinsons offers. “Our staff love it and our customers love it. Brockmans has a distinctly different bottle and a significantly different flavour. Those dark berry flavours really come through. We serve it with blueberries and grapefruit in a nice glass so customers often Instagram it and that spreads the word.
We also serve a Brockmans Bramble sometimes, as a special”. The point of different is something that one of the George and Dragon team, James Gwyn, loves. “He’s vowed to make it our best-seller – just because he loves it,” says Martin Barnes.
So far, 55 pubs have taken Brockmans in just a few months – compared with just 52 listing Tanqueray
Above: The George & Dragon pub and the Horse Shoe Inn.
which has been available to them all year and 48 offering Sipsmith.
Some of the Group’s outlets will be running gin masterclasses for consumers in January 2017.
Sam Hargraves, Regional Sales Manager for Brockmans’ UK distribution agency, Indie Brands, says: “We are so excited to see how Robinsons Brewery is promoting Brockmans internally. It is interesting that, with the right product served in the best possible way, a traditional pub group can buck the trend in its spirits sales. It’s definitely a trend to watch.”
The perfect serve Brockmans Gin & Tonic as served by Robinsons is made as follows:
Select and chill wide glasses – with a stem if it’s a very hot evening Chill good quality tonic water as this helps preserve the efferevescence
Pour Brockmans Gin over large ice cubes in the chilled glasses - small ice cubes melt too quickly Add the chilled tonic water carefully either by pouring over a bar-spoon or by pouring gently to help preserve the sparkle Stir very gently Add a twist of pink grapefruit peel Finish with a garnish of blueberries.
David Bremner’s ‘fruit shop’ offering seems to be creating a zest for gin sales.
Links
www.robinsonsbrewery.com www.brockmansgin.com www.indiebrands.co.uk www.georgeanddragoncheshire.co.uk
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