Business course keeps gin and ideas flowing at boutique distillery

A spur of the moment decision by Sarah to enter the gin into the ‘taste’ category at the World Gin Awards paid off, resulting in them winning the category. 

At around the same time, she also sent a bottle to The Craft Gin Club, a gin subscription service, for their consideration. 

Two weeks later, they got the call that would lead to their gin being sent to 88,000 of the club’s members. 

Despite this early success, the longer-term future for the brand was looking less secure. While the gin was being well-received by consumers, they were struggling to gain interest from other wholesale distributors. 

The company also ran into issues while trying to expand, with complex planning issues and spiralling build costs putting a hold on their plans to create a purpose-built distillery which would enable them to move out of the garage where the business began. 

It was around this time the couple first heard about the Help to Grow: Management Course and realised it could be just what they needed. 

“I wanted to maintain the quality of the brand and retain our unique identity at the same time as growing. I felt we needed to look at how we presented ourselves more professionally to attract the funding we’d need, and I thought the course could help us plug some of those gaps in our business knowledge. 

“Until that point we’d grown very organically but I recognised the need for structured support to help us scale.” 

Jonathan signed up for the course at the University of Winchester Business School in early 2023. 

“What appealed to me was the idea of developing some more formal business knowledge, for example how do you go about writing a more in-depth strategy? How do you go about growth planning?  

“One of the biggest drivers for me was long-term sustainability. What's going to make sure we’re still around in 10 or 20 years’ time? How do we build a business our daughters would like to be involved in or take over?” 

Upon joining the course, Jonathan was instantly struck by the power of being surrounded by a network of peers. 
 
“When you're a small business with a small team you often can't find time to sit down and have proper conversations. Instead, the conversations tend to be more crisis management talks; rather than structured discussions about future direction. 

Other highlights for Jonathan were the sessions from visiting speakers, as well as the finance module, but the lessons which really helped drive the business forward were those around winning new markets. 

“We were selling all over the UK because of the Craft Gin Club campaign, but what I realised was, we needed to have more focus locally. So many people in our area had never heard of us despite the fact we’d been going for six years and won this big award. 

“The course helped me realise there’s a huge market locally. It gave us a much better understanding of our customer base, and through the Bain Value Pyramid, we developed a better appreciation of what we’re good at and what we need to do better was incredibly useful. 

“We’ve become much more customer-focused and that’s stood us in really good stead. We’ve homed in on what we’re doing really well and tried not to get too distracted by all the other things that could happen as your business expands. 

“I realised we don’t have to do it all. Sometimes it's about finding out what you definitely don't need to do, in order to concentrate on the important stuff.”  

The result has been an 82% increase in direct to customer sales from 2023 to 2025, mainly driven by a stronger presence at local markets and repeat local customers.  

Online sales have increased too, rising 33% from 2023 to 2024, and a further 30% year on year in 2025. 

Jonathan’s learning continued long after the sessions stopped too, with the help of a business mentor he was signposted to via the Help to Grow: Management Course team. 

His mentor helped him get to grips with key financial issues and understanding which KPIs are the most important for the business. 

“I’m much better in that area now. We’re always looking at where prices of thing have gone up, where we can save, where we can source from different suppliers. We haven’t put our prices up in five years, yet we’ve still seen growth. 

“Overall, I would say Help to Grow: Management has helped us be a lot more structured, to embrace the fact we can go for organic growth, and to not go too crazy.” 

The company currently sells around 10,000 bottles of gin a year and turnover has remained steady, growing by around 5% each year.  

While expansion of their own distillery is still an ambition for the future, a partnership with a nearby  distillery gives them the flexibility to produce large orders when they need to.  

As for other future plans, expansion into new markets is already happening, with the company recently producing their first rum, in partnership with The Craft Gin Club. 

“Out of the blue they came to us and said that their members are not drinking as much gin, but they are drinking rum, and they wanted to work with us again because of the success of our previous partnership.

“Together, we’ve now created our first rum, and it’s been a really successful product.”

Going forward, Jonathan is keen to broaden their horizons even further with the production of an even greater range of produce. 

“We’d like to move the brand towards becoming more of a lifestyle brand, building on this strong sense of place and connection to the River Test valley and county of Hampshire. We’re thinking of what that could look like; perhaps a place you could come and stay, or I’d love to explore the idea of a vineyard. 

“Help to Grow: Management has given us the confidence and understanding to grow. We want to evolve our offering, and we now know that’s about so much more than just gin or rum. It’s opened our eyes to the possibilities.” 

His advice for anyone else considering the course is to go for it. 

“Go with an open mind and be prepared to change your assumptions. Even if you think a particular aspect of the course is not going to be relevant, you’ll still learn from it.” 

Find out how the Help to Grow: Management Course can further your business here.