Good Morning All!
I realise it's the 11th of September and I'm sitting here writing a blog which I'm classing as the August edition…
It's been another challenging and somewhat chaotic month and a smidge. August was very much Miles and Katie in survival mode. Between juggling the boys, crafting bottles, keeping our stockists topped up, and distilling our wonderful Gin, we have just been keeping our heads down and focusing on getting all our metaphorical ducks in a row.
We came back from our first week holiday at the start of the summer and then spent the next four weeks pretty much, like most parents at this time of year trying to entertain the boys while still keeping the cogs of life turning. I have to be honest and give our two their due, they managed very well with Mummy and Daddy working In the studio and Daddy periodically disappearing to "make more gin!".
During our final week of the holidays, we took off again camping in Arisaig, which Is just north of Ardnamurchan. Well… it was meant to be a week of fun and frolics on the white sands of the beautiful west coast, with my brother and his family. What we got was 50mph winds and torrential rain for 3 of the days and a bout of Sickness for 3 out of 4 of us (Never fun in a tent).
Nonetheless, we made the most of it and got out in our Kayak with the little ones and even got a chance to sample a bottle of Igneous around the campsite, which kept the work itch at bay.
But now, the kids are back at school. We have a few weeks of birthday parties to get through but then it's time to Rock and Roll, heading in the direction of our three biggest shows of 2024. Starting at the end of October with The Gin To My Tonic at Glasgow SEC, make sure you come and see us! We will be on stand M3.
Then we will be heading to Living North Christmas mid-November at York Racecourse; I'm really looking forward to this one as it's a local for us to where we live and makes things a little more stress-free being able to climb into a familiar bed at the end of a long day. Finally, we head to the big city of London for the Ideal Home Show Christmas at Olympia at the end of November.
This is going to be potentially crazy for us, we have positioned ourselves very firmly as a quality Gin with fantastic gifting potential, so at one of the UK's biggest Christmas events we are hoping people see the chance to pick up not only a beautiful grey bottle of Igneous, but one of our Limited Release White Christmas bottles with festive neck tags as a chance to good to miss.
These limited-release bottles are what has caused me and Katie so much grief over the last few months. Having the separate run of bottles with the additional tag has created a mammoth amount of extra work and complications; hopefully, come the end of the year we will look back and think it was worth it.
We will only be selling these at 3 events, all of which will be Christmas events Living North Christmas, White Syke Fields Christmas, and Ideal Home Show Christmas, with limited numbers at each event. We will then also have a limited number available in our online shop.
Anyway, back to the present. I'm sitting in my office at the Distillery, staring at a constant wave of storm fronts coming in off the Atlantic broken by the occasional stint of blue sky and a rainbow. I quite like this weather as the landscape is always changing in different lights and looks so dramatic. I do wish the summer had been warmer though, I've come to think I may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (Self-Diagnosed), either that, or I just long for a sunny beach holiday, or I'm just getting old and grumpy.
The still is back on and will start producing the second batch of this visit; I've planned to complete three distillations this week which will rest and be bottled in a couple of weeks from now. Yesterday's distillation is safely stored away in its stainless steel vessel slowly mellowing the essential oils and alcohol and creating our sweet, floral, and juniper notes.
Other news from the past month and a bit…
We were announced as Finalists at the Scottish Gin Awards 2024! We made Finalists in three categories, including Best New Product, London Dry Gin, and Excellence in Branding. We find out how we did on the 30th of October at a glitzy awards evening in Glasgow, which should be a great night.
As well as this, we were featured in Home and Interiors Scotland September/October Edition alongside Isle of Harris Distillery and Dunnet Bay (Rock Rose Gin) for having beautiful ceramic bottles! This was cool as so many magazines offer to feature you and then drop the "all for only £800 for a 3 x 2 ad space" bombshell. Whereas these guys chose to feature us as they loved what we were doing rather than selling ad space. Not that there isn't a place for this kind of feature, but sometimes it's nice to get recognition without having to pay for it.
Right, I best get on and check the still is behaving itself. Thank you all again for reading my ramblings and I promise I will try and get the blog done earlier this month. Hopefully, I'll still have something interesting to say!
Have a great rest of September.
Miles & Katie x