Maverick Drinks
If you’ve ever seen brands like FEW, Dorothy Parker, Perry’s Tot, Filliers, Bathtub and enjoyed the Drinks by the Dram offerings as part of the Ginvent calendars, you’ll have probably heard of Maverick Drinks. Founded last year after having evolved from a partnership between Master of Malt and Ginuine Spirits, Maverick Drinks is now on it’s own two feet (well 8 feet technically, they are 4 total in the company) and holding the cards to some of the best craft spirits flooding into the UK.
We caught up with Michael Vachon and Cat Spencer (promise, no Maverick and Goose references apart from this), to talk shop and see what life behind the nonconformist indie distributor looked like.
Gin Foundry: 2013 marked the change into Maverick Drinks and the start of a new adventure for you both. Many have seen the name pop-up and tasted the brands you represent but for those who’ve been in a cave for the past 12 months, could you describe your role and what you do?
Michael Vachon: As Captain of the Good Ship Maverick, I work with all of our producers, both here in the UK and abroad, to make sure our efforts are in line with their expectations for the brands. I also work with our partners in wholesale, retail, and the bar trade to make sure they’re benefiting from working with our products too. Everyone has to succeed or no one succeeds.
GF: How about you Cat? What’s the “official” title – not sure there’s a job spec that encompasses everything… Meta-supervisor?
Cat Spencer: My official title is “Brand Communications Manager” but as we’re such a small team, my role runs the gamut of PR, marketing, sales, events, brand management…you name it. Nothing’s too big or small when you’re starting out and when you’ve got such a tight-knit team. We all support each other, and each member brings their own area of expertise to the table. With my background in sales in marketing, and having been the Head of Marketing for masterofmalt.com, my strengths naturally fall into the marketing side of the business, so that’s the role I try to own on a daily basis.
GF: Small team, awesome brands, lots of travel – it might be hard to pick but what’s your favourite part of your job?
CS: Working with passionate people who make amazing spirits. Maverick is in a very fortunate position as a small, start-up company in that we are backed by an established (albeit itself small and start-up in many ways) parent company—Atom Supplies, Ltd.
Having the support of Atom means we can be picky about the spirits brands we work with—and we’re thankful for this everyday. Because we’re picky, we’ve developed a portfolio of spirits that are crafted by amazing, brilliant, intelligent, innovative and just downright fun-to-hang-with makers. Lance Winters, Chip Tate, Allen Katz, John Little, and Paul Hletko are just a few of the geniuses behind the drinks Maverick brings to the UK. They make unparalleled spirits and each one of them is immense. I absolutely love working with our distillers and producers.
GF: That’s probably true to all smaller businesses, who you work with is as important, if not more so, than what you do from day to day. We certainly feel that way. Michael, you go into bars all the time, all over the UK. Who’s caught your attention and in your opinion, the “ones to watch”?
MV: One that immediately jumps to mind is Lucky Liquor Co. up in Edinburgh. They’re just doing everything right and I love the concept— simple menu, simple back bar, and everything from the bottle you’re drinking to the record that’s playing is for sale. I think Gareth Evans and the entire team from The Blind Pig also have some phenomenal drinks.
GF: Loving the Blind Pig also, the poppadum garnish on a Genver-based cocktail is inspired (and funny to watch how people tackle it!). All these bars seem to be highly tuned into new craft spirits, and these spirits are in such high demand - What are you looking at importing at the moment? There’s a lot of craft distilleries and gins that haven’t found their way into the UK market yet…
CS: We’re focusing on the slow burn for now—again, being picky about what spirits we represent and with whom we work. There are loads of gins being released constantly, and it’s exciting. As the category grows with diversity and styles, the profile is raised for gin and, in a larger sense, craft spirits in general. Even with the flood (as it were) of new gins and craft distilleries, we’re not looking to overload our portfolio just now as we’ve got a pretty long list we’re currently working with. We want to be able to give enough attention to each brand, and each expression within that brand, to see it not only succeed but thrive in the saturated spirits market.
That said, we don’t have a mezcal or tequila, yet…
GF: Hmmn not sure what “tequila” is…it sounds intriguing, we might have to look into that someday..! How about you Michael - gin wise, what’s got you excited?
MV: We’re proud to already represent 5 of the best brands from America, making some of the best gin and whisky available. In Belgium, we found one of the oldest family-owned Genever and Gin producers and in Sweden, a husband and wife team produce single malt whisky, gin and aqua vitae that are unlike anything I’ve had before. These are what excite me and get me out of bed in the morning.
GF: Filliers are red hot at the moment – so much media floating around them right now. Alright, something more controversial for you now… Paco Receuro, global brand director for gin at Chivas Brothers has said: “The category is over-saturated and over the next three years only the strongest brands will survive”. Michael, as someone who’s been at the forefront of importing craft brands over the past couple of years - do you think there is such a thing as the “Gin Bubble” and do you think it’ll come to a big crash as he suggests?
MV: That’s not even a little bit true. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re going to continue seeing more gin brands launched, but production will shift towards local— much like you’re seeing in food. Every once in a while, you’ll have a brand that’s so good, it can go global. Those are the brands we represent.
GF: Fighting talk! To be fair, we agree – if a brand is average, it won’t survive in any category, food or drink etc… but that’s got nothing to do with scale, it’s to do with quality.
Cat, Drinks By the Dram has been an amazing success and now part of the Maverick Drinks folio. New plans for Ginvent aside, and away form what we talk about - Do you get to do much R&D and develop new products? Anything in the making we can all get excited about?
CS: We’ve got some tasty ideas for competitions and new products to roll out in advance of Father’s Day from the Drinks by the Dram brand. The great thing about Drinks by the Dram is it doesn’t need perfecting—it gives people what they want at a manageable price point. We’re always releasing new, curated dram sets for people who want to try something new, so in a sense, it’s always exciting. Always changing, always growing!
As far as other products, brands, or R&D are concerned, we leave all of that to the makers as we’re confident in their skills, palates and commercial savvy-ness. We’d never bring a product to market just for the sake of its perceived commercial value; and we’re lucky that we can rely on the quality of the drinks we represent to speak for itself. We leave that kind of R&D to the folks with the years of experience in the field.
GF: Guys, thanks for answering all of our questions! One final probe, what’s the aim for Maverick Drinks over the next two years?
MV: We launched the business in September to bring great new products to market and contribute in a meaningful way to the drinks industry that we all love. We think we’re doing that with the products we bring to market, but we know we can do more. We’re continuing to reach new areas of the country where there is some incredibly enthusiastic bartenders and we hope we can help them make the best drinks they can.
CS: We’re aiming to become the go-to representative of craft spirits in the UK. We want to own craft. Period.
GF: Ooh, think Cat just edged it there. Concise and ambitious! Our thanks to you both and we look forward to seeing the continued rise of Maverick Drinks. You all put so much effort in on brands that already carry themselves, it’s only going one way, and that’s up.
