JAMIE BAXTER

BY BETHANY WHYMARK A RECIPE

FOR

SUCCESS

Meet the spirits consultant who has helped many gin distilleries to launch – and some to achieve stardom

“It’ s just another way of processing starch, really, ” Jamie Baxter says. He ’ s telling me about the breakfast cereal company he owned before he “ accidentally ” fell into the world of spirits and launched his successful distilling consultancy. After selling his company to European cereals giant Morning Foods in around 2006, he was approached by William Chase, founder of English potato crisp brand Tyrells, who wanted a way to add value to the cereal crops he was growing in rotation with his spuds. “He took me on [and] we were going to build Tyrells muesli factory, ” Baxter explains. “Just before I joined the company I had booked starting I went off on two weeks of holiday. When I came back, I found he’d cancelled all the orders for all the equipment that I had placed and he said, ‘Jamie, muesli’s really boring, how do you fancy making potato nanosecond and thought, ‘this could be fun,

None of the team had any distilling experience, so Baxter spent a year teaching himself how to distil and designing what would become Chase Distillery. Launched was winning international plaudits within followed in 2009.

that time small-scale distilling simply wasn’t allowed… We didn’t realise that Sipsmith were starting up in London at the same time, and Ian Hart was starting Sacred Spirits... We didn’t know, so it wasn’t a race, but we won, Sipsmith did. ”

decided to put his hard-earned distilling knowledge to use helping others to start up. He launched his own consultancy, now Craft scenes plays well to his personality; by his own admission he is not a salesman, and his real strength lies in operational management

The UK’s gin boom was still in its embryonic stages, with a smattering of craft players in London, The Botanist on Islay, and Anno Gin in Kent, alongside Sipsmith, Scared and

came a phone call from Jonathan Clark, distillery in the UK to set up inside a bar, and still the only gin distillery in the Square Mile, it is now owned by Halewood Artisanal Spirits and is home to both Whitley Neill and the City of London gins.)

Business has increased exponentially in the years since, with projects across gin, whisky, include companies in France, Kenya and Asia). While it’s not the only spirit he works with, gin has made up the bulk of Baxter’s

or so years, gin is now the second-largest Trending reports). Compared to other spirits to set up and kit out a gin distillery, and that gin than it would of any other spirit. Also, the still, into a bottle and out to consumers in just a few weeks, unlike whisky, which will need years in a cask before you make production to sale is enticing. As Baxter puts it,

“We are in this business to make money,

Baxter’s consulting process runs the gamut of distilling: sometimes it’s something as solution. He talks to clients to understand their needs, goals and budget, then assists in distillery set-up, equipment purchasing and and tax, and trains them to distil on their

Opening pages: Jamie Baxter on a visit to Burleighs Gin These pages, from left: Salcombe Distilling Co. founders Howard Davies and Angus Lugsdin; Salcombe ’ s Marabelle Gin, and New London Light non-alcoholic spirit range; On the farm with Chase Distillery new equipment.

“Many people that we work with are from outside the industry and often they need quite a lot of hand-holding, ” he says.

“It’s not just a question of teaching them how to distil, it is trying to point them in the right direction for the whole business. ”

While many of his consultancy projects are protected by non-disclosure agreements, is now pushing its products in America waste (“I really like [Will’s] ethos and the way he works”); and the brand-new Galway City Distillery in Ireland, a bar-based distillery the sophistication of the area’s Michelinstarred restaurants.

He is also pleased to see former protégés major conglomerates, as happened with although, as a distiller, he admits to being a little disappointed by “hard-headed” entrepreneurs who “don’t get carried away with the romance of the spirit” .

stills at Chase Distillery, the gin landscape has changed immeasurably. The market is no longer dominated by a few megalithic players; it is perfectly legitimate to make gin on a small scale and stick to selling locally, and there are hundreds of brands in the UK this approach, Baxter recommends a greater selling through distributors, wholesalers or little patch” is important, Baxter says there is no shame in dreaming big. He uses another of his projects, Burleighs Gin, as an example:

soon after launching, the distillery got a foothold in Japan. “It was fantastic to go out there, and this is from a tiny little distillery in rural Leicestershire, ” he says.

also teaches it. He runs a week-long course in Bakewell, Derbyshire, on how to set up a distillery. It attracts participants from Gin, who was looking for a more hands-on heard this a lot, from lots of different people, they ’re getting a bit bored of sitting in front of a computer looking at spreadsheets all day their hands, and Nick decided that gin might nice product and putting it in a stunningly quite the position he’s in, because he has people approaching him asking to buy the try and sell it. ”

Baxter certainly doesn’t think the gin bubble is ready to burst yet, stating that most of his increasing number of enquiries from abroad beyond the UK and has been doing for a few years now, and other countries want to put their own twist on it. Australia’s a they are all just a little bit different. I teach a course once a year in America, teaching American distillers how to make gin, because and there’s loads of potential there for somebody to get it right. ”

For people considering their own craft distilling project, Baxter warns against also shares a tip from a friend, distiller and author Marcel Thompson: “He’s always asked, ‘How long is it going to take to build a distillery and how much is it going to cost by-two timber: it’ll either take four times as long as you think and cost twice as much, or it’ll cost four times as much as you think and take twice as long. ’ And that’s a really good answer, because it’s so true. But, by using a making, and also do it safely. ”