When life offers you lemons, make lemonade – so they are saying. Properly, life has been handing out numerous Covid-19 formed lemons within the final 12 months or so, which has been fairly powerful on everybody in Singapore’s meals & beverage business. There are solely so many cocktails that may be garnished with a lemon wedge throughout a lockdown, in any case.
A few 12 months in the past, drink business veterans Matthew Fergusson-Stewart and Chris Chambers acquired some considerably giant lemons within the form of redundancy. They weren’t alone, in fact – many individuals in F&B, each native and expatriate, discovered themselves in the identical scenario. The locals had been compelled to seek out different employment or wait it out, whereas most of the expatriates had been, properly, repatriated.
Matthew and Chris are each former Glenfiddich model ambassadors and met in 2015 at Glenfiddich distillery. Over pints and banter – properly, a lot of pints and banter – they turned agency pals. They anticipated to someday begin working collectively, however as Matthew was residing in Singapore overlaying Asia Pacific, and Chris was in Dubai overlaying the United Arab Emirates, they didn’t count on that to be any time quickly.
Matthew had spent practically 15 years within the drinks business having labored with The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Auld Alliance, William Grant & Sons, and The Whisky Retailer. He additionally began Fb whisky neighborhood Dram Full and an occasion we aren’t allowed to speak about. Chris has been within the business simply as lengthy, having with Oddbins and Royal Mile Whiskies (in Scotland) and African & Japanese (in Dubai), earlier than transferring to Singapore to develop into The Grasp of Spirits with grand foyer bar ATLAS.
However come April final 12 months – when all bars and eating places had been closed as a result of COVID pandemic – their respective employers needed to allow them to go.
“It was a tricky time,” shares Matthew, “the very first thing we needed to do was scramble for brand new visas to interchange our Employment Passes so we may keep in Singapore, as nobody was hiring anybody in our subject of experience. After which it was a query of ‘so what subsequent?’.”
“We allowed ourselves somewhat little bit of sofa time, however there’s no level sitting round too lengthy being depressing and petty simply since you lose your job in a pandemic,” Chris provides. “It was a reasonably pure factor to say to one another, we each have some financial savings, let’s put them collectively and get began on our personal enterprise, even when it’s a lot prior to we had deliberate.”
Spinning SPUN Spirits into place
And so, SPUN Spirits Pte Ltd, a spirits consultancy and distribution enterprise, was born. To finish the group, they approached Elaine Seah of Model Included – a life-style public relations agency – thereby including some severe advertising chops to their enterprise. After all, it most likely helped that Elaine occurred to be Matthew’s spouse.
There was so much to do earlier than they had been capable of begin buying and selling. “I wish to say it was straightforward,” says Matthew, “however our passes, incorporation, licenses, permits and financial institution accounts all took so much longer than normal due to social distancing and earn a living from home necessities – we couldn’t simply pop into workplaces to get issues executed. I undoubtedly screamed at my laptop display just a few occasions.”
However in keeping with Chris, there was quite a lot of positivity too. “Everybody within the business was in the same scenario, however they had been nonetheless very fast to step in and provide help. Inside just a few weeks we had been provided sub-distribution preparations by three firms and had an unbelievable quantity of assist from different established distributors like Distilled LLP. They by no means handled us as a competitor; they handled us as pals in want of a hand.””The drinks neighborhood in Singapore is a really particular place”, Matthew declares, “They actually band collectively and assist one another out each time they’ll. It’s an superior factor to be a part of, and we definitely need to give again that love wherever we will.”
It could have been a wrestle at factors, however Matthew and Chris appear to keep up their banter and wild humour. Upon being requested concerning the identify SPUN Spirits, they each chortle. “Properly, it began as placeholder whereas we although of a greater identify, however we ended up liking it so much,” says Matthew. Chris shortly provides – not fairly so jokingly – that it’s additionally an anagram of ‘spirits puns’, and “we’re mainly youngsters”.
That humour pervades a lot of what they do. Within the quick time they’ve been operational they’ve executed two visitors shifts, specifically ‘Piss Turnips’ (one other anagram of SPUN Spirits) at whisky bar The Single Cask, and ‘SPUN-dau Ballet’ at sandwich bar PorkyPine.
There’s extra to come back, they promise.
A SPUNner In The Works
However it isn’t all enjoyable and video games. Chris and Matthew nonetheless tread the pavement each day doing gross sales visits and nearly all of their very own deliveries as a result of they need to construct shut relationships with their clients. When the dialog turns to the spirits of their portfolio, their collective expertise as model ambassadors emerges.
“Sure, we’ve quite a lot of enjoyable working collectively, however we’ve a deep love and appreciation for the spirits we work with. We don’t work with manufacturers if we don’t imagine in them,” Chris says extra significantly.
Matthew agrees. “We’re not simply box-movers searching for margin. We need to construct a robust portfolio, we need to construct manufacturers and we need to construct a sustainable enterprise we might be happy with,” he muses.
Unsurprisingly, with their backgrounds constructing a robust portfolio got here fairly naturally to them. They’ve already established themselves because the native brokers for some excellent worldwide manufacturers together with El Dorado rum, Tiki Lovers rum, Arbikie Scotch whisky, Nadar gin and vodka, Procera gin, and most not too long ago, Equiano rum.
Notably absent although – given their respective backgrounds – is any single malt Scotch whisky. “We’re engaged on that, amongst a few different issues, so keep tuned,” was all Matthew would say.
“We’ve each constructed actually robust networks through the years, and we’ve all the time cared concerning the business and the individuals within the business. That’s develop into extraordinarily useful to us in constructing a portfolio of nice manufacturers,” Chris elucidates. “We’ve additionally ramped up fairly shortly on the client aspect. We solely began promoting sub-distributed merchandise in November and our personal imports from January this 12 months,” he provides.
SPUN Spirits isn’t just a distribution firm. Matthew and Chris proceed to do quite a lot of model ambassador work round city and have been engaged on some bar consultancy tasks. “Distribution work truly includes quite a lot of paperwork and fewer glamorous issues like cold-calling to construct the client base however we each get pleasure from truly speaking about spirits to customers and bartenders. That has develop into a big a part of our enterprise. We’ve executed quite a lot of whisky tastings and rum tastings in the previous few months and we’ve quite a lot of gin tastings forward of us too,” Matthew explains. “That’s been a steep studying curve – clearly we’re each know extra for whisky than some other spirit – nevertheless it’s been quite a lot of enjoyable and extremely rewarding.”
Whereas each acknowledge that Singapore is usually a fiercely aggressive market, that doesn’t look like one thing that bothers them. “We’re not parallel merchants; that may be a extremely powerful recreation. We’re bringing in a variety of recent and high quality spirits, we’re constructing manufacturers and we’re constructing information amongst customers and bar tenders. We’ve discovered a distinct segment the place we’ve nice strengths,” Chris insists.
Requested the place they see themselves amongst native distributors, the grins return. “Ha! We’re tiny!” Matthew exclaims. “It’s simply the three of us for now, however issues are undoubtedly on the right track. We’ll be importing by the pallet for fairly some time earlier than we begin bringing in containers,” Chris nods.
“We’re undoubtedly on this for the long-haul. We’re nonetheless a startup however that’s not the place we intend to complete up,” concludes Chris.
For extra info on SPUN Spirits and the spirits they characterize, go to their web site. This text was first revealed on SpiritedSingapore.com.
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