New Start Up

Creating your own brand

Here at Hensol Castle Distillery, we specialise in consulting startups in their entirety. We can be involved as much or as little as you require. We have worked with local and national brands from complete start-up, and have grown with them, maintaining these relationships since we first turned our still on.

Here’s a basic understanding of what to expect from us and starting your new alcoholic beverage brand.

Welcome

We welcome you to an on-site distillery visit, zoom or phone call. Whilst we always prefer a face to face, we understand that it’s not always possible.

If you do though, day 1, you’ll get to learn about our distillery & production facility before we sit down for a chat and your preferred hot beverage.

Advice

We are a wealth of knowledge here at Hensol and it all stems from building our distillery, creating our own brands and working with others. Through legals, HMRC, licensing, and the fun stuff, design, creativity and of course liquids.

We offer our trade contacts free of charge, and we don’t work on commissions. Free sourcing is available, advisory graphic designers, approved bottle decorators and specialist embellishment creators are people we work with daily. You of course, the client, are able to choose to use or not use any contacts we pass on, and we will work with anyone that you choose to create your own brand.

Advice is given freely, as we understand the outlays and cash flow constraints for a complete start up.

Licensing

In regard to licensing, it’s normally the first thing we tend to get sorted, so you are able to manage online sales, sales to your own venue, and of course business to business sales. Obtaining your licences is also important, so you’re able to trade with Hensol Castle Distillery.

We offer help with the following:

Personal licence
We introduce you to our chosen representative who will help you complete the BII course, get your DBS sorted, and complete your personal licence application. You should be able to obtain this within 6 weeks of your visit with us.

Premises licence
We aren’t able to complete your application for you, as you will need to enter a lot of business sensitive information for this, and it would need to come from the proprietor. However, we can advise on do’s, don’ts and timelines for your premises license application to make it go smoothly. Please bear in mind, not all businesses need this, unless of course you tend to retail from a premises. Please allow, the time your application gets filled out and received by your local authority, and then throw another 60 days on top. We can explain the ins and outs of the process in person.

AWRS
The most important of them all. The AWRS will allow you to trade with us as your chosen producer. It will allow you to complete online alcohol sales, and it will allow you to do business to business sales, for trade accounts, retail & Wholesale. We can offer full consultancy free of charge, so you are prepared for your HMRC application.

There’s a bit of groundwork, but when that’s done, you’ll receive your AWRS within 4 weeks of your application.

We have a 100% success rate in achieving all licenses with our clients.

The Fun Stuff!

Design, packaging, print

We work with several graphic designers, printers, bottle decorators & packaging companies. Some at different pay grades, but all reputable and transparent. Quotes are available before any works completed. We will make introductions, and be involved as much or as little as you need with this process. Some of our designers have worked with huge brands like Diagio, Pernod Ricard and Bacardi Forman brands, and others are local, but you’ll still be impressed with their work. We can show you their portfolios, and you can of course see some bottle shapes, sizes and designs on site. We will provide you with realistic timelines and MOQ’s for any type of bottle finish, Box, cork or label & embellishment. You can go budget to super premium, and we can even source custom moulded glass or ceramic.

Liquid

Gin / Vodka / Rum / World Whiskeys / Tequila-Agave / Brandy-Cognac / liqueurs / made wine / RTD cocktails / Schnapps / Vermouth

This truly is the fun part, for us and you. When we get to this stage, you’ll be in a great place for your new brand. We offer full new product development (NPD). We do charge a fee, which would be a maximum of £1500. This would generally be a bespoke gin or spiced rum recipe. The recipe will be unlike any other, and the second the fee is paid, you own that recipe in its entirety. All intellectual property belongs to you, which should be a huge comfort for you and your business. Variants of your current recipe (turning your spiced rum into a flavoured spiced rum) for E.g. Would be an additional £500 going forward, and other spirit categories will be by quotation, but all sub £1500.

Our Master Distiller and his team of distillers are now responsible for 27 gold awards, and they always aim to get more for Hensol and their clients. They treat your liquids as they do Hensol’s own brands. Please read a client testimonial here.

There are little limitations to what we can do liquid wise. If you have an idea, we will make the best of it. There’s a list above of all the spirits we are able to source, distil, blend, compound and develop, but you can break each spirit category down to many others, like so:

Gin > London Dry > Distilled Gin > Gin liqueur > Old Tom > Flavoured Gin > Navy Strength/Overproof > Low ABV/Cal > Gin cocktail

Production

When we get here, you’ll be a fully licensed wholesaler. You’ll have a finished exquisite brand & a fantastic, award winning capable liquid. We aim for a 1000L minimum order QTY which can be spread between similar SKU’s if you have more than 1, or the liquid can be in multiple sized bottles.

We will bottle, label, fill and package your product to the highest specification and everything will be compliant with HMRC and to a Salsa accredited standard which opens opportunities in supermarkets.

All of our works orders are carried out by our production manager and his team, liquid approved by our Master Distiller, quality control by our technical Manager and final approval by our Head of operations. You’re truly in the best hands here at Hensol and we share the excitement with you!

We can distribute direct to yourself, or direct to your wholesalers/ retailers. We can also offer bonded/non bonded storage for a minor £3 per pallet per week which is a discounted fee for clients who produce with us. You won’t find cheaper.

Launch

We are always happy to help our clients on launch. Our marketing team are happy to utilize our socials for launch posts, and any good news stories you may have going forward.

If you want us to sing your praises during sales meetings, we can of course showcase your brand and put it in places that you haven’t yet had the opportunity yourself. It’s truly in our interest for all of our clients to do well.