Starting your own business in this day and age is never easy, especially when faced with the combined challenges of the covid outbreak, Brexit and of course, the current cost of living crisis.
That's why, at Edinburgh Live, we love hearing about a success story, especially when it features two of the capital's own that are doing so well.
When friends John Ferguson and Alex Harrison took the leap to start their own whisky firm, Youngs Spirits in 2019, they avoided the conventional routes that many take in the spirits industry and instead set out to help others achieve their goals too.
Described as a "secret weapon" for distillers and producers, the pair hit upon the idea of creating a state-of-the-art bottling facility in Edinburgh which offered everything from bottling to labelling and packaging for firms that needed it in and around Edinburgh.
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"My background was in Scotch whisky," explained Alex. "And I knew there was a demand there for bottling because I had private clients that owned casks of whisky who couldn't get them bottled at any of the bigger bottling houses. So, we decided to start a small contract bottling site in Sighthill and really it grew from there."
As with all small businesses in recent times, they faced more than a few challenges when they first launched including struggling to get their equipment shipped over from Italy and of course, the not-so-insignificant matter of covid.
"There was a week about six months in, where we thought we were going to have to close the business down," stated Alex. "But actually it ended up accelerating our growth because we started bottling hand sanitiser and it led to us moving to a bigger site up the road."
Since then their small firm has grown dramatically, tripling their revenue in just over three years and taking on 40 members of staff, with the bottling rising from 750 bottles per day in the early days to nearly 4,000 – that's over 1,250,000 bottles per year.
This is only set to increase when they introduce a new SSE (fast) line in autumn, that will be the first of its kind in the UK and can run 8,000 bottles an hour. They've also managed to retain their biggest clients throughout, some of which have been with them from the very start, something Alex and John are very proud of, but they aren't resting on their laurels.
Having worked with whisky, rum, gin and vodka firms over the years, they have also produced their own brands, such as the Uhuru range (which means 'freedom' in Swahili) featuring an exciting rum and a 10-year-old blended malt Scotch whisky that sees the team dedicate 10 per cent of net-sales to the African conservation charity, Tusk.
They also have a new premium whisky range, Ferg & Harris, through which they plan to release small batch single-cask whiskies paired with great quality casks. Something that has led them into the area of cask selection and management, such as the 12-year-old Speyside, which they age in sherry casks they have sourced themselves, for six months.
And they have more big plans for the future, such as expanding their brands portfolio – either by starting more of their own or investing in others – as well as creating a website shop for people to buy them from.
But it's inviting the people of Edinburgh and beyond into their space which is really exciting them, with big plans to open up their tourism offering already in place.
"We really want to get site visits up and running," explained Alex. "To bring the public into Youngs Spirits and see all of the processes that go on here, we are a pretty accessible venue as we are five minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from town. That's something we'll probably get up and running in the latter stages of 2023."
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