Couple who raised an orphan dram

Published on Sunday 8 February 2009 20:29

MOST couples maintain they could not work alongside each other – but husband and wife team Alex and Jane Nicol say that setting up a business has brought them closer together. "I think that if we hadn't started working together, then we may be divorced by now," laughs Alex, leaning back in his chair in the converted stables that they use as an office at Spencerfield Farm, near Inverkeithing.

"We probably get on better now after four years working together than we have in a long time," he adds. "You rely on each other more than anything else – we didn't do that before because I was always away."

The couple founded their Spencerfield Spirit Company in 2005 with the aim to "save orphan brands for the iconoclastic whisky drinker".

Alex had previously held a series of senior marketing posts in a veritable "who's who" list of drinks companies, counting Scottish & Newcastle, Whyte & Mackay and Glenmorangie among his former paymasters.

It was while at Glenmorangie that Alex revolutionised the industry by launching the "finishes" range, a selection of different flavours – including Madeira, port and sherry – introduced into the whisky by maturing the spirit in wooden barrels from other drinks sectors.

Later, at Whyte & Mackay, it was the same desire for innovation that prompted Alex to buy the Sheep Dip and Pig's Nose brands from his employer and set up his own company to develop them.

Sheep Dip is a vatted whisky blended from 16 single malts aged between eight and 21 years, while Pig's Nose is based on Invergordon grain whisky aged between five and seven years, blended with Speyside and Highland malts with about 7 per cent Islay malt.

Back in the 1970s, Sheep Dip had built up a cult following and topped the best-sellers chart at Harrods for a year during the 1980s. After rummaging about in his desk drawer for a moment, Alex produces a 20-year-old copy of the Wall Street Journal, carrying an advert for Sheep Dip.

Today, Spencerfield is shipping about 12,000 cases of its two whiskies each year, generating a turnover of about 750,000 in its past financial year and prompting the Nicols to aim for 1 million of revenue this year.

To recreate the taste of the whiskies, the Nicols hired Richard Paterson, a third- generation master blender. But, even with such a rich heritage, how do you sell a whisky with a name like Sheep Dip?

"By letting thousands of people taste it," explains Jane. "In one year, between 40,000 and 50,000 get to taste samples at shows."

Travelling around country shows – from Perth down to Somerset and everywhere else in between – is a key part of the Nicols' marketing ploy, along with selling their wares in farm shops, delicatessens and independent bottle shops.

Alex believes the brands themselves – and the stories behind them – also help to sell the Scotch to whisky drinkers who don't want a run-of-the-mill supermarket dram.

"You can't buy history," Alex muses. "People discard brands when a new regime comes in. I've seen it so many times.

"The new people go 'That's a crap brand and it's going'. Everything gets dumped.

"I looked at these and thought they were great brands. I was talking to a friend from Diageo and asked 'what's the best name for a vatted malt?' And he said Sheep Dip – everybody knows it and it's great fun. The basis was there – it just needed some life breathing into it."

Disappearing back into his desk drawers, Alex emerges with a sheaf of "fan mail" – letters from whisky drinkers thanking the Nicols for reviving their favoured tipples, with one enthusiastic artist from Northern Ireland even drawing a Sheep Dip cartoon on the back of his epistle.

The Nicols financed the launch of their business themselves, without taking any outside investment. Setting up their own business was a challenge at first, with Alex adjusting to life outside the blue-chip corporate sphere. "You have to learn a whole new set of disciplines," he remembers. "You stop writing reports that don't get read and attending meetings that literally last for half a day.

"Here's the thing, you come and do this yourself and you can forget everything you've learned. That was my problem in the first six months – asking Jane to do things, but then realising that we both needed to do things together.

"Our plan has been on the back of a fag packet so far. But you have to have a plan because the thing you do a lot as a small business is wander off and do the things you enjoy, which is dangerous. You've got to have a plan and sit down together and have a semi-formal meeting – which as a husband and wife team is almost impossible – and ask: 'Have we done this or that?'"

They are now keen to expand, adding to their range of whiskies and targeting new markets. Sheep Dip and Pig's Nose already sell well in the United States and have even picked up a celebrity fan, in the form of actor Kiefer Sutherland, of 24 and Flatliners fame.

Alex says: "I don't see a plateau in sales yet because Australia's hardly scratched, nor is New Zealand."

The pair are looking to build their own sales team and are also turning their attention to expanding their range, with gifts tied in with their brands.

Fruits of Jane's labour are scattered around the office: from wool-lined display cases for Sheep Dip and china mugs emblazoned with the phrase "I'd rather be drinking Sheep Dip", through to a red box mounted on the wall containing two miniatures, with 'In case of emergency break glass' printed on the front.

They also have their eyes on other spirits, including a gin. The pair think the spirit would be especially appropriate for their Spencerfield operation because a historian from St Andrews University recently told them that many of the whiskies traditionally distilled in Fife were sent south of the Border to be re- distilled and made into gin.

Spencerfield Farm itself is steeped in whisky history – the original fortified house was built in 1510, with the first records of a distillery on the site emanating from 1795. Five years earlier, a character called James Anderson left his home at Spencerfield for the New World, where he became George Washington's plantation manager and distiller. Americans now regard the Mount Vernon distillery he founded as a national historic monument.

Even though their whiskies are neither distilled nor bottled on their farm, the Nicols will be raising a glass on Washington's birthday next Monday to remember Spencerfield's spiritual ancestor. Across the pond, a few "iconoclastic whisky drinkers" may well be doing the same.