Spirited bid to target top end drinkers

A FORMER director of Maxxium, the global drinks distribution giant, has set up an artisan spirits company in Fife using his redundancy money.

Martin Price, who was marketing director for Maxxium in Germany until December 2008, is seeking to take advantage of Britons' growing interest in boutique gin and vodka with his firm Park Place Drinks.

He hopes his premium gin, called SW4, and his high-end vodka, Radost, will compete with the likes of Bombay Sapphire and Absolut vodka.

The two spirits have been developed in partnership with Thames Distillers in south London.

Price said there is particular scope for growth in the UK premium gin market, with the resurgence of specialist gin bars and the increasing popularity of high end brands such as Bombay Sapphire and Hendrick's, the Scottish gin produced by William Grant & Sons.

Price said: "Gin has been talked about as the up and coming category for a while now but its time is probably now. At the top end, a lot of people are re-discovering it."

Price hopes that Radost, which means pleasure or joy in Czech, will be able to make its mark in the already crowded premium vodka market by distinguishing itself as a brand which is free of unwanted ingredients such as glycerin or citric acid.

He said: "I didn't realise until I came to make Radost that so many vodkas have these things in them. It needs to be talked about." He hopes the vodka, which is to be launched later this year, will strike a chord with the increasing number of Britons who want to know what exactly goes into their food products.

Price has set up Park Place Drinks with his wife Sue who previously worked for the Edrington Group, maker of The Famous Grouse and Highland Park.

So far the couple have ploughed 100,000 of their own money into the firm but Price said the start-up is likely to need at least double that investment to reach his goal of 100,000 bottles of gin by the end of the year.

As well as marketing and distributing its own brand, Park Place Drinks will also operate a distribution business for other brands.

The firm is acting as the UK distributor for Q Tonic, an "uber tonic" from North America which is made using quinine sourced from the slopes of the Peruvian Andes.