Waitrose to stock Edinburgh Gin after deal with Spencerfield

THE marketing manager behind the launch of Glenmorangie’s wood finishes range of whiskies has signed a deal with up-market grocer Waitrose to supply gin to its Scottish stores.

Alex Nicol, who now runs Fife-based Spencerfield Spirits with his wife, Jill, yesterday unveiled the contract to supply his Edinburgh Gin to the supermarket chain. The couple are also launching a version of their drink infused with Perthshire raspberries.

The gin is already available in delicatessens, farm shops and some bottle shops but Waitrose will be the only supermarket to stock the spirit. Billy Howie, retail manager at the chain’s Morningside branch, tried the gin during the summer’s Taste of Edinburgh festival and convinced the firm’s buyer to list it. Nicol set up Spencerfield Spirits in 2005 after buying the Pig’s Nose and Sheep Dip whisky brands from his then employer, Whyte & Mackay.

Sheep Dip – which is a vatted whisky blended using 17 single malts – achieved cult status among whisky drinkers during the 1970s and topped the best-sellers chart at Harrods for a year in the 1980s.