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  • 2 years ago
Taste Wales/Blas Cymru is a nationwide event showcasing all the food and drink Wales has to offer, with producers from around the country coming together for one event. We speak to the up and coming drinks producers who tell us where their companies start and say why this event is so important to them.

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00:00 So Wales is the first ever vermouth company.
00:03 Vermouth is like a fortified wine, so like sherry or port, but unlike sherry or port,
00:07 it's also got wild plants in it as well.
00:09 So we use plants in wild temperature to flavour the drinks.
00:12 We do a sweet vermouth, a dry vermouth, and also we do a seaweed gin.
00:15 Seaweed gin's got gorse flower, sea buckthorn, seaweed, all kinds of coastal herbs,
00:20 a very dry, very savoury gin.
00:22 So we are a bartender-owned and founded brand.
00:25 We both love drinks. We were both in the drinks industry in London,
00:30 both selling booze into bars, running bars.
00:33 Covid happened, we decided to return home to Wales and Distil & Phil was born.
00:38 But yeah, so our ethos is making just really good bar quality drinks
00:43 and we supply both to bars in large format and in retail for consumers to take home.
00:48 And yeah, just really want people to have a decent beer for wherever they are
00:51 and not have to worry about having to get 20 bottles out, making a mess,
00:55 having them not be consistent.
00:57 We're all about quick, easy, consistent drinks.
00:59 Yeah, so we launched in April '21. We're a Panath-based business
01:03 and our unique point, I guess, is that we recycle waste coffee grounds, spent coffee grounds.
01:09 So we recognise there's a lot of that going to landfill where it gives off methane,
01:14 contributes to global warming, and actually there's a load of goodness still left in the coffee.
01:18 When you think about all the love and care that goes into making that coffee
01:22 and then literally it goes into the waste bin.
01:25 So whereas we're all being urged to reduce our food waste,
01:28 we thought, well, why not try and reuse and recycle?
01:31 And that was the remit, if you like, of Grounds for Good.
01:34 So I used to work in the Caribbean. I used to race X America's cup yachts in St. Martin
01:39 and that's pretty much where Bullion was founded.
01:42 I find it a bit in the industry where I saw a bit of a gap in the markets
01:46 where everything was sort of traditional to rum and pirates, as you'd imagine, and pieces of eight.
01:51 So I wanted to become more of a modern-day pirate with a Bullion bar, who saves you vaults,
01:56 and just a little different take on it.
02:00 It's definitely different. It's definitely eye-catching.
02:03 But I think it's all good, well, having a good glitzy bottle,
02:06 but you've got to be able to back it up with the liquid.
02:09 So we have won multiple awards for flavour and taste
02:12 and hopefully now we'll get a couple more this year as well.
02:15 So it's all going in the right direction.
02:17 When you've got an opportunity like this, they see you face to face.
02:20 You've got an opportunity to really showcase what you're doing
02:24 and your passion for what you're doing and the story behind it.
02:28 And I think that just makes it so much easier to connect with people.
02:32 Really well. We've had some wonderful meetings.
02:34 I had a few booked in, but actually just catching people walking past
02:37 and people are seeing what we do and realising that we could have a solution for their business.
02:41 So it's a really good opportunity for us.
02:43 But it's also for us quite hard when you're a small company
02:45 getting up there and doing the sales side of things.
02:47 I mean, half the year I'm in a hedgerow picking plants, the other half I'm distilling.
02:50 So it's quite hard at the time to go meet people.
02:53 So it's lovely to be able to come here and have so many good buyers all in one place.
02:57 And just efficient and lovely to have the support we've had from the Welsh Government
03:01 in terms of getting us set up and having those meetings.
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