‘When I Suggested Using Berries in Gin, My Co-Founders Thought I Was Crazy’ – Brockmans Gin Founder, Neil Everitt, on His Properly Improper Vision

In the elegant surroundings of a five-star hotel in County Wicklow, we met Neil Everitt, the man behind Brockmans Gin, one of the most intriguing gin brands.

From the moment he welcomed us, his warmth and down-to-earth nature were unmistakable. As we settled in, he shared his journey, his passion for crafting exceptional gin, and what makes Brockmans truly stand out.

We would love to hear about your journey. How did everything start, and how did you get into the gin industry?

Well, the journey is a long one, over sixty years, I guess. I started as a farmer, a farmer’s son, on a small farm in Cambridgeshire, England. It was a fruit farm, so we had apple trees, pear trees, and bushes with berries, red currants, blackberries, and so on. The farm was started around 1900 by my great-grandfather, my grandfather’s father, so it has been four generations. 

From there, through various decisions, I ended up in the drinks industry. I worked for Allied Domecq, a big global company that no longer exists. In 2005, it was sold to Pernod Ricard, and at that point, I decided that instead of continuing my life as an employee of a big company, I wanted to do something for myself. 

Together with some friends, we thought, let’s make a gin. That was the only inspiration. We did not have any market research or huge insight, we just wanted to make a gin. We decided it should be different in some way because there were already some fantastic gins out there in 2006, which is when these conversations were happening. I remember one phrase; Tanqueray is an amazing gin. We are not going to try to “out-Tanqueray” because they are very good at what they do, but we should be different.

So we were talking about how we could be different. This is where my farming background comes in because I said, what about berries and fruit? My friends said, in gin? I said, why not? If we want to be different, I promise you we can make an amazing gin with berries as one of its botanicals.

That is how Brockmans was born, a conversation between friends. It was a really fun project.

Here we are seventeen years later. We launched in 2008, and now it is an international business, which was never the objective at the start. It was a personal passion project that almost accidentally turned into a business.

You said you did not conduct market research. Now, from an investor perspective, would you do anything differently?

I have been technically trained in marketing, and I really value the power of market research. Particularly today, the richness you can get on consumer attitudes and how consumers feel about your brands through the Internet and social media.

But I also think that sometimes the best decisions are made almost completely on instinct, and you cannot buy that or research that. I am sure that no one would have told Apple there was a big demand for the iPhone - because, at the time, everyone was happily using BlackBerry and Nokia. Steve Jobs and his team, I am sure they had some information, but to envision what this has become is incredible. I think sometimes the more interesting steps are taken through inspiration and intuition rather than research.

At the time, the gin category was old and boring. Hendrick's Gin had just launched, so people were starting to say, hang on, gin with cucumber, that is unusual. It used to be all about London Dry Gin with Schweppes tonic or Fentimans tonic, very dry. I think Hendrick's and Bombay Sapphire started to challenge some of those assumptions. We were just in the right place at the right time. Then the boom happened, and we were lucky in that sense.

And why did you choose gin and not, for example, whiskey?

Well, it is probably because you can take the man out of England, but you cannot take England out of the man. The trope is that Englishmen are weaned off milk onto warm, flat beer. Then they start to drink claret, red Bordeaux, and gin. That was supposedly the Englishman's drinking life cycle in the past. Gin has always been very popular in England.

Plus, when I was working for the multinational, one of my jobs along the way was to be responsible for the Spanish market. The Spanish also love gin. Our main brand was Beefeater, which was the market leader at the higher price point. So, I had a lot of experience in selling gin as well with my team in Spain.

As a consumer, as a marketer, and as a salesman, it was a category I felt very comfortable with.

What types of challenges did you face?

First is scale, or the lack of it. When you start, you are effectively one person or a few people, and you are handselling. A lot of great drink stories start with the founder selling bottles out of the trunk of a car. I would not say we were exactly like that, but it was a very small business with very limited resources.

We had to pay in advance for the bottles. The bottle supplier would not give us any credit. Zero. The minimum production run was six months, which cost us probably five times more than what we had intended to spend on marketing in a whole year. That is the wrong way around. Normally, for a consumer product like gin, you would want to spend more on marketing than on production.

But we had no credit and no choice.

Another challenge was scale because you only have so many people. Your ability to reach the market is limited when you can only visit 15 or 20 bars in a day. Scaling up resources is challenging, and to make that happen, you either need financial resources generated by sales, if things are going well, or through investment.

The second thing I would do differently this time is that once we started having early success in the UK and Spain, I waited too long to go into the supermarkets. I was very purist. In the industry, people say that premium brands are built in hospitality because that is where people interact with the brand. You can create some theatre, working with bars, and bartenders, making cocktails, and hosting events. It is much more of a relationship. The idea is to build the brand in hospitality and then scale up volume selling through Tesco or whoever. 

Getting the timing right is crucial. If you go too early, you risk not being seen as a cool brand that people discover in their favourite bar. If you are everywhere in supermarkets, you become a mass-market brand. I think I waited too long, and that probably cost us in terms of growth. But hindsight is a perfect science. Looking back, everything is clear. At the time, you make the best decision you can.

The third point, which I am very proud of and do not regret at all, is that we have never taken institutional or professional investment. We have built the business purely on investment from family, friends, and friends of friends. Some of the investors are professional finance people, but they have invested as individuals and not as companies.

What influenced your decision to avoid institutional or professional investment?

I wanted to keep it personal. I have worked in private equity and run businesses owned by private equity. They are great people, and very intelligent, but I wanted this to remain personal for me. I thought that would be more difficult with a professional investor at the board table.

They ask all the right questions, do not get me wrong, but I do not regret that decision at all. We are still only 36 shareholders. I would not say it is family; I am not on Christmas lunch terms with everyone, but I have everyone’s email, we communicate, and it is still quite a personal project. That is important to me. It is not the only way of doing it, of course. Everyone can do it whichever way they like, but this is my preferred route.

Let’s discuss competition. You have a personal approach to your brand, while on the other side, there are large brands backed by major financial institutions. How do you navigate and compete in such a landscape?

A number of ways. I used to work in a big company, and I know I owe a lot to that experience because I learned a lot. It is like being at school. Big companies, however, because they are so large, are not as good at small intricate relationships. They have some very good salespeople who manage customer relationships, but they are part of a big machine. I think there is an ecosystem concept here where people like me and companies like Brockmans are the creators and ninety percent of us will not succeed.

That is sad but it is actually good because only brands with a purpose and something to say will survive. In general, though, the creators and initiators are not the ones to take the next step which is to really scale a brand. I do not have two hundred salespeople in Ireland. We work with a very good local partner who has a sales team, but the multinationals are structured to operate at scale and to be very efficient and effective.

They are very good at marketing, very good at selling, very good at everything. But they should not be handling small nurturing startups because that is a very different skill set. You might agree or disagree, but I think it is interesting to maintain that perspective.

I have no regrets. I learned a lot in the multinational world and in many ways, it has been the platform for other things I have been able to achieve and the experiences I have had. But personally, at times, I felt lost in the big company because you cannot have close personal relationships with ten thousand people. The chief executive officer, the global boss, is known, you know who they are, and what they look like, but you do not know them.

Whereas we are still a small business. We have a number of very close relationships with our distribution partners and the people who do other things for and with us. I would not say it is as quaint as a family company, it is not family, but it is a more intimate group of people.

That also means that even if you are the owner, the main shareholder, or the founder, if you need to go and buy the Nescafe or an espresso pod, you go and do it. If you need to put paper in the photocopier, you do it. Everyone does whatever is necessary. You focus on your main thing but ultimately it is about doing whatever is needed. We do not have the scale to enforce very strict job separation.

You've mentioned the word ‘scale’ several times. What is your vision for scaling your business over the next five to ten years?

If I were a finance person, I would be telling you about revenue, EBITDA, and so on. I am fluent in finance, but I am a salesman at heart. I have learned marketing, I have learned finance, but I am a salesman at heart. 

For me, success is always relative, so I like to talk about how we are doing relative to the market. The leading brand in the super-premium gin area is Hendrick’s, in terms of volume. They have done a phenomenal job. Interestingly, the owners William Grant & Sons Ltd are still a privately held company, which may also help them have a longer-term view. I admire that company and that brand.

Now, that is on one level. On another level, they are also a competitor. If we are number two or number three in a market, assuming Hendrick’s is number one, that is okay. That is a good job. It will also imply some scale. But if Hendrick’s has half the market and we have ten per cent, I do not need to take any of their fifty per cent. I can still double my business and remain number two. But it means if you are number two or number three in a market, you have achieved something really important, which is relevance and traction among the consumers and the outlets, the bars, and the supermarkets* in that country. So, yes, I think scale is relative.

We are never going to have the scale of Hendrick’s, which is over a million cases. We would be happy to get to a hundred thousand. So, I think scale is relative to where you are and answers your aspirations.

Can you share the inspiration behind using blueberries and blackberries in your product?

The berries idea was born out of my love for what we call soft fruit, not top fruit like pears and apples. I love both of those, but soft fruit is the type that grows on bushes. We had a lot of berries on the farm, including blackberries in the hedges.

They were not farmed, they were wild, but we used to go out and pick them. Half would go in the basket, and half would go in my mouth. Blueberries are native to North American invention and came later. Redcurrants, small red berries, were also part of it, but we don’t use those in our products.

I have always loved the taste of berries. I mentioned earlier that when I suggested using berries to my co-founders, who are no longer in the business, they thought I must be crazy. At the time, people associated fruit with fruit salad or with top fruit like hard fruit.

One of the challenges with gin at that time was that it was mostly London dry gin, apart from Hendrick's. It was very bitter. The juniper gave you a dry mouth, and people would say, "Oh, it tastes like a Christmas tree," like pine trees. It had a very high rejection rate. Nine out of ten people didn’t like gin because of the taste, but one out of ten thought it was amazing. You had some very loyal consumers, but the vast majority of the market was what marketing people called "gin rejectors."

So, we thought if we could make the gin taste better—and a lot better than the juniper-heavy gin—we could open up a whole market.

I remember in the early days, one of our keys to success was that the liquid tasted so good. We realized we had to get as many people as possible to try the product, especially those who would say, "Oh, I don’t like gin." I have sampled Brockmans gin to tens of thousands of people in many countries. People love being offered gin by the founder. It’s a special moment.

People would say, "No, I don’t like gin,” and I would tell them, "You’ve never tasted gin like this. Please just try it. I promise you won't be disappointed." And they would try it and say, "Wow. I’ve never tasted gin like that." Bingo!

And how does that make you feel when people say that they’ve never tasted gin like that?

Oh, for me as the father of the brand, it feels wonderful. It is like a baby. It is like acceptance. They love my baby.

Every great premium and super premium spirits brand has to have a great product. The “juice” in the bottle has to be amazing. Otherwise, why would you charge €40 a bottle? If you just want gin, you can find one for €10 a bottle, but it probably will not taste nearly as good.

That was when the penny dropped. We had made a gin that tastes really great. A gin that many of the nine out of ten people who say they do not like gin actually do like. And even if half the people who previously liked the old-style gin did not like ours, it did not matter because that was only five per cent of the market.

So if we could get as many people as possible to try the gin, that would drive our success. And that is what we did.

Starting in the UK, the gin movement was gaining momentum. Someone started a program called Gin Festival. They featured six gins, and we were one of them. Every weekend, they hired a big hall in a town centre somewhere in England. It was a gin festival. You paid an entry fee, which included three or four gins. You came in, learned about gin, and tried it.

We were consistently the best-selling of the six gins. Over a three-to-four-year period, we let nearly 200,000 people taste our gin. It was a massive sampling effort. One piece of luck was that gin was having its moment. If that had not happened, we would probably still be tiny. Another was that we were one of the six brands in the gin festival. That exposure helped us scale in terms of contacts.

Sorry, I am going on a bit, but while we have done a lot of things right, I am very conscious that we have also had some luck. Anyone with a successful business or brand who denies ever needing luck is probably not reading the same book as everyone else. Luck is a very important partner.

Brockmans is positioned as a premium gin. What steps did you take to enter this market and differentiate Brockmans in the premium category?

There is a whole discussion around super premium gin. There is a strong argument to say that we are in the luxury category. We are certainly not in the necessity category. Alcohol is not a necessity, but if you want gin, you can find cheaper options. So there has to be something special to justify paying a super-premium or luxury price. A lot of that comes down to craftsmanship.

We are not a craft gin in the sense that I do not make it in a small shed at the back of my house and hand-fill all the bottles. We are not craft in that sense. But we are very much crafted in terms of all the components, the packaging, and certainly the liquid. Craftsmanship and the quality that comes from it place us firmly in the super-premium and luxury category.

The new bottle is made with 30% less glass, and you also recently received B Corp certification. How important is sustainability to you?

Sustainability is really important to me personally, but also to the entire team. I have strong views on the environment, but I am not an eco-warrior, by the way. I do drive a car. It is a hybrid, but not 100% electric. It is a mixture. But this all goes back to being a farmer’s son.

When you grow up in the countryside, though I have lived in cities as well, so this is not a criticism of city life, you really appreciate nature. Or at least, I did. I spent a lot of time walking on the farm, and my uncle had a dairy farm where I worked with the cows. You learn to appreciate how everything is interrelated.

I get very distressed by the disposable attitude of society. Litter drives me crazy. I cannot understand why people cannot be bothered to take it home with them. That is a whole different discussion, of course.

I respect people's right to make their own decisions, but I also believe that as individuals and as a company, we have a responsibility. At Brockmans, we want to be a better business. That means being environmentally and socially responsible. It is not just about being conscious of the environment. It is also about the society we operate in, the employees we support, and being a good business partner and employer. I believe that leads to better business overall. A company that positively impacts society is also more sustainable financially.

B Corp has become well known now, which is great, but it is not easy to achieve. It is not an endpoint. It is a starting point. You need to meet a certain level to qualify, but from there, you must keep progressing. Being a B Corp is significant because it reaffirms all the work the team has done and our belief as a company. We have even changed our articles of association. Our corporate documents now reflect an obligation to the world, not just to our shareholders.

But it is an ongoing process. It is not just a label. You have to maintain it, evolve, and continue improving.

Achieving B Corp certification must have been a challenging process...

You go through a full audit to ensure there are no hidden issues. And that is actually a very good process. They help you and work with you, starting with a pre assessment. It is not like you just turn up on the day with a big document and hope for the best, like an exam at school where you wait to see if you passed. There is an element of that, but you go through everything in advance. And if you are not yet doing enough of the right things, then you simply do not apply.

You need to do more work. It is a long process. From start to finish, it took us about eighteen months. It is not overwhelming, but at the same time, it does require extra effort to go through the assessment process. Sometimes, behaving responsibly is not the quickest way of doing things. You have to accept that you might be slightly less efficient in some areas because you are choosing to do things the right way rather than the fastest or the cheapest way. But every decision has consequences.

I am really pleased we achieved it. I am committed to continuing to improve our score, but that is for us, not for anyone else.

There are other ways to approach this. I am involved with another company here in Ireland, and we are not following the B Corp route, but we have different initiatives focused on corporate and environmental responsibility. B Corp is one way of demonstrating commitment, but it is not the only way.

What is your favourite way to enjoy Brockmans Gin?

That is very easy. The driest of dry martinis. 

There is a whole discussion to be had here. A very dry martini actually has very little vermouth in it. Ironically, it is called a martini when it is actually ninety-nine per cent gin, right?

The Americans have a way of describing the dry martini that I like. They call it an “in and out” martini. You chill the stirrer with ice, then throw the ice out. You pour a little vermouth over the ice in the stirrer, swirl it around, and then throw it all out. There is only a trace of vermouth left in the stirrer before you add fresh ice and pour in the gin to chill it.

So, it is not just a few molecules of vermouth, but it is a tiny percentage. It adds just a little edge to the gin. Now, you need a very good gin to do a martini like this.

If you have a very pine-forward gin, a very traditional gin, you will probably want more vermouth. But if you have a perfectly structured, newer style gin like Brockmans, I do not think you need it.

And to answer the question properly, it is definitely stirred, not shaken. The James Bond thing about “shaken not stirred” is nonsense. When you are mixing white spirits, you do not need to shake them. In fact, if you shake them with ice, you only accelerate the melting of the ice and dilute the drink. If you are mixing liquids of different consistency, like juice with a spirit or bitters, then shaking is needed. That is different.

But if, like me, your preferred cocktail is a very dry martini that is ninety-nine per cent gin, you do not want to dilute it with water. You want very cold gin, not watered-down gin. That is why stirring is the best method. It chills the gin down without melting too much of the ice and diluting the drink.

And, of course, it should be served in a classic martini glass with a twist of lime or lemon.

That is my perfect gin martini.

I would also drink a vodka martini, even a dirty vodka martini, mixed with olives and a touch of olive brine. That is a completely different experience.

A hundred years ago in the US, nine out of ten white spirit cocktails on a menu would have been gin-based. Then, over the following sixty years, vodka started to take over. Twenty years ago, nine out of ten of those cocktails were vodka-based. But gin is slowly regaining its rightful place as the best white spirit for cocktails.

How do you envision Brockmans expanding its presence globally?

Let me give you the long-term vision, and then I will try, if I may, to make some short-term comments. You may not want to include them, but we are in a period of significant uncertainty at the moment with the US, Trump, and all that.

Most of the gin markets we would target for growth are in North America and Europe in terms of market potential. That is an accurate reflection of our current strategy. There are opportunities further afield in South Africa, Australia, certain places in the Far East like China and Singapore, and cities like Kuala Lumpur. There are also some significant metropolitan centres in Central and Latin America. However, the volume is mainly concentrated on the West Coast and East Coast of the US, as well as Greater Europe.

Gin has not yet taken off in the US the way it did in Europe or as it is still doing, particularly in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. So there are still growth markets out there. The older gin markets like the UK, Ireland, and Spain have seen slower growth, and in some cases, it has turned negative. We have a clear road map in terms of geography and some exceptionally strong partnerships with local importers.

Within the company, we have very experienced and intelligent senior salespeople who are excellent at managing relationships with in-market companies. Our structure is designed to be almost a virtual brand company. I do not want to have hundreds of people on the payroll.

That is our way of working.

Now, in the short term, I am looking at all the noise between the Oval Office and the European Union over the last few days about tariffs on wine, champagne, and various other categories. I am thinking, well, we are a UK gin—are we included in that? My working assumption has to be that Europe will be treated as one. To be honest, I do not think it would be helpful for the UK industry, which includes a lot of Scotch and gin, to be seen as exceptional as not part of the EU. That would not help relationships with Europe or the US.

We are certainly living in interesting times, as the Chinese say. And on top of that, the last eighteen to twenty-four months have been a very challenging period for business. Spirits in general had a strong post-COVID period, but then global economic and military uncertainty, inflation, rising utility costs, and other factors made people nervous or left them with less disposable income for luxuries like premium spirits.

The industry has had a difficult couple of years. Even major companies like Diageo and Pernod Ricard have seen their share prices drop because results have not been as strong as they were historically. They have their business to manage, and I will try to manage mine, but it does provide some context. If the biggest players in the industry are facing difficulties, it shows that the challenges are real, not just isolated issues for individual brands.

This is 2025. We started the company in 2006 and launched in the UK in 2008, so we are seventeen years old this year. We have seen ups and downs. We have had amazing, glorious times and also more difficult periods.

I often refer to Brockmans as my third daughter. I have two beautiful grown daughters—my real, human daughters—and they are not always pleased when I call Brockmans my third.

But I tell them she has been the most expensive. Usually.

Was this interview properly improper?

I would say it was quite proper, actually. What would have been improper was starting on the martinis at ten in the morning. We did not do that. I know you were thinking ahead and working out your questions and so on. But for me, it felt very much like a pleasant conversation.

*To experience the exceptional taste of Brockmans, you can find it at Tesco.