Didsbury Gin have been named Distiller of the Week by the UK Spirits Alliance.
On receiving the news, Liam from Didsbury Gin said: “Being recognised as distiller of the week by the UK Spirits Alliance is a nice moment for us at Didsbury Gin, it is another step on our journey that makes it seem a long time ago that the company was producing our first bottles in a living room.
“Whilst it’s important to stop and enjoy these moments, there are worrying times ahead for the UK spirits industry. Not least the threat of further US tariffs on our world-leading products.
“UK spirits alone are worth £1.5 billion in exports to the United States. That is without the jobs and economic contribution it provides to the UK as a whole. From the largest companies to small artisan producers, we are a patchwork of all types of businesses that help to support our country. And we don’t see ourselves as just a business. We have worked to build up something more than just a product, and take incredible care and pride in producing a drink that captures what our customers are looking for.
“Like many other people who take the plunge into creating their own business, we were making gin at the same time as working full-time jobs. But even though that sounds amateur, we knew what we had created was real quality. When both of us were made redundant in quick succession, Didsbury Gin turned from a side-hustle into a full-time venture.
“Of course, success for a small business like ours is down to a mixture of hard-work, great ideas, skill, meeting the right people and a little bit of luck. But we don’t exist in a vacuum. The threat of further tariffs means that 6,500 UK jobs could be lost from small distillers, farmers and others along our supply chain.
“For us at Didsbury Gin, the USA is a key market, and we have invested significant time and resource into developing growth. The proposed tariffs not only affect jobs, it also threatens around £2m of revenue for us in 2021.
“We need an approach from government which helps to resolve this issue. As an industry, we want to come back stronger from this crisis and support the UK’s economic recovery. I am sure I speak for so many business owners across the UK when I say that we want to create jobs, we want to give people a chance, we want to back Britain. But we need an environment where we can do this, without the fear of tariffs from one of our biggest export markets.
“Thanks to the reputation of all our fantastic spirits companies, UK spirits are a by-word for quality across the globe and Britain needs to maintain that stamp of global approval. The hallmark that says to consumers across the world that this is British produce, which makes it the best produce in the world. We need that if we are going to succeed as a global trading nation.
“Tariffs put so much at risk. Jobs. Businesses. Peoples livelihoods.
We need our government to stand by an industry which has generated significant revenues for the public purse and is always out flying the flag for British produce across the globe.”