How The Duppy Share Is Reinventing Rum w/ George Frost | The Duppy Share

0:00I was in the Caribbean in a bar in Jamaica waiting for my brother and the barman was saying there's a concept in whiskey called the angel share. So as whiskey ages, some of it evaporates like all spirits do and it's said to go after the angels. But then he said in the Caribbean they didn't believe that rubbish and they thought these crazed spirits called duppies come along, steal the best of the rum and then go and have a massive party. And I was like, oh my God, I've got to interrupt you. Like, what do they call that rum? It's called the duppy share. Was there a moment that you seriously questioned whether this would work or not?

0:32No. Starting companies is hard work and there are phenomenally low lows, phenomenally high highs. There's never been a moment where I've felt there's something wrong here. Consistency is something that I'll put my hand up and say I'm not very good at. Because consistency, I think, in brand is years. Doing the same thing, knowing it's the right thing and keeping the main thing the main thing. So these kegs we had in storage, we went to the storage. We thought the roof of the storage had fallen down. And we go in and I pick up one of the kegs and it explodes to the extent that the bomb squad come.

1:10And they kind of got these like hard plastic bits on the top. And it goes like this and my wrist breaks. What would you do differently if you had to start all over again?

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3:24So if you're scaling a product business and want to get your operations under control head over and start a free 14-day trial and as a Getting to Grow listener you'll get one month free using the code GTGPOD. Getting to Grow is also brought to you by the Coconut Collab and full disclosure as I'm sure most of you are aware I work there so I know how much love goes into everything that we make. We're all about creating delicious, dairy-free, plant-based treats that do not compromise on taste. From our creamy yogurts to our indulgent desserts, everything's made with coconuts and a whole lot of care.

3:58If you're looking for something naturally good but seriously tasty, and my favourite is just our natural coconut yogur, I have it most mornings with granola and lots of honey. Trust me, you're going to absolutely love it. Welcome to another episode of Getting to Grow. On this week's episode, we have George Frost, the founder of The Duppy Share. And I am really excited to get into this because it was only last week that I was chatting to Alistair from Pentai and he said, you must speak to... Another Frost. Well, I thought you were brothers and then he said, FYI, we're not. And I was like, right, I didn't clock that.

4:30I definitely thought you were because obviously the same surname. Yeah, it's actually a very common surname. But I, yeah, no, I love Alistair. I remember seeing Alistair when he had a drinks consultancy in Hagen, Hagen, on the King's Road in Chelsea. Oh, yeah. And, yeah, that was probably like five, six years ago. But, no, he's smashing it. He's doing great. He is. Well, that episode will be coming out as well. Where do I look? Look over here. Fancy, look at me, look over there, wherever. Like, just kind of leave it about. Yeah. So, tell me about Duffy Share. Feels like a brand with a lot of soul, a lot of, like, not just liquid here.

5:11like there's a lot of story behind this before we get into it where did the idea like really start for you and what were you doing before so I was working at a company called quintessentially which is a sort of luxury well it's a luxury lifestyle group um and essentially long story short one of our investors very old family friend called Ben Goldsmith went to a no sorry one of our investors called Django Davidson who was our first investor at Duppy went to Ben and said we should do a craft beer brand and Ben said screw that let's do a rum and get George to found it so they kind of in a roundabout way came to me with the idea which now having lived breathed sweated bled Duppy for 11 years I can't imagine a life without it but then to kind of someone to say let's do a rum brand it was pretty random but very quickly I remember I think I was in a bar or something and I've fortunately went to the Caribbean when I was very very young and I genuinely I'd say nine of the ten happiest family memories or memories in general are from the Caribbean and I remember looking at the bar and for me the Caribbean and and most people I've ever spoken to about the Caribbean the Caribbean is about fun young full of energy exciting warm and in every way like every way and the people more than more than anything else and then you look at rum which is the Caribbean's main export really and 86 percent of the world's rum comes in the Caribbean and it was and I'd say still is kind of old dusty and an incredible guy called Andy Fennell who's who sits on our board who's was the CMO of Diageo for 12 years I yeah he's incredible and he um came up with the line that we believe that um bats belong in caves and pirates and storybooks which is very much about Diageo, Diageo's Captain Morgan and Bacardi.

7:19But in essence, it's not about what other brands aren't. There just wasn't that kind of like fun, young, exciting rum brand. So naturally, this of my mind got whirring and kind of thinking maybe this could be a really great thing to do. And then I was in the Caribbean in a bar in Jamaica waiting for my brother. and there was a couple at the other end of the bar talking to the bar barman and the barman was saying there's a concept in whiskey called the angel share so he was saying there's whiskey ages some of it evaporates like all spirits do and it's said to go off to the angels but then he said in the caribbean they didn't believe that rubbish and they thought these crazed spirits called duppies come along steal the best of the rum and then go and have a massive party and i was oh my God, I've got to interrupt you.

8:07Like, hi, but what do they call that rum? And he was like, oh, that's weird. No one's ever asked me that. It's called the Duppy Share. And so immediately I was just like everything just, if I'd left that bar and thought, what should I call this rum brand and not called it that, I would have been a moron. So yeah, so that was it. From that moment on, I was always going to launch a rum brand. It was always going to be called the Duppy Share. and thankfully you know listening to a fair few of your podcasts the naming story and is always a integral part my view is that it's not my place to say should or or whatever but i think it the great brands i think have to come out of come through directly the founder i think agencies are phenomenal and and come up with some amazing things but we went to our design agency which is one of our biggest learnings the first design agency and the brief was you know this is what the rum is this is what rum means to us this is what um the name is can you bring that to life and i think if you go to a design agency just with like i want to launch a mint brand but that's it i don't know i feel like the product or the brand may not be as all singing and all dancing as it can be yeah i think i can't remember what the question was no no it was exactly that how it came to life i think that's really important and you're right a lot of who i speak and a lot of founders i've had on the podcast are all about the kind of the name and why and i always ask why did you call it that because it's such a big part of then like what becomes the brand um and it's again like as you said it was like it was a lot of like you're trying to tell like a big cultural story here as well and how was that once the once you had the visualization visualization for the brand how did that then come to life straight away with trying to sell it yeah well it's it's a very good question and it's kind of so i i think it's i i find it staggering how many brand names there are out there and as i'm sure you do but i see a lot of decks of brands that have started or about to start or what looking for investment and they'll have their name on the first deck and there won't even be a kind of slide on why it's called that or or what it's about and i'm not saying that they should but for us with that story behind it i'm always amazed about how many people people come up to our stand when we're at trade show or whatever and say i love duppy share and then you ask them whether they know why it's called that and they don't even think twice they don't they're like oh no we no idea um and so if that's someone who already loves our brand don't know the name it's kind of i i always equate it to monkey shoulder the whiskey yeah so monkey shoulder is called monkey shoulder because supposedly back in the day when the when people were carrying around the barrels in the distillery or in the warehouses they were really heavy and they used to literally get a monkey shoulder from carrying them right and so that's all the monkey iterations but i never knew that and so to answer your question about about kind of landing it if we land the duffy share story whether that's to a buyer a consumer bartender whoever they love the brand and they'll stock the brand and they yeah it it's a kind of win-win I suppose but it's how to land that and as you know you don't have time on Instagram you don't have time and we've tried a number of times with expensive solutions for our creative agencies of landing the story as quickly as possible but in short I think it's not our job as as product sellers for the most basic term to educate or to try and get the brand across for us it's just about doing fun things and trying to engage with people kind of organically naturally and and kind of keeping the product front and center I suppose and hopefully all that other stuff will come but yeah it it's it's both are the hardest thing to do but the thing which will get the biggest reward in terms of I think getting that kind of brand love yeah it's interesting how you say like it's not your job to educate but from my perspective and especially at coconut collab like it we really see it as our job to educate yeah to like really tell the story of like the the category as well and like why we're doing what we're doing and why should you switch out your yogurt from a dairy to a to a plant-based so like we do see it as a big part of what we're doing is the kind of education pieces to like plant-based yogurt like it's hard because we do coconut yogurt yeah and delicious coconut delicious coconut yogurt and some people think some people have our yogurt because they just love coconut and the fact that we're plant-based was actually it was never really our intention like jim just loved coconuts and realized they're thick and creamy and actually they could really good base for yogurt he never set out for it to be a vegan company it's just there's no there's no cows in making a coconut yogurt so and we try and educate people on that it's not a switch we're not we're not saying don't have dairy in you in your tea we're saying actually have you tried coconut yogurt like it's a completely different thing like it's a different category that's how we position it so we do really feel like it's our job to educate that and that is yeah i suppose that is um education in a in a product sense incredibly important and i suppose our equivalent the the thing going back 11 years now to when we hadn't launched yet the thing that blew people away is that and and i suppose this is this is saying why the education piece isn't that important and the punchline here is that there's a lot of rum is that the difference between the your point there about coconut yogurt not existing and having to educate the consumer is when we launched rum sales globally were three and a half times bigger than gin so the rum category and this is another thing that that didn't lead to to me launching duppy but was a kind of catalyst there is that the the volume to to get the rum volume globally was enormous and yet and i still should get around to doing this working out a clever um formula for this but if you were to look at the global gin volume or the uk gin volume and then let's say divide it by the number of new gin brands there were and then you did the same for rum rum volume divided by the number of new rum brands there are the number for gin would be so much lower than the number for rum because there were just and i don't know why i still don't know why and i'm i suppose i'm thankful that there isn't but there are just not that proliferation of new rum brands never has been that there was with gin and even tequila and i know you've you've had some wonderful tequila founders on on this podcast um and yeah so so our battle so alan lafley the procter and gamble ceo 12 years who read a very good book read a very good book wrote a very good book uh that i forget the name of but he said business is simple where to play how to win and our where to play was was relatively straightforward rum and our how to win not a day goes past where i have been shown either either no not a day goes by when it hasn't been shown that duppy is the way to win and i think we were so i mean god we're so lucky to be in that bar at that time to hear this term the duppy share but within again going to your point about the the spreading that that cultural relevance of the brand there that where to play as i said in in terms of rum the how to win of duppy and duppy share even had share in the title was sharing in terms of instagram and all that kind of stuff and sharing is just as important to us and I'm not just saying that just as important to us as the duppy side of mischievous fun excitement share is runs like a stick of rock through most of what we do in terms of doing the right thing and kind of sharing the love and all that kind of stuff um but yeah that that kind of combination of the where to play how to win within rum really meant that we never had to do that education piece we never had to go into a bar and say you should be selling rum cocktails because it was almost like the 180 of that people we I remember being in the Beaver Lodge which was one of Charlie Jilks's do you ever go there clubs K club anyway um and I was at the bar and there were two girls there and I think I was saying that they asked what I did and I said I was going to launch a rum brand oh we don't drink rum and I genuinely asked them what their three favorite rum favorite cocktails were and it was mojito daiquiri and a dark and stormy which all have rum in it and so it's kind of this very weird joyous position i suppose of we don't need to convince people to drink rum because people are drinking anyway so then it becomes already there as such yeah and and then also i think that within uh it also was like i remember like some of my first sales visits i realized that if i went in and i said i've got a new spirit to talk to you about or like is the buyer here they should carry on washing their dishes thinking it'd be another gin and i was like it's a new rum and they'd be like a new rum like it was genuinely as kind of rare as that at the beginning there are now loads of great new rum brands hitting the market and lots who i have a huge amount of admiration and love for um still nowhere near the ranks of the number of new gin brands um but yeah back then it wasn't an education piece it was more a kind of like alerting them that there was a new brand yeah it's funny how like gin had its surgeon like surgeons and then you know you've had tequila rum hasn't had it in the same way yeah that those two have and yeah tequila's obviously been on a ridiculously high like for the last probably like two or three years yeah um but yeah rum hasn't had that that same like peak yet i think it will because i think everything's cyclical right like it will come around but it just um yeah it's funny how you're right it hasn't been as sexy as the others yeah i mean we talk a lot about volume and volume as in the volume of everyone talking about something and i think no and low is is at this stage now and then the volume of the the sales the actual kind of proof in the pudding i suppose and i think now the amount of column inches and uh podcast and uh you know everywhere you look and hear you'd think that alcohol was dead in terms of the amount of no and low stuff and yet in the latest idea of iwsr data i think less than 0.5 percent is still no and low so i think rum is a kind of example of that in terms of a sort of beneficiary of that in terms of the volume is for rum is still fantastic there are still groups in the uk like turtle bay restaurants who are doing an inordinate amount of rum the you're totally right in terms of the gin craze and totally right in terms of the tequila craze and I can't really put my finger on why I think the US and the UK are very interesting in in how they relate to one another in spirits like gin in the US and tequila in the UK was basically interchangeable in that over in the US gin was tiny in the UK tequila was tiny and now it's kind of gone vice versa and tequila's massive here and And it's obviously locationally a lot nearer Mexico, the US, and it's culturally, I think, more popular there.

20:04But yeah, tequila definitely stole a march on rum in that regard. Again, if there was some formula for it in terms of the column inches and kind of mentions and all that kind of stuff online, it definitely did spike massively. Yeah, you're right. um and when you think about the duppy show when you started the business what did success look like to you ah it was five years was definitely in my head at some point i'll be done in five years right which wasn't true uh but i don't know i think i why why does anyone launch a company i think success was you you mentioned before we started about your love of sales i've always I've always loved sales I've always loved that kind of interaction and kind of getting to the end of the meeting and a successful meeting I suppose and what success looked like to me was was building a brand I've always been obsessed by brand I suppose I remember reading a book called biology B-U-Y-ology and like how why we do the things we do as humans and I remember it gave an example of like if you put one um brand of shampoo one bottle fascia it'll sell x and if you put two it'll literally sell 2x like we are that kind of predictable as as as consumers so i've always been fascinated by that and i also think like i've always loved the creative element to brand building so success to me would would be to to mimic or to um echo mimic what sam galsworthy did at sip smith build a brand get people to buy into it and and sell the brand of course selling the brand is important it's that kind of moment every the distillation i suppose for want a better term or something coming to fruition never been about getting rich it's never been about the kind of success of it but i suppose it's it's getting to the end of the journey i suppose is is the most interesting exciting part what is that for you what is the end of the journey um i think there are there are always going to be milestones in any for for us 100 ,000 nine liter cases would be an amazing milestone to get to we're currently at about 35 000 um i think it's probably the next step i think um the the cleanest is obviously probably an acquiral by a bigger company but i it sounds cheesy but i i really and i i really can sense you're going to empathize with this from what we're chatting about is genuinely i believe you show me a bar that doesn't have dup in it and i'll show you one that should because i really feel that to that point that we said at the beginning the rum category it needs to be fun it needs to be relevant it needs to be exciting and so many rum categories in in bars or supermarkets to a lesser degree don't have that yeah make rum sexy again make rum sexy make yeah does that make a nice little anagram though um yeah mrs mrs a mrs a there you go yeah and a is like if you know have you seen that film lit was it a it's with emma stone can't remember something a and she's like the naughty girl at school so like yeah it works yeah make rum sexy again yeah um but i think you know what without sounding too cheesy i the the thing that i kind of are most thankful for in in this journey my my dad used to say like working with he used to hate when people say never work with friends he was like some of the best things i've ever done with is most of the best things I've ever done are with my best friends and through a random number of coincidences happening I now my business partner for the past six years has been a very old family friend of mine called Jack and it's it's been just the most amazingly fun fulfilling stressful highs and lows like you wouldn't imagine journey and it doesn't need this to happen but what a wonderful like bookend it would be on an amazing kind of journey to have something like an acquiral at the end of it yeah uh i wouldn't mind if if i'm sitting here with you in 30 years time and still have jack as my business partner we uh his wife may not still like me as much so I hope she likes me now um but you know it'll be it'll be an amazing kind of moment I suppose but who knows what that looks like yeah yeah it's cool I think a lot of the businesses I have on the pod and the founders I speak to I'm always like is end goal sell and some it's very 50 50 it's very like yeah absolutely like I want five years and then I'm out and others are like no I want my kids kids and my grandkids like I want this to be like the next Guinness like I want to build a like complete legacy so it's interesting to hear yeah Kyle my daughter's two and a half she shows she knows what duppy share is she can say duppy share i whether i could hand over the keys yet i don't know maybe not yet she might do a lot better drunk to your old because she would know not to drink it yeah well exactly yeah um drink drink responsibly i wish to talk about that to be honest when i'm doing an alcohol podcast no you shouldn't you know what no okay we won't no no moving on yeah um drink however you want to drink Drink how you want to drink.

25:47Was there a moment that you seriously questioned whether this would work or not?

25:54So, no, incredibly. And I'm not saying, like, I want to say this at the beginning. This is not going to be one of those AI-generated arc of I started the company at this, it got really bad, and now it's wonderful. This is going to be honest. And genuinely, I think it's very important that people realize that starting companies is hard work and there are phenomenally low lows, phenomenally high highs. But in answer to your question, there's never been a moment where I've felt there's something wrong here or something about this, the macro thing is wrong. And not to belittle it, but going back to that Alan Lafley thing, I think if the answers to those things, where to play, how to win, if those things are right, then it's worth it all and i'm not as as i said at the beginning it's been 10 11 years now of duppying and it's very far from being acquired or well who knows but um it it's certainly not a home run and uh it takes a lover of a pun to avoid and resist saying home run there um but but yeah in terms of ever having that moment of looking in the mirror and thinking this isn't this isn't gonna work i've never had that yeah i actually think if you if you do have that it probably won't because if you can get to that place like mentally where you almost like start to not believe it yeah it's quite hard to come back from that have you seen marty supreme no i haven't i've seen i've seen snippets so that's why i hesitated but no i can't say i've seen the whole thing i think it's really interesting because in in that i was talking to my wife about this in that i think he is there are those people who are just wonderfully incredibly driven right and they they will they will make things work and it's their drive and tenacity that make that but there are also people who are kind of deluded let's say yeah and i think I don't know, like comment here or whatever you say in podcast, but I'd like to know what people think about Marty's cream because I think in that he is a bit deluded, but he's the cat that gets the cream at the end.

28:15I won't give it away. He doesn't actually get the cream you think he'll get, but he gets a richer type of cream. And yeah, I think being a founder is very similar to that because there is no formula to it and there is no right way of doing it as you will have known with your brand. it's a lot of it is gut a lot of it is tenacity a lot of it is is as you've as you've said a lot in other podcasts of yours i've listened to coincidence and just also consistency like not giving up like banging on that door and constantly putting out the consistency of your brand and what you're trying to achieve it's just like you know finding your message and hound hound hound like that is ultimately as well like such a big part of it and I think the minute you stop being consistent and you know being a bit bitty with your messaging and your brand especially early on like you confuse the customer and they're out I think that consistent you've nailed two things there consistency and banging on that door which I know you said it equating to the same thing but consistency is something that I'll put my hand up and say I'm not very good at because consistency I think in brand is years it's not months it's not weeks it's years of doing the same thing knowing it's the right thing and keeping the main thing the main thing which Richard Reid's main thing he says keep the main thing the main thing and if you're a brand looking for growth and looking for new and fun and different which is which is definitely what I look at for via duppy you i want to change sooner quicker than that so consistency is incredibly important in terms of not straying from what you think and we've gone through things we've done cocktails on tap and then we tried something else and actually now we're really really laser focused on something so important but banging the door down i think if there is a skill in life i think i might be good at that and it's it's just never giving up but again i hate i hate i know yeah and how do you take a no i've got better like initially i was like i took it so personally i was like oh my gosh so it's against me but it's not i'm not right for them and therefore right or timing timing's a huge part of half the stuff we do timing is massive like especially when it comes to like range reviews right like timing can be massive always miss range reviews always miss range reviews but in my world in the on trade there aren't as many like you know it's not as red tapey as retail so like there are things you can kind of like skirt around and ultimately like and everyone listening always says to me you always say the same thing and i'm like i know because it hasn't failed me people buy people your brand has to stand out on your quality and it has to taste good right like taste is the first thing people are ever going to remember about a brand like whether it's 400 pounds or like 29p if it tastes crap it doesn't like no it doesn't matter no one's buying it ever again like you've ruined the like initial customer experience but people don't want to do business people they don't like so people are buying you as well and i think that's where i try and bring like my flair to coconut and this is just what i do personally but i try and make this sounds really like when you say it out loud it sounds a bit funny but I try and make myself like a little bit irreplaceable okay in the sense of like in a meeting I'll do something that like nobody could copy or like I'll do something very much like Zoe Fox yeah it's easy with a name like Fox right but also everybody's replaceable of course they are I don't like you know I could move on tomorrow and someone could fill my shoes at coconut but it's more like what they can't do something that I've maybe done that I won't like tell people about or I don't know there's something in the meeting that I'll walk away that nobody else can give them yeah and that that is the I'm trying to think of of yeah that's the personal aspect of it that I hope will never be replaced by AI or anything like that I don't think it will I think um I'm just trying to think I think so often bear with me on this often with the big brands right the big in Diageo obviously you've got Procter & Gamble and the likes in in your world but in our world the Diageos the Bacardi's things that they're remarkable at is quality of product yeah at a price um and so brand recognition ability to get a low price and ability to support beyond that now often in the past that is where it ends like we can't beat that and what i actually think with small brands and small fast moving brands is you don't think about what the other things that they have that small brands don't have debt mountains like you wouldn't believe personnel like you know hr teams like enormous so when the market changes they're actually quite slow so where to your point where duppy and the like can win is by acting really fast yeah you're incredibly yeah you can be reactive and kind of to your point and that everything in life is on a spectrum obviously you can be way too reactive or not reactive enough and it's about finding the the happy medium and we've had examples where we've done we've reacted too quickly to opportunities we thought that that were there which cocktails on tap being being one of them but then we've had some which are the opposite of that like duppy house which is our kind of like house range that we we launched about nine months ago for the on trade which really has been our tenacity our supplier network our branding capabilities that's that's been able to react to an opportunity and benefit from it yeah and i think it's that thing where if you're in a meeting and it comes back it's a no your product's too expensive it's of course you can't take every no as a i can still win this i can still win this of course of course and there are the ones that actually you can think well this is emblematic maybe of a bigger yeah opportunity and that's when that's when your gut can help as well in the sense of like i know when a no means a no and i can walk away from it and also like looking back it might be that like commercially it's probably not the best shot long run or like our brand actually isn't really right for that end customer like would it even sell once it's in the door and there's so many things that can also like turn you away um but i certainly know where i do play and where i should play yeah and that's where i'll bang down that door because i'm like this isn't i'm not i'm not pushing water uphill here well i I might be to get the know initially, but it will be a waterfall once you let me open the door.

35:04But, you know, it's that kind of like, yeah. Yeah. And it's knowing where those are. Yeah. And having the honesty and truth in yourself of knowing, like, actually, you know what? And that comes with experience and time, right? Like when I joined in the food world, I was just a complete like Joe Salboni. I mean, I still am. I have like an enormous amount of energy, but I was very much like, you know, what's that? splatter gun yeah splatter gun approach like no strategy woohoo let's just go here here and here wasting time you know no proper like energy funnels of like where i need to spend my time yeah and i liked what um luke said on on one of your podcasts of where he was like he'd get the yes and he'd move on to the next one yes yes yes and then he'd look back and it's like well none of them have actually ordered yeah you know it's like it's classic yeah i think it's kind of that it's it's the hot and the cold yeah the fire and the ice in terms of the perfect kind of business partnership business partnership and looking back what did you underestimate about starting a spirits brand oh good question i think i think perhaps i think probably that a bottle of spirits takes quite a long time to drink I mean at times definitely not the case um but you know it's 28 shots in a in a bottle and we behave as FMCG I think the F sometimes maybe an S but yeah it's it's kind of like it's one thing getting the bottle on the shelf it's another getting it off I suppose oh for sure yeah getting the listings like not even the battle really like now it's like you've got to get people to buy it Yeah, exactly.

36:47And I think obviously it has to work. Now the work starts. Yeah. And now the work starts and the work you can't necessarily, it's like almost like it's there now. It's got to do its own thing. Yeah. But we found that year on year on year, sometimes to miraculous effect, that actually it kind of really is pulling off the shelf to the degree that the rate of sale is increasing. The underlying kind of health factors are looking really good. and what early decisions help the brand stand out on shelf and behind the bar because it's really cool it's giving fun it's giving hot it's giving sunshine yeah like it gives all that there's there's two people in in our the duppy ecosystem environment planet um universe almost who i will always listen to what they say you know you will have asked advice off hundreds of people thousands of people maybe sometime on a Wednesday it's this and on a Thursday it becomes something different these two people I would whatever they maybe they shouldn't know this but whatever they say I'll do and one is Andy who I mentioned earlier and the other one is a guy called Elwin Gladstone have you heard of Elwin Gladstone no so he's an absolute genius um he launched or helped launch Hendrix for William Grant's sons Kraken was his and I love the singleness of thinking so Kraken I haven't actually checked this with him but I was told Kraken the rum is all about kill the captain like kill Captain Morgan okay but when a brand has that singularity of focus kill the captain kill the captain like wherever Captain Morgan is let's do it and anyway he's he's just a genius I was lucky enough to meet him years and years and years ago and he said make sure your bottle is different in five ways and you know the name being one of them and and things like that so i always told our team to think elwinistically i haven't actually told them that adjective i made up but he's now got he he created and sold mouthy gin yeah yeah yeah wow yeah in sort of four years so he was the one who said make your bottle different in five ways and i think we have our original bottle was off the shelf apotheca bottle 70 cl keflor glass um it's now a bespoke bottle but i think the number one thing so my biggest lesson learned was we we went down with our first money that we raised we spent 17 000 which is probably 93 percent of the cash that we had at that moment via a design agency it was me and jango at this moment we went down the design route and and it was like this it was getting it was getting better each meeting and it was but it was never right and then I luckily sort of pulled the cord on that one and then met my business partner at the time Jess Swinfan who we mentioned at the beginning of the meeting who was innocent he she took us to um B &B the design agency and we said the same pitch but they just totally got it and created what what to this day i think is well no sean and his team categorically created to this day our biggest benefit which was the overall look and feel so i think that that's a benefit and there are loads of clever things about the label that um we won't go into now but you know the fact that the names at the bottom the fact that the name it means what it does the colors it's a triptych of this of all day drinking of daytime like evening night time that it was based on this vintage classic poster that someone found.

40:31I really, I was going to say it gives poster. Yeah. And it's, you know, and my old man used to say that was his sort of motto down there. And yeah, so kind of, I think that's been our, and to your point, I couldn't agree with you more about the liquid. Everything is about the liquid. I actually think it's more straightforward to say it's liquid first, but I actually think you wouldn't taste the liquid unless it looks great. Well, yeah, obviously. So it's all the kind of... You can't... It's got to be all of it, basically. Yeah. Then once it's off the shelf, then it's about the liquid, because ultimately it has to be about the bottle for them to even put it in their basket.

41:11Well, exactly, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's definitely been the kind of biggest unlocker is the look and feel of it. um and and i think the nature of rum and it really is a rum family like if you spent two minutes at a rum trade show as opposed to anything else you'd realize but there's this real great vibe that we are more than just independent rum brands so there's the ability to get we we've sourced the absolute best rum globally in the world to go into our rums i don't think that's possible in other industries i think other industries would be way more kind of like um no this is our our whiskey you're not allowed to use this liquid but you know this rum is a blend of a five-year-old rum from four square distiller in barbado three-year-old from jamaica worthy park distiller in jamaica and it's that blend and it's that kind of community vibe and that makes it all kind of work so we're able to have an amazing liquid and an amazing product it certainly wasn't straightforward the kind of tasting process took about nine months but yeah we're able to get the absolute best in the business but at a price that's kind of affordable which is i think pretty rare but i don't know yeah i mean to get is i think it is really rare especially because you know you're buying what does this rp yeah this is good question 26 quid down to yeah 26 quid yeah waitrose yeah that's that's incredibly reasonable for like a run yeah no it is and the liquid is phenomenal and yeah and and i hope that kind of i really going back to one of your earlier questions i really believe that brands matter and when you buy a brand you love you get so much more reward out of it i don't know the brands that you love but you know whether it's fashion or or or sport or or drink i really believe that you do literally buy into the brand yeah and so i think it's kind of really really important and great to be able to to kind of create those types of brands it's also it's also half the fun like the reason consumers buy things is because they yes they like the product but they also they love the brand and what it stands for they're buying into the lifestyle it's why there's adverts right it's why like they sell fragrance on telly you can't smell it through the telly but they're advertising it not yet but it's it's such a big part of like why we buy things um so yeah it's so important and building a brand like this is never a solo journey no um who were the first people outside of family that truly believed in Duffy Share?

43:57Good question I think the some of our first investors were the people who and I think this is probably always the case the people who believed in me and in in what I was doing and the people that I will always be forever indebted to so those first investors I remember meeting one of our investors Kevin in the groucho club which is now i think shut down but yeah but he you know back then it was literally a pipe dream and to to kind of back the dream as much as those people did it was it was yeah it's amazing and and i think those are the kind of people that that you think about when things weirdly when things aren't going well as well as when they are because you both want to do anything to make that punt worth it for them but it also just reassures you that that people have your backing and they believe in what you're doing and if they believed in you 10 years ago or five years ago when you were a tenth of the size that you are now just to keep going and yeah I mean it's it's people like that are kind of first round investors I think are the are the ones who kind of really back the dream and have you told them all how much like their support has meant to them you're sat down and gone yeah i think probably after having a fair number of getting high on our own supply maybe but um no i think the the person i think i probably owe the most to who I don't need to name who it is but he's he was I was at Newcastle University and I think I was hardly gonna be the kind of I don't know people weren't queuing up to hire me and he hired me quintessentially and and just since then just has always kind of backed me and kind of had my back proactively as well as passively and I think that's really important like checking in if I'm if I'm okay and and you know those are the things that kind of are so important and and he's just been phenomenally supportive throughout you know when when things are going great he's the first person to say well done and when things aren't going great he's the first person to say how can I help and yeah and I think it's it's through business and and life and all those things that those relationships really kind of come out of the woodwork um so yeah so it that another reason why to strive on for for the next sort of win i suppose yeah and how important has surrounding yourself with the right people been um to surviving like the tougher moments yeah it's like i think any business i think every single well what unites literally every single person is that they're a kind of human being on your podcast or or the highs and lows and i think yeah i think surrounding yourself with better people than you for me is luckily very easy but the yeah to have to and and it's something that i bet you've had loads of single founders and duo founders whether they're both on or not but i can't imagine this i can't imagine this journey without having jack my business partner by my side because whether it's like anything in life whether it's sharing the highs or sharing the lows is always better when there's someone else and I think yeah it's everything and and I think as long as we sort of try to treat people the right way and and do the right thing I think then it's always better to to share these experiences and and yeah the people it's yeah everything absolutely I mean like we're like pack animals aren't we as humans like it's really rare to be like a lone wolf and just be like roaming the world on your own yeah it'd be quite bizarre and not very fun no and and i think everything we stand for is that i mean we as i mentioned earlier share is in our name we are very much a part of hospitality hospitality is all about hanging out with each other yeah um working from home is is all well and good but we yeah we love the office we love doing things together we love an ex being the excuse to bring people together um and yeah i think that that that is life connection is life they say the opposite of addiction is not um sobriety it is connection and i really like i love that bringing people together at any cost is like everything that we do yeah yeah and that's where i think like ai won't take over because you can't replace human connection right no well god knows what robots might do but like you can't hug ai well i'd like to know there's been i robot hasn't there that he called it years ago what do we know good film that great film but that freaks me out like i'm not having one of them in my guess yeah that's staying in the in the work factor or whatever not coming near my household um and speaking about like money financials where how obviously you mentioned about investors and did you straight away go for investment or was it self-funded initially we it was very i mean we put in jango and i put in the first amount of money but it was basically uh from the off it we we did kind of friends and family and then friends and family asterisks so kind of like friends of more relevant friends of friends of family uh then we did um a couple sort of more traditional rounds and then we've just finished a crowd fund well probably about six months ago we finished a crowd fund where we raised about 500 000 on Crowdcube who are fantastic.

49:46And so, yeah, so it's kind of been a bit of everything. We haven't ever had sort of venture capital or private equity, not to say that we wouldn't, but no, we're very fortunate to have been, to have had some very supported people to kind of back us along the way. And for founders listening, what should they understand about money in alcohol brands? um to make i think it's the same probably in every industry but there are kind of stars and and that people look at like sip smith which exited very favorably like mouthy that exited very favorably and i think that the big companies will pay big multiples for great brands but i think to not let those sort of casamigos george clooney's brand or other ones persuade you that that that will be the exit i think the brand has to stand and company and financials has to stand on its own two feet um before that can happen and what's been the most expensive lesson so far so the most expensive lesson i was thinking about this on the way here was for myself and for the business we did canned cock sorry we did cocktails on tap so we did the cocktails on tap like five years ago six years ago maybe where kegs of cocktails tasted delicious the idea was that it would replace a beer tap and ironically it's kind of coming now and some brands have done phenomenally well at canned cocktails obviously like moth and the like but it cost us a lot of money to do it it didn't it we were too soon um and then at notting hill carnival one year we made them four and a half percent abv and we didn't get through them all so these kegs we had in storage and cut a long story short they double fermented and then when we went to the storage we thought the roof of the storage had fallen down so we were like slightly annoyed at the storage producer and we go in and i pick up one of the kegs and no word of a lie it explodes to the extent that the bomb squad come and I they kind of got these like hard plastic bits on the top and it goes like this and my wrist breaks oh I have to go to hospital my business partner Jack sees me holding my heart because the top of the thing has gone we'll try and get the video of it can we do the video overlay the video yeah watch here yeah what yeah and yeah and it twists I break my arm and yeah long story short that was the end of our canned our kegged cocktail experience oh my god i don't know how much it caught it was it was a great thing to do young's were very supportive of it we put it into their pubs but i think as someone ronald cohen a big private equity guy said it's about the second bounce so the first bounce was it was a big thing everyone was like canned cocktails sorry cocktails on tap and then i think we're experiencing the second bounce now which is companies like Moth and Pimenti doing amazing things and RTDs being ready to drink.

53:00I don't think people were RTD then. And my broken arm definitely wasn't. I'll see if I can get my broken arm, whatever it's called, picture. Yeah, yeah, we'll input. Yeah. Speaking around like retail versus the on-trade, What was your focus initially for the business? Was it to launch on the on-trade or was it more to like, let's smash out retail? Yeah, it was kind of, I think that's probably the biggest consistency among all brands in our space. And Luke, I know, was talking about on-trade and off-trade as well. I don't think, I think if it works in one, it should work in both. And I think in my head, I always saw, I always saw the gap in bars rather than in supermarkets.

53:51But obviously, if the gap was in a bar in terms of there being a fun contemporary rum brand, it would be in the off trade as well. So I think we've been very fortunate to have, I think the joy of rum as well, is it's such a big category. It's as big an opportunity in the on trade as off trade. There are some of those brands where it's more on trade and Luke saying it's more off trade and in non-alc beer. For us, it's kind of like either. and we've been so lucky particularly with support of um the mighty john vine who i bet a lot of your uh podcastees or whatever listeners listeners no podcast people oh founders founders yeah will in this drink space will know um he's been very supportive for us but yeah it's kind of as you all know it's winning a getting that yes where you know the yes unlocks 259 waitresses is is an amazingly exciting thing but as you also know it just unlocks a whole extra level of work which is great but it is just yeah it then needs a lot more time love attention to grow it to grow it need a farmer yeah yeah a farmer yeah so at coconut we have what we think about it is like hunters and farmers oh nice so we have like the hunters who are like the new biz go getters and And then we have the farmers who like to like really farm an account.

55:17I'm a hunter. Yeah, no, I thought you would be a hunter. Yeah, no, that is a good way of looking at it. Yeah, we've got a great distributor as well, Proof Drinks, who do hunting and farming. Yeah. Hunter farmers, not so much hunter gatherers. I mean, obviously I have to farm like my big customers, who I love like farming as such, but there's so much hunting within an account as well. So I kind of look at it like that. but yeah it's obviously super exciting to be like right completely new customer on board x amount of volume starting next week like they're the fun ones um as well well that's when you hand it over to the farmer potentially yeah i'll say right who wants within like the right team who wants this account um nice but yeah there's obviously so many different aspects were you born a farmer or what did you become one i was born a hunter hunter sorry yeah yeah yes absolutely 100 % I am like if Hunter in the Theosaurus or Encyclopedia what's that word?

56:21oh my god where do all the words go? what's that book called? Encyclopedia? The Bible? no, Dictionary if the word Hunter is there it's Zoe Fox that's how I define it it is me I find it great fun yeah and it excites me like it's what gets me up in the morning I'm like right where am I hunting today like I love that feeling what was your last biggest kill um a big account in the UAE oh wow yeah it was a really nice hopefully should be like six figures well you can blame it on the farmer if it's not um it's the farmer's fault farmer's fault yeah so yeah it's a really nice one so yeah happy about that awesome um um and what keeps you motivated when progress feels low um slow sorry not low or slow or low not knowing low uh what keeps me motivated i think it's it's what what could be happening i think um i think there's uh robert kennedy once said do not look at the things you've done in life and ask why look at the things you haven't done and ask why not and that's definitely my approach it's like okay scary question that isn't it because it always makes you feel like what haven't you done and where have you failed a little bit yeah it's hard to sit in that well yeah i think kind of the glass half full why not let's let's go for it what's the worst that can happen i think that to to what we kind of discussed a little bit earlier about if it for brands that feels like it's not working as long as there are those those fires that are burning in a good way burning and opportunities i think there's if you've exhausted it all then i can imagine being in that position and then i can imagine it being a very hard conversation to have um but we've never been in that position where there haven't been opportunities that haven't been done but equally I would say don't do it rather than just do it I think brands and and I've learned this I wouldn't say the hard way but I've learned this sort of experience is brands are built from what they say no to rather than to what they say yes to and I think as I said earlier life is on this spectrum of kind of finding the right balance but yeah saying no is just as important as saying yes at times and that is hard for me it's really hard for me as well I struggle with that yeah I struggle to stop so saying no it's like and also some of the best times I've had is because I've said yes so I always sometimes think oh what if like what if that night I meet someone that could like change my life from a professional point of view a personal point of view like I always think what if and but also I know that like rest is just as productive as like not resting so like that's so like I find that really difficult like really hard um and if the duppy share failed tomorrow what would be like what would you personally firstly be like really happy with and what would you what would you do next good question I think everything happens for a reason and I really have faith in that so if it stopped tomorrow I think I'd I'd have faith that it was the right for whatever reason it it was it was right to come to an end i'd look at the things that we've achieved and i think that the the the number of things that we've achieved in growing the brand i think i i would struggle to see it like this but i'd be incredibly proud of them i think once the dust had settled um and i think that the what i'd do next god only knows um probably rest for a little bit but i think yeah yeah maybe no i think i think what i would do if it i'd i'd have a i'd i'd have to look at it and and see the wood for the trees and look at all of the amazing things that we've we've achieved i think launching a white run with kano uh is one of my proudest achievements or moments or journeys that that i've been on in a work capacity or or otherwise I think, yeah, the highs and lows that I've been on with Jack, I think, are just unforgettable.

1:00:47But yeah, I think it's a question that I have, genuinely, I'm not just saying this, never been more confident. It's a good question, but it's thankfully not a relevant one because I really feel like now more than ever, we're really on the right path and it's going to be an amazing year. Well, what excites you most about the future for Duppy Shell? I think we're growing well globally. We're in 33 countries now. I'm really excited by this Duppy House on Trade offering. We've had some very exciting new people join the brand in terms of investment and Duppy White, the rum that we have with Kano, continues to grow very quickly.

1:01:35I think we're really laser focused now in terms of our on-trade strategy, which is daiquiris at dawn, dusk and every moment in between. um and yeah it just feels i'm sure you've had it it just feels like all of a all of the the ducks are ducks are in a row and we're we're motoring um and i think you know it's everyone will say to you um that the hospitality is is struggling and that alcohol sales are down and i see it totally the other other way around i see now is the time to lean in i think as i said that thing about alcohol sales they're not as down as everyone will have you believe people are meeting up the the london is full in terms of commercial real estate i was told recently you know there now is the time to really lean in and and i i feel like we are in in a wonderful position to really hammer home our advantage i read i read somewhere in a deck we did recently that of a hundred bottles of independent rum in the uk we sell 44 so it's wow yeah we're very proud of what what we've achieved and and it's kind of now time to really pedal to the metal and before we go on to the quickfire in 20 years how do you want people to talk about the brand good question uh yeah do we still want to be a challenger then maybe maybe some clever guy will come up with the line about bats belonging in cave pirates and storybooks and duppies in somewhere because will be the third yeah monster it's happening yeah manifest it i think it will it's on route kira will be 22 and a half my daughter so she might have a raise a glass to she will be then duppy success absolutely what does my dad always say born free but now we're expensive so born free now we're expensive now i'm expensive oh shit born free but that's a good line yeah sorry i just saw it's all right um it's a good line yeah okay quick fire imagine having four daughters have you got four daughters no i don't have any four no no no my one of my best friends does and i was just thinking i just think about my dad and i've got one daughter i'm the only one and then i have you got brothers yes i have um brother very different to me he's like einstein an investment banker very serious wow very like laser focused um where does he work uh a private equity firm next to the ned so classic gilet nice for the ned like yeah yeah yeah he's like textbook that six foot blue-eyed gilet man that song thing that is joel what song man it's on you heard that that like thing it's like joel is a good name six five blue eyes i don't know what is it six i want a man that's six five oh wait maybe yeah maybe i have heard that yeah i can't remember like they did that whole like um dance in leidenhall market like oh i think i have seen that maybe trust fund six five blue eyes that one although six five is a bit too tall yeah i think my brother's six five yeah way too tall um and one belief about the business um actually no this isn't very quick fire no no this is not the quick fire the last one sorry what would you do differently if you had to start all over again

1:05:14i would genuinely say i wouldn't change anything because i think it's been as i said many a year longer than I thought it would be yeah but to be in the position now I would take bite your arm off or and I think if we change anything earlier we might not be in this position so I would I genuinely wouldn't change anything there are some things that I can think of that I might be quite easy to take out but I'd keep them in because yeah life's we can't change anything think so what's written in the stars is written in the stars quick fire round yes one mistake you are glad you made i am glad about the cocktails on tap arm break because it makes a good story one thing founders focus on too late i think margins and generally profitability one thing founders overthink i think speaking from personal experience it's that the yeses have to be piling in and why haven't we done this why haven't we done that things take time and you should celebrate that a piece of advice you wish you had listened to earlier someone said we should have launched a spiced rum sooner and i think we probably should have what does success mean to you now making the most of the opportunity i think yeah absolutely thank you so much thank you fellow hunter yes fellow hunter cheers yeah cheers thank you