In Pursuit of Excellence
chatting and I raised the topic of “Have you
got a Grenadian Rum to sponsor your race
and if not then you need one!’
“So we got involved with them and sponsored
their trans Atlantic race for 3 years. We
subsequently moved over to Cowes Week after
that and it has been a great success - Westerhall
Estate are the official Rum of the event.
“I gauge success from the contacts we have
made through sponsoring the event and how
that leads to direct sales. For instance we
were discussing an opportunity to sell product
to Harvey Nichols in London so we invited
their spirits buyer to the event in Cowes. He
attended and through that, we secured an
order for our rums to be stocked in what is a
very prestigious store in central London and it
“
In Pursuit of Excellence
“With our new labels we have picked up a lot
of interest from various distributors all over the
country. Bars and Restaurants are also loving
the new labels as they see it as clean modern
and stylish. So without us doing the re-brand,
we would not be in a position we are in today.
Kingsman continues “We now have
distributors in other European countriesOne
in Switzerland One in Germany One in Norway
one in Russia, one in Switzerland and we are
now looking at Italy so we are moving ahead.
“We bottle the Rum in the UK purely out of
logistics of getting the UK sized bottle over to
Grenada because our bottles come from Italy
so it seemed a bit crazy to send bottles from
Europe to Grenada fill them up and then send
it back to the UK
With our new labels we have picked up a lot of
interest from various distributors all over the country.
Bars and Restaurants are also loving the new labels as
they see it as clean modern and stylish.
What other strategies do you have for Westerhall
Rums & world domination?
“Part of our strategy was rebranding the
product 12 months ago for a couple of reasons.
1.The bottle size sold here in Grenada and the
USA Market is 750ml bottles whist the standard
in the UK/Europe is 700ml size for spirits.
Only Wine is allowed to be sold in 750ml
bottles, so we had to change the physical size
of the bottle for the UK market.
2. Other than the name on the label
(Westerhall Estate, Grenada) the products
did not have much in common. So we spoke
to a marketing agency and they suggested we
repackage the rums into new bottles with a
clean stylish modern label. RUM No. 3, 5, 7,
& 10 based on the average age of the Rums.
“This has proven to be very successful. If
you look at the many bottles behind a bar
unless you know the name of the product you
don’t know whats inside. ..It could be Vodka,
Whiskey, Bourbon, whatever…
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So you invented this “Pink & Stormy”?
“As far as we know, yes, and if it did exist
before then, it certainly was not called a “Pink
& Stormy”
of secondary. All the brands have their own
signature cocktails and we now have ours and
we are sticking with it.
“The Ginger Beer adds a cloudiness to it all
hence the “stormy” and the “pink” we like to
think of as the Grenadian Sunset.
The linguistic link between Grenadine and
Grenada makes it kinda memorable and
appropriate for a Grenada Rum Cocktail.
So you have quite the operation going ….Are other
people involved in the Business?
moment …the order we had for Germany for
instance was about 75 cases and the one we
got for Norway was only around 50 cases so its
not vast but we are going to build on it and we
have to start somewhere.
Who do you think are your main competitors in the
UK market?
“I would say our main competitor in the UK as
a brand is probably Mount Gay especially as we
are involved with sailing and the regattas etc.
At Cowes Week for instance, we had some
Kingsman invented his
own signature cocktail
- the “Pink & Stormy”
“
all came about due to our involvement in the
Cowes Sailing Week. We are not the Named
sponsor of the event as that would cost us
many thousands of pounds but as the official
rum of the event it works very well for us.
mixing a Westerhall Signature Cocktail, the
“Pink and Stormy” which is a variation of
the traditional “Dark and Stormy” which is
claimed to be invented by Goslings (Rum) I
heard they tried to trademark it but were
unsuccessful in doing so, but anyways, the
recipe for a Rum and Ginger Beer is always
called a “Dark and Stormy”
Retail prices in the UK are roughly:-
21pounds = No. 3
26 pounds = No. 5
29 pounds = No. 7
35 pounds = No. 10
“Our biggest seller by volume is the No 3 as
that gets used for cocktails and mixed rum
drinks - that is a big market in the UK.
“We sold a lot at the Cowes Week as we were
www.businessgrenada.com
“We also sell online through an App in
England called “Bevy” which is an American
butler service so they deliver anywhere in
London and we are seeing reasonable volumes
through that service and various other online
shopping services.
“We really love working with Westerhall
Estates from Graham & Wendy, to the girl at
the front desk, all are great people to work with.
The gardens at the estate are also beautiful so
I love enjoying that aspect. We also love the
island as a destination and we think it has the
right blend of different businesses like the
Medical school which brings in a tremendous
amount of benefits to the island and various
high end Tourism products like Port Louis,
Mount Cinnamon, Sandals and the new
Silversands hotel shows that the island is
developing in a great manner.
“One of my friends was going to purchase a
house in Antigua and I told him to come here
to Grenada instead, so he did and eventually
bought a villa at Mount Cinnamon.
How much do you sell?
Price Range positioning in the UK?
“When you start selling a million cases a year
you get on a kind of elite list. So our aim is to
reach this target. A million cases a year!
In conclusion Kingsman states “I’m now a
great advocate of Grenada and I constantly tell
friends of mine who are looking to travel to
the Caribbean…”No don’t go there…Come to
Grenada instead” and they do!
“We get each product shipped over to us
in bulk liquid containers which hold 1,000
liters each. Its all under bond so we do not
pay any duty until we sell the bottled product
but we do have to pay that immediately, the
government want their money as soon as the
rum leaves the bonded warehouse.
“We started off at zero and we are now up to
about 250 cases a month, the industry usually
gauges sales in cases and we have 6 bottles in
a case so approximately 18,000 bottles per year
across the range obviously if we were selling that
volume of the 10 year old we’d be much better
off as there is more profit in the premium rums
but we are happy with what were doing with
obvious room for improvement.
so we have a long way to catch them up.
Stylish new branding makes the product easily identifiable
The Pink and Stormy recipe:
Rum
Ginger beer
Lime Juice
Dash of Grenadine
Nutmeg on top
Ice
“We were selling it in large 1.5 liter Jugs
during Cowes Week designed to serve 5
people but what we found was that people were
coming along and buying a 1.5 liter jug per
person …with a straw!
“So 5 Jugs for 5 people. Thats sailors for you
! The cocktail market is so full up of all sorts
of cocktails and its mainly all about what they
look like and the brand of rum in it is kind
“My daughter Annabel, she has been over
to Grenada quite a few times and she’s really
getting involved. We have Brand Managers
who go out and do a lot of the hard graft by
doing the cold calling. You can’t just get a
distributor and hope they sell it for you, so you
have to go out to pubs and bars and get it put
on the shelfs once you can get your product on
the shelves of supermarkets, liquor stores and
in the bars-then thats the start of something. initial resistance. A few bars were saying they
normally stock Mount Gay and really didn’t
know too much about Westerhall, but one of
them stocked up on our product and ended up
selling 150 bottles of ours and only 3 bottles
of Mount Gay which made us very happy.
We are not the distributors or the Bottlers,
we are officially The importers of Westerhall
Rums into the UK and Europe. “We have no idea of their volume obviously
they are a much bigger brand than ours and we
expect they are doing some sizeable numbers
in the UK . A figure I do know however, is that
of Bacardi…. They sell 19 million (12 bottle)
cases worldwide per year. Thats a lot of Rum,
How much quantities are you looking at?
“Europe is still quite small for us at the
Well done ! we agree WE is a much better rum and
obviously the sailors agreed!
As a comparison do you have any idea of how
many bottles Mount Gay do a year in the UK?
www.businessgrenada.com
Nick Kingsman continues “Also as a direct
result of me singing Grenada’s praises and due
to my friendship with one particular person,
“CaneCo” came to Grenada and is setting up
an exciting project involving growing cane on
600 acres of land and setting up a distillery to
produce high end premium rums in Grenada.
This investment is estimated to cost around
$20 million usd, so when I say I am always
singing Grenada’s praises you can see that I
mean it.
“I think that this kind of investment into
Grenada is and will be very beneficial to
present and future generations. The level of
investment diversity, carded for the next 20
years, is likely to help Grenada advance much
quicker than the last 20 years.
A rising tide lifts all boats…We’ll
drink to that! BG
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