UK-based spirits producer East London Liquor Company is preparing to expand further into the US market, especially with its whisky range.
Speaking to Just Drinks at the Whisky Exchange Whisky Show last week, founder Alex Wolpert said the company was in the process of establishing a new distribution agreement for its products in the country.
“When we started in the [US], it was very much us doing things ourselves,” Wolpert said. “It got a bit of momentum organically. Now we’ve got to go, wait a minute, we probably need to… plan a bit more systematically about how we build and grow the SKUs.”
East London Liquor Co. is currently sold in New York, Connecticut, and Texas, and is intending “to scale that with whisky being more of a focus”.
Wolpert added that the company was "quietly confident" about growing the business in the US over the next year. "It's not cheap to sell in the US, but I think from a whisky perspective, particularly with single malt... there's definitely a lot of potential".
Discussing how the business intends to grow its whisky sales, Wolpert said it would look into NPD, including “evolving the single cask offering”. The group's current range includes a single malt whisky, and three single cask releases.
In December last year, East London Liquor fell into administration, being bought back within the month by Wolpert and former shareholders Andreas Akerland, Roland Grain and pub and bar business Barworks.
Wolpert did not disclose how much the group would be looking to invest in US expansion at this stage, noting that 2024 “is very much like a relaunch year for us, getting everything settled and dealing with what last year's events actually entailed, the kind of repercussions were long and still quite painful”.
The company’s portfolio includes a namesake range of bottled whiskies, gins, rum and vodka, as well as ready-to-drink mixed cocktails, with 65% of stock sold in the on-trade and 35% in the off-trade.
Mangrove Global has managed East London Liquor Co.'s UK distribution in the on-and off-premise since 2022.
In addition to the UK and selected states in the US, the group also sells to Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, China and Australia. It currently exports between 12% and 15% of its products.
“Export is still quite small for us, but... there are definitely a few markets where we see some quite good potential, particularly the whisky”, Wolpert said.
East London Liquor’s sales volumes are highest for its gins, followed by vodka and rum. Over the next 12 months, the business is looking to increase its sales of whisky to the same levels as rum. The group doesn't presently disclose sales figures by SKUs.
