Aiming high with Hendrick's: A gin brand's remarkable story

Hendrick’s gin is one of the spirits industry’s most remarkable recent stories. Created in 1999 by William Grant & Sons, the brand’s rise as a niche, supre-premium distilled gin and its cult status on the cocktail circuit is now being matched with a growing presence in travel retail. The Moodie Report joined a media visit to the Hendrick’s distillery in Girvan last month to get a flavour of this eclectic brand.

“Travel retail is a great showcase, with the right consumer for premium products, and is one of our fastest growing markets today,” Global Brand Ambassador Xavier Padovani told The Moodie Report. “It’s a channel we have focused more heavily on in the past couple of years, and one in which we want to do many more themed events. Activations are a vital part of spreading the message, as is simple word of mouth.”

Those activations include ambitious, high-profile promotions at New York JFK T5 (with International Shoppes) and at Melbourne Airport (with The Nuance Group). These featured the brand’s quirky Victorian theming, including the by now signature bathtub and bird cage displays – which were among an array of suitably odd exhibits on full show during the social events that surrounded the aforementioned media visit to Scotland.
Such elements give the impression of a brand that has been around for a century or more, yet Hendrick’s is just 12 years old – and with its unusual promotional style and elaborate ‘back story’ is also a marketer’s dream. That’s not to say it’s style over substance – there is heritage in how the gin is created, as we discovered in Girvan, also home to Grant’s whisky.

Hendrick’s is the only gin made in a combination of a Carter-Head and copper pot still. The stills were purchased at auction by Grant’s Chairman Charles Gordon in 1966 and lay underused until the family decided to begin making Hendrick’s.
Despite using the same palette of botanicals, the two stills produce quite different spirits, which are blended together. That’s not the only difference from other gin brands. It is also handcrafted in miniscule batches of only 450 litres at a time – the smaller the batch, the more control can be exerted by Lesley Gracie, the Master Distiller, and Alan Rimmer, the Stillman, says the company. Even with this artisanal approach, the brand still sold 280,000 nine-litre cases worldwide in 2010, and there is plenty of capacity to extend production at Girvan.

Among the 11 different botanicals are highly aromatic coriander seeds while juniper berries from Italy are said to provide an exotic, spicy, bittersweet taste. Musky, sweet angelica root, imported from France and Belgium, is considered by many to have healing and protecting powers. Helping to bind all these flavours to create an intricate blend is Orris root, which is aged for up to three years. Lemon peel, chamomile, cubeb berries, orange peel, elderflower yarrow and caraway seeds are also among the 11 botanicals.The big difference, though, lies in two other aforementioned ingredients added at the end of the process. The first is essence of rose, which is extracted by pressing the oils from the petals. Next comes the feature for which Hendrick’s is perhaps best known – cucumbers, the essence of which is obtained by mashing the fresh fruit, then mixing the pulp with water.

As noted, travel retail is playing its part in the brand’s strong sales performance. The channel is now the fourth largest market for Hendrick’s in the world (after the US, UK and Spain, which are over three-quarters of total volumes), and the volume business grew by +61% in travel retail last year.
The target in travel retail is simple: it’s about about getting the brand in front of consumers, and having them pass on the message. William Grant & Sons told us: “The strategy is to build brand equity, by driving visibility, trial and advocacy. Travel retail is a channel that allows us to implement high-profile activations such as the Hothouse in JFK and the [Cucumber Cup] in Melbourne where we communicate the unusual production techniques and Hendrick’s curious positioning to the broadest range of consumers.”

The promotions at JFK and Melbourne were referred to as ‘step changes’ in how the brand was promoted by the company. Partly that’s down to having extra resources: for example, Kate Minner and Paige Parness recently joined the group and focus on marketing in the Americas and Mid-Pacific and Asia respectively. With additional support in these regions, the brand focus can fall on certain priority airports and gain added momentum.

That momentum leans heavily on the peculiar Hendrick’s personality that the company has created, as well as on the unique infusion of cucumber and rose that sets the brand apart. Sampling therefore is key.
The targeted ‘education’ of staff and direct promotion to consumers is one element in spreading the word, but within the on-trade, it has been an organic process, as Padovani explains.

“Sometimes we travel to open a new market where we have no distribution, usually by introducing it to mixologists, but when we get there we find that the barmen in the top bars or hotels have already bought it in duty free, and are mixing with it already. That’s what happened in Japan, and we see it elsewhere too. Word of mouth within the mixing community is a big part of its spread.”

In travel retail, the big objectives are around securing more dedicated brand space in priority venues, ensuring premium price positioning on-shelf and using innovative HPA platforms to engage consumers with Hendrick’s – just as at JFK or Melbourne recently.

As the word spreads, volumes are on the rise – and fast. The company is forecasting travel retail volumes of 38,000 nine-litre cases in 2011, some 10,000 more than in 2010.

With that kind of surging increase, it won’t be long before the brand is delivering volumes that will put it firmly on the map in many more markets. Although that’s the ultimate aim of the game in building brands, there will be mixed emotions from Hendrick’s aficionados – and even, one suspects, from its engaging and passionate team of ambassadors and distillers, if Hendrick’s moves from niche, cult brand into the premium drinks mainstream. Whatever the future, it will be fascinating to watch the next chapter in this highly unusual story unfold.