2013 December Reflections of the First Year of Business

Last November 2012 Hannah Whisky Merchants Ltd set out with a goal to bring exceptional and rare whisky to the market at a decent price. When we started we had no idea of the challenges and changes ahead but we wanted to take our time and grow our business slowly. I promised that I would never rush for the sake of profit and would never sell a product that was not up to our high standard and we’re still here one year on!

The biggest challenge we endured was not licensing or anything related to the Whisky. To be honest it was couriers! Trying to arrange couriers to arrive and find out where they were and give them instructions only to find they had been ignored was incredibly frustrating. There were other challenges too which you get which a business degree never prepare you for such as the legislation and number of organizations you need to work with to export alcohol (if anyone wants to know give me an email and I can save you about a week’s worth banging your head against a wall). With these challenges in mind and the pressure of expectation on your shoulders it came to be the only goal was to sell all my rare bottles of Whisky within a year.

I am proud to say that we achieved a large part of what we wanted to and some. We completed that export deal which was to Germany and we finally managed to get our bespoke whisky bags. After the Whisky bags were complete it was only a matter of weeks and we had sold the majority of our Invergordon and every single bottle of our Benrinnes. I felt a great sense of pride selling my first malt cask and thank you to everyone who purchased one of the 86 bottles.

For me the biggest change this year was becoming a married man. My wife Dawn, whom I married at Dalserf Church in the Clyde Valley on 7 September, has been my rock through this entire venture. She sat up to the wee hours preparing many a shipments after doing her day job as well as planning our wedding. Without Dawn Lady of the Glen just would not exist, so thank you to my beautiful wife!

Next year looks really promising and I’m incredibly excited about launching more releases for Lady of the Glen. We have an exceptional 19 year old Caperdonich which will be available before Christmas. This one will be a little more expensive but it is an absolute delight on the palate and really optimises what Lady of the Glen is about; selling rare and high quality Whisky which makes for an ideal unique gift.

I will sign off by saying wrap up warm, eat plenty of oranges and enjoy the run up to Christmas folks. Thank you all for your continued support.