Page 26 - 07_October 2024

NATHAN FLIM AND HIS TUMBLER & ROCKS
Colorado. It will be stocked on liquor store shelves in Arizona this autumn. That increases the Fort’s reach to 12 American states, with plans for more.
To help finance this, Flim placed the company on Front- Fundr, a crowdfunding platform which pairs companies with small, public investors. The goal was to raise $1.5 million, with shares priced at $1 each. The minimum buy in was $500, and the company was valuated at $12 million.
The distillery already has upgraded its bottling system, and has the capacity to ramp up production, so why was the investment needed? For marketing, sales and promotion.
“The liquor business is still very old school, it’s still very face-to-face,” says Flim. “People still want to meet people.
It would be very hard for us just to send emails to liquor stores in Denver and say, ‘Hey, we’re new, you should buy it.’”
When the company expands to a new state, it has to secure a distributor. That distributor could be working with hundreds or even thousands of products. So, Flim and his staff have to head south so they can educate the sales people and visit liquor stores. They also need to make attractive displays.
“You really have to win on shelf,” he says.
Flim says his customers are in the rising demo that sees cocktails as something to be savoured around a campfire, rather than the binge drinkers of years gone by. Statistics Canada supports his claim.
The most recent StatsCan survey of the national liquor market found that sales rose to $26.3 billion a year, an upward trend of 2.8 per cent. But, while revenue is up, beer consumption is at an all time low of just 3.6 bottles a week per Canadian of legal drinking age. Wine is also on a downward trend, with sales decreasing by three per cent over the last year.
So, if wine and beer are down, but sales figures are up, it supports the idea that spirits — the ones on the top shelves — are leading the way.
The Tumbler & Rocks line includes an Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Cosmo, Espresso Martini and a traditional Martini (insert shaken, not stirred joke here). The Fort has also brought a Blueberry Marg and a Maple Bourbon Smash to the Alberta market. The Smash was so success- ful, it will soon be shipped south, too.
“You can stock your home bar without having to buy 30 bottles,” says Flim. “We focus on using premium ingredi- ents and good, quality stuff in our cocktails. If we switched from using real lime juice to a lime flavouring, yeah, we could sell our cocktails for less. But that’s not what people want. They want real ingredients. We use high-quality ingredients, and, yes, it impacts the cost. We’re definitely not super expensive, but we’re definitely not bottom-shelf, super cheap stuff either.”
— STEVEN SANDOR
26 EDify. OCTOBER.24
PHOTOGRAPHY ASPEN ZETTEL