Confessions of a retail buyer: Sherbrooke Liquor

Sherbrooke Liquor’s wine and spirits buyer, Tara Smith, muses the qualities of the spirits’ market in Alberta, Canada.

I am pretty fortunate to be in a position where I have really adventurous and educated customers, so I can take a chance on new and trendy products. The first thing I need to establish about a new product listing is price quality per bottle. I’ll then look at how available it’s going to be on the market – is it exclusive or will it be on sale everywhere?

One thing customers are going crazy for these days are locally made products, and as an independent family-owned store from the very beginning we have always supported the local guys. But in the last three to five years it has really taken off.

Canada is a little bit behind the spirits trends in terms of what’s out there when you compare us to the EU or the US. In Alberta, we take a little bit longer to catch on. Brown spirits have really just taken off in the last two years.

What’s unique for us is that in most Canadian states, liquor stores are owned by the government, but here in Alberta it’s an open market so we can decide exactly what we want to buy and sell. It’s referred to as the “holy land”.

I like to think I’m very approachable and easy going when it comes to considering new spirits. I’d say we try about 90% of new products before we stock them. Aside from tasting good and offering something innovative, it’s about evaluating whether it will sell on my shelves and being aware of what’s going on around me in terms of trends.

When you look at how sales fluctuate, there’s definitely a seasonal pattern. The previous buyer at Sherbrooke Liquor saw no one was really focused on rum, but that has changed since I took over and now we have built up a huge collection of around 300 rums. It really has changed recently as brown spirits have just evolved in terms of popularity. Our Bourbon inventory has probably doubled as well to nearly 60 expressions.

Gin has been helped massively by the cocktail craze and so we’ve really seen a resurgence in Alberta, much like other key markets around the world. I’d say the divide between whether consumers are choosing to drink gin in cocktails or G&Ts is split evenly, but what I have noticed is a real trade up when it comes to what soda or tonic water they mix it with. I’ve got rid of all supermarket brands and now focus on more premium tonic waters like Fever Tree – it just shows how far education has come.

Doing what I do, I get to take a few risks – and I love that. Most of the time they work and because we are busy I do get exposed to a lot of different products and new brands coming into the market. But I have to be pragmatic; sometimes it just doesn’t catch on in the way I had hoped, but c’est la vie. My only regret would be if I was too cautious and then realised I should have jumped on that new bottling. These are all life lessons, I guess.

The constant education is one of my favourite things about being a spirits buyer and that works two ways in terms of me educating consumers or them showing me something new. We have a very loyal customer base and as an independent store I get to meet so many brand ambassadors, producers and distributors and experience their passion – that might be my absolute favourite part.

Space constraints and managing the inventory is challenging because we don’t have a ton of storage space. We want to maintain the diversity of products we have to offer, and at Christmas for example while we could easily sell 50 cases of Baileys, I just don’t have the space to store so many.

Gin has begun its comeback as I mentioned before, but Tequila has also started to creep slowly back into fashion with sipping expressions and cocktails. We try to make sure every spirit category we sell is as strong as the next because I believe if consumers see you have a great gin offering, they’ll think: “Well, your Tequila collection is probably pretty

good too”.