This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Feature
Salford Rum talks rivalling ‘the big boys’ in the UK
Tommy Gaughan, the co-founder of Salford Rum, explains the brand’s next moves after raising more than £300,000 (US$388,475) in a crowdfund.
Earlier this month, Greater Manchester-based The Salford Rum Company beat its crowdfund target of £250,000 (US$323,727) within a day. With three days left in the campaign, the figure is now over £300,000.
“Hopefully, after this, we should be able to cover our own growth and this will be the last raise we have to do,” says Gaughan.
The brand was created in 2018 by Gaughan and his friend James Harrison with a goal of making a premium rum that could rival gin. Covid threw a spanner in the works, but it was also a “blessing in disguise,” Gaughan says.
“We had a direct-to-consumer website all set up and ready to go; with hindsight, in some ways we could have probably pushed a lot harder during that period. We didn’t because James and I had full-time jobs to focus on and it was relegated to a weekend thing at the time. In some ways, I think we did miss an opportunity, but in others I feel like it was a blessing in disguise.
“It could have grown too hard and too quickly there, and we might have suffered on the other side of it, where volume drops off and creates issues.”
Instead, the brand grew an organic following and supported its flagship spiced rum with various limited edition flavours such as coffee and honey. The local support eventually led to a distillery and brand home (named The Dirty Old Town) on Viaduct Street.
Now, with more than £300,000 to play with, Gaughan is looking to take the brand up a level, boosting The Dirty Old Town’s capacity and capabilities and raising the brand’s national awareness. His hope is to reach a point that when people think of British rum, they think of Salford Rum.
Gaughan says: “There are a lot of craft rums here, and a lot of gin distilleries make rum as well, but I don’t think anyone has captured the market in the way Sipsmith did for gin. That is a real opportunity for us.”
While turning the focus to international waters may come one day – the brand is already available in Hong Kong and Canada – he adds “there’s a lot of work to do in the UK. That is the primary focus”.
“We’re not out to try and win that business [internationally] just yet – just because until we’ve reached our goals in the UK, that will continue to be the focus. We really feel that Salford Rum can be a challenger brand in the UK market. As we stand, we are probably still at craft status. We’re scaling the brand in the UK primarily and looking for opportunities within that.”
Distillery plans
A big part of these UK ambitions will see the brand make more of its distillery. At the minute, half of the space is used for production and the other for rum experiences that run every weekend.
Gaughan says the aim is to bring production to the first floor, with the tastings and a bar upstairs. Production size will be doubled and capacity also increased.
Of the current setup, he explains: “We have to separate the two things; we can’t produce while customers are on-site as there isn’t the space. When we put the mezzanine floor in, we will have customers in throughout the week while we are downstairs producing.
“We’ll have a balcony so people will be able to view the production; then we can really start to position it as an attraction, with the Manchester tourism office and hotels. We’ve already got some partnerships lined up where hotels will have visitors from around the world and hopefully sell tickets on our behalf.”
However, no matter how the brand looks in the future, The Dirty Old Town will always be home.
“If we hit our goals, chances are we will probably outgrow the space, but I feel as though this is home,” he maintains. “It’s the perfect location – in Salford, but just a five-minute walk to Manchester city centre, which is ideal for tourism and visitors. We may take on additional units for additional production capacity, but we really see The Dirty Old Town Distillery as our base.”
Product focus
In terms of new products, Salford will continue to drip-feed its limited releases, which have been “really key to growth of repeat customers and getting the name of the brand out there”. There will be perhaps two or three of these rolled out a year, with an availability of 3,000 bottles or so.
Gaughan explains: “We are conscious of growth in that we could just stick loads of different flavoured rums out there, but we don’t want to do that. We want to focus on things that tie in with our story.”
Salford Rum is based near the area’s docks and weaves the neighbourhood history with the rum trade into its own. For instance, its Rum & Black variant sees its signature white rum is infused with locally grown blackcurrants from The Promise Co Urban Homestead.
Gaughan says the variant was born out of conversations with their customers. “We used to go and hand out bottles around the area. We would get told stories about people who worked at the docks and headed to the working men’s club at the end of the week, where they would enjoy a rum and black – rum and blackcurrant cordial, basically.
“We are inspired by this and work with a local farm to get the blackcurrants and distill those with the rum. It’s almost like a premium take on an old-school drink of the dockyards.”
Sticking to the story is something that Gaughan values greatly. “We’re not just a rum brand,” he continues. “We’re made in Salford – there’s real heritage and history behind the products, with the docks and what they reveal and our recipes. We’re trying to be a little bit different. The category has always been quite masculine in terms of seamen, privates and sailors. We think about how we can attract a consumer that is looking for something a bit different, a bit craft.”
Salford also does this through its branding and partnership with Dave Draws, a local artist that Gaughan and the team call on to design the bottles.
“He’s been pretty key to that,” Gaughan says of Draws’ role in shaping Salford’s brand identity. “We sent him a map of the Salford Docks as it was back in the day, and we asked him to include references to photos of Dirty Old Town. It’s really important because people shop with their eyes; people go for a bottle they like the look of, and when the liquid stands up, they will go for more.”
Future outlook
Will the brand branch out to other spirits? Not for now, Gaughan says: rum is the priority.
“We’ve got a fully functioning distillery and we love creating liquids, so we’d never say never to other products and spirits, but for now, the focus is on rum.
“Ever since we set up the brand, people have said: ‘Oh, rum is the next big thing.’ We are kind of waiting for that. I think gin is bringing people into the category and into premium craft spirits. They’ve gone: ‘Do you know what? I’ve enjoyed gin. I’ve tried lots of them and I’m ready to try something new.’
“Rum has been a natural progression for a lot of those craft drinkers. So it’s served us really well. If you look at the data, the growth in the category is in premium products and spiced and flavoured rums – we’re really well-positioned to capture that market with both those things.”
Lastly, don’t make the mistake of calling Salford a ‘luxury’ product.
“To be honest, the people of Salford would reject us if we tried to call ourselves luxury,” Gaughan jokes.
“I wouldn’t say luxury, more premium but accessible. Ultimately, we’ve got an ambition for Salford Rum to rival the big boys and in order to do that, we’re going to have to be able to play in that space in terms of price points. We’ve got plans in order to be able to do that without decaying the liquid and product quality that we’ve become known for.
“But the fundraising and support we have from local people, and from people who have been buying Salford for five-plus years – it’s been awesome. We are really appreciative and wanted to say a massive thank you.”
Related news