Contract Distilling and Private Label
We offer a range of distilling services to third parties seeking to create their own brand of spirits. The following options are available:
Boutique Private Label service
Boutique Private Label is available to clients who are looking for their own exclusive branded spirit to enhance their own brand. This includes clubs, lodges, hotels, festivals and events, companies seeking corporate gifts and wedding and event-planners where the spirit will be served. Clients will select from our standard bottle range and from our standard list of available spirits (around 15 different variants), and provide us with printed labels. We can assist and advise on your label design, and recommend a suitable printer.
The minimum order quantity is 24 x 750ml bottles, which is supplied packed and labelled, 6 per carton. For larger order quantities, clients will merely order multiples of this order.
Because of the small order quantities, this option is not suitable for clients looking for spirits for resale. The price per bottle would be only slightly less than what you might pay at liquor wholesaler, although you obviously get your own branded spirits.
White Label service
Our White Label service is available to clients who are looking for their own brand of spirits for resale, usually through retail or online channels.
Clients may choose from one of our award-winning recipes of various spirits including gin, vodka, rum or brandy.
We will manufacture a batch specifically for the client. Minimum order quantity is 300 bottles, using our standard bottles. Clients have the option to select different bottle shapes, provided that the order quantity covers the pallet size as supplied by suppliers (usually between 600 and 1200 bottles).
Pricing depends on the order quantity and the spirits being made.
Contract Distilling Service
We are able to assist clients with order quantities of 2400 bottles or more to bring their products to market, with a full range of services including recipe development. Such clients would have working capital of over R1m available for the project, to cover the costs of licencing, business registration, brand design, recipe development, spirits manufacture, distribution and marketing.
Launching your own Spirit Brand for retail
If your intention is to launch a new spirits product/brand to make a profit selling bottled spirits, be aware that takes a long time and a great deal of capital. For example, it can take a year or more to obtain a relevant liquor licence.
Designing your brand and having your first batch of your own spirits made is fun and exciting, but if you do not have a route to market (retailers, bars, bottle stores) then you will battle to sell even your first batch.
Our experience is that you will need at least 4 times the cost of your first production batch to do the marketing and launches necessary to get people to buy your spirits. And every organisation or person who sells on your behalf will expect between 10 and 20% of your selling price in fees and commission). So it can take a long time to be profitable; most brands fail in the first year.
Here are some of the costs that go into a 750ml bottle of 43% craft gin:
Bottle, cork and antitamper: R15-R28
Labels: R10-R40 a bottle (depending on how fancy)
Excise duty: R98 !
Packaging: R4
Spirit: R15-R20
Other costs are
– VAT: 15%
– Retailer margin: 15%
– Distribution costs: 10%
Licence requirements
It is illegal in South Africa to sell or serve alcohol to the trade or public without a liquor licence.
You do not need a liquor licence to buy Private Label spirits from us (although there is a limit to the amount we can supply before we have tyo notify the Liquor Board.). But you do need the appropriate liquor licence in order to sell or supply these spirits.
- An on-consumption licence allows bars, restaurants and taverns to sell spirits for on-site consumption.
- Licenced retailers ( e.g. bottle stores – including online liquor sales) can sell their own-branded spirits under their off-consumption licence.
- Event organisers may sell alcohol under their temporary event licence.
- A Distributors Licence allows a person to buy and sell alcohol – including their own brand – to licence-holders (the trade). This type of licence does not permit sales to the public.
None of these licences allow the licence-holder to manufacture alcohol: only to sell or serve it..
Quick feasibility assessment
There are a few practical issues to consider with Contract Distilling
Minimum order quantities: (MOQ) If you select one of our existing spirits, we can do quite small orders as the spirits are already made. If you want a unique product to be made for you, then an MOQ of around 360 bottles or more is required. If you plan to sell commercially, then small orders (which cost more per bottle) will not be very profitable. To make reasonable profits, you should be looking at order sizes of 1200 or more, where costs come down and profit is higher.
Pricing: Our pricing is quoted per bottle. Prices depend very much on batch quantities, the quality and type of spirit and the quality of the packaging. The price goes down as order size increases, because the costs of production are able to be spread over a larger batch. Orders of 1200 bottles or more are significantly less expensive, per bottle, than smaller orders.
We make premium craft spirits many of which are medal winners, and well suited to distinctive Private Labels.
We do not produce cheap, mass-produced spirits, and we don’t cheat on Excise and VAT. Please do not ask us to do these things.
Costs that make up the price of every bottle of spirit sold in South Africa include raw materials, manufacturing costs, Excise Duty, bottle, cork (closure), anti-tamper, labels & labelling, packaging, shipping & delivery, as a start. In our quotation to you we will accurately itemise all of these costs.
Next steps
In order for us to assist you, contact us giving us full details about the type of spirit you are looking for, the quantity you are looking for, where you are located, and whether you have a liquor licence or not.
NOTICE
We have been inundated by unexpected volumes of enquiries for our small batch Boutique Private Label option and are temporarily suspending quotations until the backlog has cleared. We will be taking enquiries again soon.
In the meantime we are only able to take enquiries from clients who are in a position to place orders for a minimum batch size of 600 bottles, and who already have an approved liquor licence (or who have lodged their application). Please call or email the distillery directly for more information.
We apologise for the inconvenience.