Emma and Nick Smalley
An Aberdeenshire husband and wife have won the top prize in a world-renowned wine and spirit competition, for their premium gin inspired by Aberdeenshire’s rich history and links to the tea trade.
The Teasmith Gin, created by Nick and Emma Smalley from Udny Green, has been awarded a Gold Outstanding medal in this year’s International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) Design & Media category.
Selected from hundreds of entries, The Teasmith Gin was one of only three gin brands around the world to be awarded the Gold – Outstanding medal.
The IWSC top judge’s comments were, “A wonderful minimalist brand, that says what it does on the pack. Elegant, feminine it invites you in to learn more and you do. A beautiful styled label and bottle shape, beautiful paper and endlessly classic”.
The award win comes on the back two other IWSC medal wins in the Taste category earlier this year.
Nick Smalley said: “2018 has been an incredible year for us. We’ve put everything into producing both a top quality spirit and brand. The awards earlier in the year were a huge boost. But this latest win is really special. To be awarded this with so much competition both domestically and internationally really gives us the reassurance that we’ve pitched our branding just right”.
The Teasmith Gin has also picked up five prizes from the Scottish Design Awards 2017, Scottish Creative Awards 2017 and Graphs 2018 competitions for its design and branding which has been carefully developed by local, internationally acclaimed design studio, FortyTwo Studio.
Following the initial launch of The Teasmith in December 2016, with the first batch of 570 bottles selling out in under a week, co-founder Emma now works fulltime on the business.
The couple now plan to increase production levels of the artisan gin and expand their distribution and key stockists across the UK.
Emma Smalley said: “So far we’ve focussed working directly with small independent retailers which has been really successful. We’ve just listed with a couple of Scottish based wholesalers which will hopefully enable more bars, hotels and restaurants to access our product. It is going to be a very busy run up to Christmas and we’re really excited about what 2019 holds”.
Founded in 1969, the IWSC is considered the most prestigious competition of its kind in the world, with the awards among some of the highest honours in the industry.
The judging includes a blind tasting by expert panels, selected from over 400 fully experienced and qualified industry judges. Products which receive the top medals are then subject to technical analysis before results are released.
To purchase a bottle of The Teasmith Gin visit www.teasmithgin.com where you can also view a list of their stockists.