My +10 years with spirits

Today I just sat down and typed quickly some thoughts that accumulated during those 10 long years with casks, bottles, distilleries and warehouses. There were a lot of travels and adventures during this time, indeed. I will try to catch up on them another time. In this note I would like to share with you my humble and honest thoughts. At random imporance. I believe you would enjoy reading them. If you agree – please keep following Jack Tar projects, if you disagree – also please do follow Jack Tar projects and type to me - I would appreciate your view on things.

1/ Sell product of your own brand. If you have a courage and good ideas and you know where to rasie some EUR and GBP for a start - just listen to your heart and act. Creating and selling spirits is fun. It is unforgettable joy. People will appreciate what you do and you would be amazed by recognition of your hard work.

2/ Selling Other people Brands = „ Big Brand OB Selected for...." is a total waste of time, energy and money. I have done it too many times with big top world brands in: whisky, cognac, rum, armagnac, Swiss watches, gold coins, fine art, teleshoping, outbound calls. In 100% cases people at Big Brand will ask you for prepayment - so actually you pay them for being eligible to promote their brands! Ha ha. I know that is kind of widely accepted. However I find it as nonesense. This is totally irrationale approach. In the long run, the Other people Brand will win. You would have been tired by placing and selling their products. If you are lucky and trained well on bending excell – you would get margin or commission. But this is like eating pankake at beakfast – it will boost you for a while, but will give you no fuel for a day.

3/ How fantastic is to buy a good quality cask distilled at Strathisla or Ben Nevis, put a great name and label on it, bottle in Scotland and offer to whisky fans all around the world. How rewarding it is. How great is to see you = whisky fans, rum fans, brandy fans asking for samples, opinions, placing orders, sending suggestions. I am living my life.

4/ When I started my first cask – we travelled to Elgin in Scotland to meet G&McPh Family, there were few Independent Bottlers back then. When I see today RumX application, there is +500 Independent bottles just in rum! What a fantastic word we live in today.

5/ Transport between UK and EU I do by myself with our courier in most of the cases. I am telling you - it takes me typing & reading 50 emails to execute per one B2B shipment. Plus 50 emails done by our courier. So we often had literally 100 emails (in and out) to conclude the shipment of a pallet to LCB London or Octavian... I remember before Brexit I shipped a cask of Calypso Caroni rum from UK to France (from new place to new place) typing maybe 10-12 emails total and it was done in a week with everything. I wish we are back to this one day.

6/ There is plenty of old & great quality liquid in France and UK. And Carraibian. Believe me. I have been to +50 distilleries in Scotland & England and +30 cognac houses. I have seen stock of Gascony too. I have seen cellars of Galactic stock – whisky, cognac, armagnac, rum. Once in Scotland (at Big Scotch Whisky Giant) we have been using a car to visit warehouses inside a terrain big like Warsaw Airport Okecie. All around warehouses with casks! I have seen cellars of pre-phyloxera cognacs of outstanding quality. I have been tasting the oldest whiskies, cognac, armagnac in the world. Some of these documented in movies. Most just privately experienced. This could be a whole chapeter in a book about this Galactic stock unreleased. Why this stock is still there? Why this stock is not bottled yet? Even half of it? See point 7/

7/ Owner's prices of casks, dame jeanne, liquid in steel, etc are ''wish prices". Completely torn out from the actual demand of individual customers. I mean real demand = consumption demand. My Dear Friends at Distilleries, Cognac Houses, Armagac Houses, Big UK Brokers – people really want your spirits. They love your casks conversted to bottles. But consumers (myself included) want ''normal'' and ''rationale'' consumption prices. A fair price that is equivaent to a simpe decision – will I open the bottle and drink with friends?

Of course there is a market of collectors who buy at Cata and sell at WA. Or buy at release price and send bottles to SWA. But the majority of people I am in touch with (individual customers living in +30 countries where we shipped our bottles) - believe me - they want to open the bottle. Thay want to simply enjoy the liquid. And they would easily drink 60 yo armagnac, 90 yo cognac or 25 yo single cask of whisky. For consumption price. Not ''wish prices''.

8/ How I see the so called ''wet storage prices'' of the stock? Well, in my humble view the whole industry is based on: paper valuation (whisky), heritage hypothetical value (cognac) and presence vs future greed (rum). Armagnac – if I could apply corporate wording from GE – too early to judge. Shall I keep buying casks – yes. But every time when I recall one of the warehouses in Cognac region, I wonder that so many great casks and dame jeanne are lying in waiting. Why we cannot release them like old Beatels song, forgotten SRV concert or hidden Jimi Hendrix demos.

9/ Inependent bottles and all new distilleries on the horizon – are far advanced in communication, customer needs and demand. I keep fingres crossed for them. The projects and releases of my colleagues are like Van Halen debut vinyl in 1978 versus established rock bands back there. Respect to past and presence but totally fresh energy, technique, visibility and emotions. And what is most important – superb contact with the audience.

10/ Meetings. For every 100 meetings I did in Scotland, France, Berlin, New Delhi, Shanghai, etc usually 90 were a waste of time. But always you realize it later. 'Connecting dots' conclusion always comes later. Two examples: I still remember an arranged afternoon meeting in Glasgow. Owners of few Scotch known distilleries welcomed us downstairs in a cafeteria and they did not even care to invite us to the office upstairs in the same building. The transaction we did together before this meeting with them was few hundreds thousands GBP on the buy side. Shame and embarassemnt. On the other hand – an amazing ''10 am meeting ''in a sunny day in Cognac, when we literally agreed on everything in 30 min with Owner and went back to the hotel to swim to the swimming pool - as we agreed sucessfuly on 100% points. Mission accomplished.

11/ Spirit businees in based on trust – trust is a currency here. I got a great trust lesson from MD of Highland Distillery when buying oldest cask from their 60-ties with just a shake-hand. Wow! After, we did just half-page contract - as we needed for accounting and tax purposes. Fantastic experience.

12/ Behind all big brands are people. If a person changes job because she/he is upset on the boss or salary – the connection is lost on most of the cases.

13/ Business Angels are important. You would never go far without hundred of thousands of EUR and GBP at start in this business.

14/ You need to love what you do. Selling spirits is hard work. If you can earn +100.000 GBP/year on real etate swaps and crunching excell (this is even harder) – go there. You would sweat the same but in a nice glass office and in a suit – I have been there, I have done that.

15/ Our products will live longer than us. I did +60 bottlings and most of them alone from the begining to sales. I am sure there will be some Yggdrasil, Time Travel or Caroni Cosmic bottles unopened somewhere in 2088.

16/ I keep fingers crossed for all auctions, marketplaces and platforms. They did not exist when I started. They are the engines for real demand/supply transactions. Of course selling well one bottle from 252 bottles cask is not a challange (and I never extrapolate this way rest of the outurn) but for sure these are the places where: product, seller and buyer can meet.

17/ Selling spirits is fun. There is to much seriouseness in communication of most of the players today. Please relax and smile more often (especially in www and social media).

18/ Health and wellbeing is most important. Without Energy and beloved ones around you - you would never get far. Raising a glass will help, if there are good, positive people with you.