Just last week, we had the pleasure of hosting the first (of many we hope!) of our tasting events. We spent the afternoon at Hotel du Vin Poole with the some of Bournemouth’s Bar Managers and bar tenders exploring the range from the Chase Distillery.        

The afternoon started with learning a bit about the history of Chase vodka, and the process from start to finish.  In my experience, people are a lot more appreciative of a product when they understand what it has gone through before it is able to get into a bottle. With the new boom in boutique producers, it means that as well as having a great liquid inside the bottle, there is usually a great story behind it, and people form an attachment to this.        

From here, it was time to introduce the attendees to the range, critically tasting them neat to start with. When you taste a spirit for the first time, it is always important to explore the product, really get to know it. Then it was important to show these spirits in the form of a drink. With the example of Chase, I think it is critical to show that you can be brave and mix their products fairly heavily, but the quality of the product still came through.        

This image is supplied by Integreality

Giving examples of how the products can be used is vital as it demonstrates how the drink can be served and enables bartenders and managers to feel confident in the product, and that they can actually sell it. There is no worse feeling than having a bottle on your back bar, and not being sure how to serve it or brave enough to mix it.          

All in all it was a great afternoon, and we hope that the guys left with some knowledge about another key brand, and crucially how it tastes.          

We are now holding a second tasting at Hotel du Vin this week that will be consumer based. This will be a similar session in introducing the range as well as tasting the products, letting them get to know what is going on in the bottle, as well as the story behind the brand.          

The general feedback from the first tasting was that people were incredibly happy that there were tastings happening in and around the South now as apposed to just London or without it being attached to a major distributor. Being in the industry ourselves we know it can sometimes be difficult to make your way up to London for tastings, especially if there are more than one in a short space of time. We want to be able to give people that opportunity to learn and get to know new brands without having to go to a lot of trouble to do so.