Charles talks to us about his career with some of the top estates in the South African wine industry, about his experiences introducing South African wines to the export markets and about Darling where he now owns the popular Darling Wine Shop.

A Podcast with Holger Meier

Hylton Smith was part of the team that first introduced Windhoek beers to the Botswana market, he then moved to Durban and joined Ian and Peter Hoyer at Team Liquor Distributors to head up sales of Windhoek beers. Hylton recalls only selling a truckload of Windhoek in their first year, but only a short four years later they sold an interlink of Windhoek beers per day during the peak season.

Then in 2004, thinking that they were well on their way to becoming a real player in the liquor industry, Namibian Breweries announced the formation of Brandhouse, a joint venture with Heineken and Diageo.

Hylton opted not to become part of the new corporation and joined former Windhoek colleagues Andre Homann and Craig MacKenzie in selling Bavaria beers.

Andre Homann and a few former Windhoek guys then made an offer to purchase NMK Schulz from Norbert Schulz. NMK had the agency for Stella Artois, a brand which the beer guys hoped they could grow into a significant player in the local market.

Hylton, now a shareholder, continued working at Team Liquor Distributors.

When Ray Edwards started Tops at Spar the market started to change and in order to survive, distributors had to be able to service national chain stores.

In 2016 Hylton took on new financial partners, with funds to open branches nationally they could now service national chains such as Pick n Pay.

In 2018 Hylton was approached by Super Bock to distribute their beer in South Africa. At the time Super Bock was only available at the Liquor City stores. The brand was on a good growth trajectory, claiming to sell 15000 containers a year in Angola at the time.

Super Bock is the leading beer brand in Portugal with a market share of more than 50% The Super Bock Group is a privately held company founded in 1890 based in Porto, Portugal.

Hylton continues by sharing some interesting stories about his travels to Porto, their strategy with the brand and his journey so far. Well worth a listen!

A Podcast with Holger Meier

Today’s Guest is Jason Neal, owner of the Gauteng-based drinks distributor, Nicholson Smith, and creator of award-winning brands like Pandora’s Box wine range. Jason “grew” up in the liquor industry following in his father’s footsteps, who was Mr Ballantines Whiskey at Hiram Walker and later successfully start exporting SAB beers during the Meyer Kahn era.

Jason started working at The Cellars of Hyde Park when he was only 16 years old, Jason started working at The Cellars of Hyde Park when he was only 16 years old, thereafter he cut his entrepreneurial teeth with a Sorghum Breweries in Diepsloot.

After selling the brewery, Jason joined Boetie Rietoff at Somerset Wines and then he helped Italian billionaire, Count Riccardo Agusta, owner of Grand Provance, launch La Vie De Luc Mineral Water which is now the No 1 on consumption water in South Africa.

Nicholson Smith was started in 1997 to import Bowman’s whisky from the USA. Jason joined the company in 2005. After buying out the founding partners, Jason has been operating the business on his own since 2009. Nicholson Smith is now a complete drinks business, selling what the market demands.

https://www.nicholsonsmith.co.za/

Jason Neal is also the creator of the very successful Pandora’s Box wine range with the help of James Mckenzie, owner at Nabygelegen Private Cellar.

https://www.nicholsonsmith.co.za/wines/itemlist/category/51-pandora-s-box

In 2016 Reinhardt Paulsen discovered gin and his restaurant, Carbon Bistro, soon became the top gin bar in the Capital. After exiting the bistro, Reinhardt started TheGinGuy.co.za an online gin and speciality spirits site, which lists about 180 gins. The most exciting recent addition is Procera gin which is made by Roger Jorgenson in Kenya.

Reinhardt not only supplies gin fanatics, but he also offers a delivery service to other liquor retailers.

In this episode, we learn more about Reinhardt's latest project, TheGinGuy.com. With this new site, he will be able to ship South African gins all over the world.

We reconnect with Simone Musgrave, innovative craft gin pioneer, at the recent launch of the Jasmine Jagger limited edition Musgrave 11 event at Hillcrest Tops. In this episode Simone shares how this colab came about and how she is reviving her brand which like most premium products has been badly affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Links: Find a link to our previous interview here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5AcXeHKeABqq6695siQdtq https://musgravespirits.com https://jasminejagger.com Hillcrest Tops

In this episode, Rob Heyns shares the news that they have bought League of Beers, the popular craft beer subscription business, back from Yuppiechef.com.

In this episode, our guest is Craft Gin's favourite son, Glenn Bryant, co-owner of the Six Dog Distillery. Glenn shares their 5+ year journey with us.   I have watched Glenn and his team closely over the last 5 years and love the way that these industry newcomers have focused on building relationships rather than rushing into outsourcing sales and distribution to third parties. A very good lesson for new brand owners.  

Glenn has always wanted to create a product that is good enough to become a global brand. Six Dogs is already exported to 23 markets. During the liquor lockdown in South Africa, Glenn realised just how vulnerable and exposed they are to the local market, and we are very excited to hear that Six Dogs has opened a European office in the Netherlands. Following the example of the many "European Swallows", Glenn plans to work in the Netherlands during the European summers and in Cape Town during the South African summer.   We wish Glenn and the Six Dogs team all the best in this exciting new venture and trust that their work will also benefit the South African craft industry as a whole.   This podcast is available on your favourite podcast app https://pod.link/drinksbiz or on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC04XKk_DwOg2sxsQ9XZUBGQ   Visitors are welcome but by appointment only. Reach out to them here: https://sixdogs.com/contact/   A visit to the distillery may just change your opinion of craft gin.   Directions: https://g.page/sixdogsdistillery   Listen to the interview with Yvonne Bittmann-Steyn, distributor of South African craft gin in Germany: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kU6NrZENEDtVLvTzYvVQs

You can find more information about Luc Vannevel, the Belgian importer mentioned in the episode at https://www.elvama.be.

The Six Dogs Gin collection includes: Six Dogs Karoo Gin, Six Dogs Blue Gin, Six Dogs Pinotage Stained Gin and Six Dogs Honey Lime Gin with plans to launch a few more. Gerrit Visser, is heading up the operation in Europe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerrit-visser-57606b46 

Follow the Six Dogs journey: https://www.facebook.com/sixdogsdistillery https://www.instagram.com/sixdogsdistillery/

Carl Grossmann from Brackenhill Distillery in Waterfall, KwaZulu-Natal is our guest in this episode. I first met Carl when he was working on a project to import Malawi Gin. Carl fell in love with Malawi (Gin) when he was on an overland trip through that beautiful country. Malawi Gin is owned by a big conglomerate that did not want to grant exclusive distribution rights to anyone, so Carl moved on and now owns his own distillery.

Carl uses ancient heritage grain varieties as a basis for their gin, vodka and whiskey. His packaging, logos and labels also reflect his local roots. Umzuzwane, or lemon bush, a small, fragrant plant gives the gin a local flavour.

The distillery offers a very impressive gin making experience and also sells their products directly to the public. The distillery was recently featured on Inside Africa on CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/03/11/inside-africa-craft-alcohol-beer-liquor-spc.cnn

https://www.brackenhillcraft.co.za/