A brother and sister with a crofting background have set up a craft distillery along the North Coast 500 route creating and selling spirits including gin and rum.
Iain and Jacqueline Black, along with their partners Eilidh and Stephen, launched Ice and Fire Distillery earlier this year after Iain was diagnosed with a rare cancer.
With support from Business Gateway in Caithness, the family decided to set up a new business to allow Iain to work from home and drawing on the historical links the village of Latheronwheel has with spirit making, came up with the idea of a distillery.
The drinks which have proven a hit with locals, are now being stocked in hotels and shops in the region with plans to expand into global markets in future.
Jacqueline said: “Ice and Fire was launched as a result of Iain being diagnosed with Neuro Endocrine tumours around Christmas 2016. A year later, we made a decision as a family to launch a new venture that would fit around Iain’s needs rather than the other way round. Iain is our head distiller and uses local grains and home grown ingredients to create our gins and rum. We first sold our first two gins at the local County Show in July and the response was phenomenal. As a result, we had hotels and shops approach us for products and it reinforced our belief that we can turn our business in the back hills of Caithness into a global one. We have big aspirations for the company and we’ve bought a 25 acre croft and house to facilitate future expansion including building a bigger distillery, a restaurant and visitor centre.
“We’ve benefitted from Business Gateway’s support from the beginning with local adviser Jennifer Irvine providing us with business advice, market insights into the drinks industry as well as templates for effective business plans. This helped create the backbone of our business and marketing plan, which gives us direction and lays out our goals for the coming years.”
As well as aspirations to start making vodka in the summer of 2019, a third sibling, Elizabeth, is now experimenting using the Ice and Fire produce to whip up a range of flavoured chocolates, marmalades and fudge.
Jacqueline added: “For the next 12 months we’ll be focusing on building our customer base and online sales. This will allow us to evaluate how things are before we begin to look at the later phases of the project including the visitor centre and restaurant. We’re very excited about the future and we’re hoping to have seasonal gin offerings of different flavours so there is always something new for our customers to enjoy.”
Jennifer Irvine of Business Gateway Caithness said: “Set in a historical location known for its spirit and whisky making, Ice and Fire Distillery is a wonderful addition to our business community. We provided specialist one-to-one start-up support advising Jacqueline and Ian with their business plan and looking into the gin and rum industry as a whole, which means the company not only launched successfully but is in a great position to grow.”
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