Media Spotlight: The Spirits Business

The Spirits Business, one of the only global, predominantly trade spirit magazines in existence, was launched by Patience Gould and Daisy Jones in November 2007.

Associate Publisher Daisy says “With our extensive net of contacts, Patience and I saw a gap in the global publishing market. Spirits and wine often get lumped together and the former usually suffers from this proximity as they end up competing for space.” With nearly a half century of experience in the industry, Patience and Daisy also realised that some of the most important people in the industry, the bartenders, weren’t being addressed by other sector publications. “We place a strong focus on bartenders, and these often overlooked people are key when it comes to promoting brands, as they will have the most extensive knowledge and understanding of the merits of different spirits and different brands, and also they are fantastic brand ambassadors given their contact with consumers.”

Nearly four years on, The Spirits Business is now published eight times in a year, has a circulation of up to 13,000 copies per month and is read by more than 45,500 spirits professionals worldwide. “Our readership ranges from the most senior trade buyers through to the best known and most influential bartenders at the world’s trendiest venues” Daisy says. “We aim to produce material and content that, as well as being clearly and skillfully written, contains information for those in the industry as well as those who are interested in it”.

As well as its existence as a print publication, The Spirits Business has a strong presence on social media platforms. “We use both Facebook and Twitter to connect with spirits lovers and industry people all over the world.” An example of the magazine’s effective use of social media is its currently ongoing online competition, The Swizzle Masters. An entirely online competition, the Swizzle Masters encourages mixologists from all over the world to enter their recipes which will then be created in London by a top mixologist and judged by an expert panel. Free to enter, and open to everyone within reach of a computer, the competition has attracted entries from across the globe; from Australia to Slovakia, Spain to Russia. “The completion relies almost exclusively on the magazine’s social media network, and has been a resounding success so far”.

The Spirits Business also runs Spirits Masters, a series of high profile blind tasting competitions. “While back in 2007 we had only four Masters tasting events, the Masters Series is now an internationally recognised sign of quality thanks to the insistence on blind tasting and completely unbiased judges, and boasts 13 different categories.”

With the retirement of Editor and co-creator Patience Gould earlier this year, the magazine is now edited by Dominic Roskrow. Dominic Roskrow has been a journalist for more than 20 years and has written about the drinks industry since 1991. In 2006 he received the Scotch whisky industry’s highest honour when he was made a Keeper of the Quaich. His first book on Whisky, Need To Know Whiskies, was published by Harper Collins worldwide in March 2008. Daisy says “Dominic’s appointment promises to see some exciting times ahead!”

Making the Pitch: Tips and Advice for Pitching to The Spirits Business

Decent quality images with the press release are very helpful – normally a decent resolution will be enough for the web and it’s rare that we need to ask for something super high quality.

Given the eclectic nature of what we write about, it’s more prudent not to restrict the scope of what we may want to receive.

The Spirits Business can be contacted via email at [email protected]

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