Kocktail hour

There’s nothing quite like sipping a perfectly curated cocktail. Yet, when it comes to pre-made cocktails, many have long settled for something less, believing they can’t capture the sophistication of a freshly made, bartender-style tipple. Pre-made cocktails, often referred to as bottled, canned or ready-to-drink cocktails, have often been viewed through a certain lens – convenient, low quality, grab-and-go drinks; the kind of thing you’d pick up at Sainsbury’s for the LNER to York, rather than to sit down and enjoy.

If there’s a brand to break those stereotypes, it’s Kocktail, the Newcastle-based bottled cocktail maker founded in 2020 by Andrew Hutchinson and Emil Stickland. Born out of frustration with the pre-mixed cocktail options available on the market, Kocktail quickly evolved from a fun recipe swap between friends into a thriving brand, delivering bar-quality cocktails to homes across the country. Now, with products stocked in a range of stores nationwide and a permanent bar on Newcastle’s Quayside, Kate Hewison sits down with co-founder Andrew to learn more about the brand’s remarkable journey.

In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, many of us found ourselves missing the simple joys of socialising – grabbing drinks at our favourite bars, swapping stories and unwinding over a well-crafted cocktail.

For Andrew Hutchinson and Emil Evans-Stickland, that void quickly became an opportunity for creative experimentation.

Andrew says: “When lockdown hit, we were really missing being out and having a great time, so we decided to swap cocktail recipes.

“We were buying weird ingredients from across the globe – things that we thought were interesting – and trying new things every weekend.

“It was a bit of nerdy fun in lockdown.

“And then Emil bought bottled cocktails, tried them and they were really bad.

“He looked on the bottle and the website; it didn’t tell you anything about how it was made, who made it or what the recipes and the ingredients were.

“And they were all by big companies that, from our point of view, were putting profit before quality.”

Spotting a gap in the market, Andrew – a hospitality veteran – and co-founder Emil decided to take the plunge with their own bottled cocktail business.

Adamant they weren’t going to fall into the same trap some of their competitors had, they sought the help of a friend who was an ex-senior bartender at The Savoy, to ensure bartender-style quality.

They then launched Kocktail in just a couple of months.

Initially starting as a subscription model – which was, albeit, incredibly successful at the time, selling tens of thousands during lockdown – Andrew and Emil knew there was room for growth.

Andrew says: “We saw an opportunity for Kocktail to go much bigger.

“But to scale a subscription of that quality is really hard.

“We realised our customers didn’t need us every weekend, but there was an appetite for special occasions, where you can pull out a cocktail instead of pulling out a bottle of fizz at a party.

“It’s an amazing thing to pull out a margarita, put it in a shaker and you’re going to get this beautiful drink.”

The shaking element of Kocktail was something Andrew was advised against.

Yet, it has become one of the customers’ favourite aspects of the product.

He adds: “People said to us, ‘don’t get customers to shake, they won’t do it, it’s a step too far.’

“But the world has progressed and people expect more now.

“They want single estate coffee, they know about food and they care about it.

“By the time the customer puts it in a shaker, all they have to do is ice, shake and serve – and all of a sudden, they’ve become part of the process.”

What truly sets Kocktail apart is the unwavering commitment to hands-on quality control, crafted by Andrew and his team at their Newcastle warehouse.

He says: “We make it every single day ourselves.

“Everything is done by us, and that keeps quality super high.

“We batch test everything the way a bartender would – put it on the back of the hand, or get a straw and taste it.

“It just means everything stays perfect.”

This commitment to precision has paid off.

Today, Kocktail can be found on the shelves of major retailers across the country, and their first ‘cocktail cracker’ is now available at 200 Waitrose stores and online and in John Lewis nationwide.

Andrew says: “Gifting is super important for us.

“The Waitrose cracker – which is a single serve cracker – is going to be in every Waitrose store nationwide; it blows my mind.

“It’s a great gift for less than £10, which is a brilliant thing for scale and allowing the business to grow because it’s accessible.

“But, equally, it’s giving the customer a really premium product by just using bartender-style ingredients – like Caffè Borghetti and Hepple Gin – with no preservatives or stabilisers.

“If you were to walk into a great cocktail bar anywhere in the world, they’re the ingredients they’re going to use.”

Kocktail isn’t limited to just the comfort of your own home, the brand has launched pop-up bars across the country including Covent Garden’s piazza – standing beside global high-end brands such as Chanel and Tiffany & Co – John Lewis and now its very own bar on Newcastle’s Quayside, The Kocktail Quayside Garden.

Andrew says: “We kept thinking, ‘why are we not doing this in our hometown? We love Newcastle, there must be a space we can do it?’

“Aaron Mellor, who owns Tokyo Industries and is a really good friend of mine, told us he had a space on the Quayside.

“My eyes lit up – it’s one of the most iconic spaces in Britain, probably the most iconic place in Newcastle.

“It’s something we’re really proud of.”

It doesn’t stop there, though. The brand is also making its way into bars and hotels too.

Andrew adds: “We’re selling our cocktails into bars, on a relatively small scale, but it’s growing quite rapidly.

“If you’re a bar that specialises in beer and spirits, and you’re wanting to also sell cocktails, it’s hard work.

“They would have to buy lots of ingredients and organise staff training but, even then, the quality may not be as high as the cocktail bars in town.

“We have people who buy from us, and all they have to do is shake, serve and they get a cocktail that is of the standard of a proper, world-class cocktail bar.”

So, what’s next?

“Being the biggest and best in Britain – and we’re certainly in that conversation already,” says Andrew.

www.kocktail.co.uk