Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast

Alex Macintyre
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  • Entrepreneurship

The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast explores the real stories behind the people building some of the world’s most exciting drinks brands. Hosted by Alex Macintyre, Chartered Financial Planner and founder of Fortitude Wealth Management, the podcast features conversations with founders, distillers, brewers, winemakers and leaders across the global drinks industry. Alex specialises in advising drinks entrepreneurs and senior industry professionals on building and protecting long-term wealth alongside their businesses. Each episode dives into the realities of building a drinks brand — from launching a product and gaining early traction, to scaling companies, navigating risk, raising investment and creating lasting value. Guests share honest insights into entrepreneurship, leadership, brand building and the challenges of growing a business in the competitive worlds of wine, spirits, beer and premium beverages. If you are a drinks founder, industry professional, investor or aspiring entrepreneur, this podcast gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the people shaping the future of the drinks industry — and the lessons learned along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 2d ago

    From Wall Street to Whisky: The Cotswolds Distillery Story | Daniel Szor

    From Wall Street to Whisky: Daniel Szor's Cotswolds Distillery Story Photo credit: Tom Pattinson (photograph of Daniel Szor). 🥃 What makes someone walk away from a successful 30-year career in finance to start making whisky in the English countryside? For Daniel Szor, founder of Cotswolds Distillery, it started with a passion for whisky, a field of barley and a dream of creating something truly special. But turning that dream into one of England's most recognisable whisky distilleries would prove considerably more challenging, and expensive, than he'd ever imagined. In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Alex Macintyre sits down with Daniel to explore his extraordinary journey from working at one of the world's largest currency hedge funds to building an award-winning spirits business in the heart of the Cotswolds. It's a fascinating story of ambition, calculated risks, unexpected opportunities and the financial realities of turning a passion into a successful business. And perhaps most surprisingly, while Daniel set out to make whisky, it was gin that became one of the business's earliest success stories! 🎙️ In this episode, we explore: 💼 Leaving finance behind – Why Daniel walked away from a successful 30-year career to pursue an entirely different ambition. 🌾 The field of barley that started it all – How a chance moment in the Cotswolds inspired the creation of a distillery. 💷 The true cost of making whisky – Why starting a distillery required substantially more investment than anticipated, and the challenges of funding a business while waiting years for its whisky to mature. 🍸 The unexpected success of Cotswolds Dry Gin – How a product originally created while the whisky matured became a major part of the business's success. 🥃 Taking on the whisky establishment – The challenges of building an English whisky brand in a market traditionally dominated by Scotland. 📈 From start-up to established brand – Raising investment, scaling production, attracting customers and managing a business growing far beyond its original ambitions. 🤝 The people behind the business – The importance of investors, colleagues and building the right team to support long-term growth. 💡 Lessons from the entrepreneurial journey – What Daniel has learned about risk, resilience, financial planning and adapting when things don't go quite as expected. What makes Daniel's story particularly interesting is that he came into the drinks industry with decades of financial experience. Yet even that couldn't fully prepare him for the realities of establishing and growing a distillery. From the challenges of raising capital to the unexpected success of gin and the complexities of scaling a business, Daniel shares a wonderfully candid account of the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. Whether you're building your own drinks brand, considering a major career change or simply fascinated by the business behind some of Britain's most exciting spirits, this is a conversation full of valuable insights and great stories. Because following your passion might be what gets you started. But building a business that lasts takes something else entirely. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    From Wall Street to Whisky: The Cotswolds Distillery Story | Daniel Szor

  2. Oct 8

    How Do Wine Brands Still Stand Out in 2026? | Bruce Jack Wines

    🍷 What does it really take to build a global wine business? This Friday on The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, I’m joined by Bruce Jack, founder of Bruce Jack Wines, for one of the most wide-ranging conversations I’ve had on the podcast so far. Bruce has spent decades in the wine industry, building, selling and leading businesses before launching Bruce Jack Wines in 2018. Today, the company produces wine across South Africa, Chile, Spain and California, with a major presence here in the UK. But this conversation goes far beyond wine. We talk about the realities of entrepreneurship in an industry where margins are tight, capital requirements are enormous and passion alone isn't enough and why, however much you might want to, you ultimately can't ignore the spreadsheet. 🌍 Building an international wine business 🍇 The lessons Bruce has learned over decades in the industry 💰 Why the economics of wine can be brutally difficult 📈 Building a brand capable of succeeding at supermarket scale 🌎 Politics, tariffs and the risks entrepreneurs can't control 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family, succession and creating something the next generation can inherit 🍷 And why Bruce still describes wine as both an incredibly tough and beautiful industry. There is a huge amount of experience packed into this conversation, not just for people in wine, but for anyone building a drinks business. 🎙️ Episode 13 of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast 🍷 Bruce Jack | Bruce Jack Wines 📅 Out this Friday Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    How Do Wine Brands Still Stand Out in 2026? | Bruce Jack Wines

  3. Sep 24

    Why It’s So Hard for Independent Drinks Brands to Win | Luxwells

    What happens when you spot a problem in your own life, create the product you wish existed and then refuse to give up when almost nobody else understands the idea? In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Alex sits down with Kristal Baker, founder of Luxwells, the botanical-infused water brand created to make everyday hydration a more enjoyable, premium experience. And Kristal’s route into the drinks industry was anything but conventional. After 17 years working in property, with no previous drinks industry or entrepreneurial experience, the original idea for Luxwells came from a deeply personal place. During pregnancy and the year that followed, Kristal found herself cutting out many of the drinks she had previously enjoyed while simultaneously needing to drink more water, something she had always found decidedly uninspiring. That frustration sparked an idea: could something as simple as water be transformed into an experience you actually looked forward to? What followed was years of experimentation with real flowers and botanicals, evenings and weekends spent developing recipes, manufacturing setbacks, COVID delays, packaging challenges and plenty of moments when walking away would have been the easier option. Even some of the people closest to Kristal weren't convinced. “Flowers in water? Like vase water?” But Kristal kept going. She developed three distinctive flavour combinations: Rose & Honey, Hibiscus & Mint and Lavender & Pear, while remaining committed to using real ingredients and avoiding the artificial flavours, colours, preservatives and sweeteners she had deliberately set out to move away from. Then things began to move very quickly. After entering Pitch Live at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair, Kristal found herself pitching a business she'd largely built behind the scenes....and won. One of the judges was a buyer from Fortnum & Mason. She approached Kristal afterwards about stocking Luxwells, leading to one of the brand's first major retail listings. Opportunities with Selfridges followed, while all three Luxwells flavours received recognition at the Great Taste Awards. In this episode, Kristal and Alex explore: 🌹 How a difficult pregnancy ultimately inspired the idea for Luxwells 💧 Why making hydration genuinely enjoyable became the mission behind the brand 🧪 The extraordinary amount of trial, error and product development behind a seemingly simple drink 🌿 Why Kristal refused to compromise on using real flowers and natural ingredients 🚧 Manufacturing setbacks, COVID delays and the realities of developing a drinks product from scratch 💡 Why friends and family aren't necessarily your target customer, or the best judge of your idea 🎤 Going from having no pitching experience to winning Pitch Live 🏬 How Fortnum & Mason became one of Luxwells' first major retail listings 🏆 What industry recognition and Great Taste Awards meant after years of uncertainty 🔥 The persistence, resilience and sheer determination required to keep going when an idea isn't immediately understood 👩‍👧 How building Luxwells unexpectedly inspired Kristal's young daughter to start her own entrepreneurial journey 🌍 And Kristal's ambitions to take Luxwells further into international markets, including the US, Middle East and Asia Perhaps the most powerful lesson from Kristal's story is that other people don't necessarily need to see your vision before you start pursuing it. Sometimes you have to build it first. From experimenting with flowers at home after putting her daughter to bed, to seeing Luxwells on the shelves of some of Britain's best-known retailers, this is a brilliant conversation about backing an idea, learning an entirely new industry from scratch and having the persistence to bring something genuinely different to market. 🎙️ The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast.....with Kristal Baker, founder of Luxwells. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Why It’s So Hard for Independent Drinks Brands to Win | Luxwells

  4. Sep 10

    Building Bars, Breaking Rules & Creating Hoxton | Gerry Calabrese

    What do pot washing at one of London's finest hotels, promoting underground raves, building an iconic Shoreditch bar, a cease-and-desist from Bruce Springsteen and launching an international spirits brand have in common? They're all chapters in the extraordinary career of Gerry Calabrese, founder of Hoxton. In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Alex sits down with Gerry to explore more than two decades at the sharp end of London's bar, hospitality and drinks scene and the lessons he's learned from the successes, failures and occasional chaos along the way. Gerry was born into one of the most famous families in the bartending world. His father, Salvatore Calabrese, is an internationally renowned bartender whose career has included the legendary Dukes Hotel, The Lanesborough and Fifty St James. But Gerry was determined to forge his own path. From pot washer to front-of-house hospitality, Gerry's career then took another unexpected turn after discovering London's dance music scene. He quit his job, became a club promoter and started organising parties and raves, eventually returning to hospitality and training as a bartender at the legendary LAB Bar in Soho. Then came entrepreneurship. Gerry developed his reputation creating and turning around hospitality concepts before spotting an opportunity in East London. He believed Shoreditch needed somewhere that combined the area's creativity and energy with genuinely high-end drinks and hospitality. The result was The Hoxton Pony. Even that nearly started under a different name. Originally intended to be called The Stoned Pony, Gerry received a cease-and-desist from Bruce Springsteen just two weeks before opening because of the trademark surrounding New Jersey's Stone Pony. The hurried replacement name proved rather successful. The Hoxton Pony became one of London's defining venues of the era, attracting everyone from bartenders and creatives to DJs and musicians, with the likes of Calvin Harris appearing behind the decks and Professor Green using the venue to film a music video. Gerry speaks candidly about businesses that worked, those that didn't, the lessons that came from failure and how experience has changed the way he approaches entrepreneurship today. That journey ultimately led to Hoxton, Gerry's portfolio of premium, naturally flavoured spirits built around a belief that the rapidly growing flavoured category can offer something better than overly sweet, synthetic products. In this episode, Gerry and Alex explore: 🍸 Growing up in one of bartending's most famous families and finding his own identity within the industry 🏨 Starting at the bottom as a teenage pot washer at The Lanesborough 🎧 Leaving hospitality to promote clubs, parties and raves around London 🍹 Returning to the industry and learning the craft of bartending 💡 Why understanding customers and human behaviour can completely transform a hospitality business 🐴 Creating The Hoxton Pony and capturing a unique moment in Shoreditch's history 🎸 The extraordinary story of receiving a cease-and-desist from Bruce Springsteen two weeks before opening 📈 Success, failure and why entrepreneurship rarely follows a straight line 🥃 The thinking behind Hoxton and the opportunity Gerry sees in premium naturally flavoured spirits 🌍 Building distribution and taking a British drinks brand into international markets 👥 Why Gerry has learned not to hold an idea too tightly and the importance of allowing a team to shape a business 🔄 His belief that hospitality will endure despite the challenges facing the sector As he explains, experience has taught him humility, the importance of collaboration and that the best version of a business is rarely created by one person alone. It's a hugely entertaining conversation about drinks, hospitality, entrepreneurship, resilience and more than 20 years of lessons from London's bar scene. 🎙️ The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast.....with Gerry Calabrese, founder of Hoxton Spirits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Building Bars, Breaking Rules & Creating Hoxton | Gerry Calabrese

  5. Aug 27

    How Do You Build a Premium Vodka Brand in 2026? | Altamura Distilleries

    What if you took 2,000 years of Italian history… and turned it into vodka? This week on The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, I’m joined by Frank Grillo, founder of Altamura Distilleries, and this is a brilliant story of how a chance idea became a premium Italian vodka now being poured around the world. It all started with Frank baking a loaf of Pane di Altamura in his kitchen in Atlanta, using the ancient durum wheat grown around Altamura in Puglia. One thought followed: “If you boil that, it would have been a bottle of vodka.” And that was the beginning. 🥃 In this episode, we talk about: 🌾 The 2,000-year-old wheat behind Altamura Vodka, and why its provenance and terroir make it so distinctive 💡 How a completely accidental idea turned into Frank's first entrepreneurial venture 🇮🇹 Moving from the US to Italy, and discovering the realities of trying to build a drinks business there 🤝 Why convincing the local wheat-growing family to let him distil their prized grain felt like “asking for a daughter’s hand in marriage” 🍸 How relationships with some of the world’s leading bartenders and cocktail bars transformed the trajectory of the brand 🚀 Going from a small Italian launch to distribution across 20+ countries and 25 US states 🏨 Breaking into luxury hospitality and seeing Altamura behind the bars of some of the world's most prestigious hotels 🎯 Why Frank believes a great liquid is only the starting point, and that every successful drinks brand needs a story people can genuinely connect with 🦁 The story behind Altamura's lion, and the brand's growing relationship with the Born Free Foundation 🍹 And Frank's wonderfully Italian approach to entrepreneurial frustration: "Get one thing done before lunch. If you can't? Have a Negroni and try again tomorrow!" This is a fantastic conversation about provenance, storytelling, taking chances, navigating rapid growth and building a global drinks brand from an idea that almost happened by accident. 🎙️ Frank Grillo | Altamura Distilleries Coming Friday on The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    How Do You Build a Premium Vodka Brand in 2026? | Altamura Distilleries

  6. Aug 13

    Why Modern Drinks Brands Need More Than Great Product | Rythmik Cocktails

    🍸 From Bar to Bottle: Building Rythmik Cocktails with Tash & Antosh SamekWhat happens when an experienced bar owner and a drinks branding strategist decide to build a cocktail brand together? For brother and sister Antosh and Tash Samek, the answer became Rythmik Cocktails - a range of bar-quality bottled cocktails where mixology meets music, with every drink accompanied by its own carefully curated playlist. But Rythmik wasn't originally supposed to become a drinks brand. When lockdown closed Antosh's bar after more than a decade in hospitality, customers started asking whether they could have his cocktails delivered to their homes. What began with small batches and blank bottles soon revealed a much bigger opportunity. Antosh brought years of experience behind the bar - including an earlier career with Bacardi Brown-Forman - while Tash brought a career spent creating and positioning drinks brands. Together, they began figuring out how to turn cocktails designed for a busy bar into a product capable of sitting on a retail shelf. And that meant learning an entirely new business almost from scratch. In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, we explore: 🍸 How lockdown transformed a bar product into a drinks brand - and why Antosh ultimately chose the scalability of bottles over opening more bars. 🎵 Why every Rythmik cocktail has its own soundtrack - and how music became an authentic part of the brand rather than simply a marketing device. 🧪 The obsession behind creating genuinely bar-quality bottled cocktails - from testing ingredients and perfecting shelf-stable recipes to refusing to compromise simply to reduce costs. 🎨 What happens when a professional brand strategist builds her own brand - and Tash's experience of going from working with major drinks budgets to discovering the very different realities of entrepreneurship. 🛒 Breaking into retail and hospitality - including Rythmik's journey into John Lewis, events such as Henley Regatta and the Affordable Art Fair, and the growing opportunity within the on-trade. 📈 The economics of building a drinks business - why every marketing opportunity has to be a calculated gamble and the brilliantly simple question they use when considering expenditure: how many cocktails do we need to sell to pay for this? 👫 What it's really like building a company with your sibling - the advantages of trust, discovering how differently you work, finding clear responsibilities and even drafting Mum and Dad into the operation when Christmas demand takes off. 💡 The lessons five years of entrepreneurship have taught them - including becoming comfortable with not knowing the answer, asking others for help and learning that sometimes you simply have to ask for the opportunity. Rythmik is now stocked in John Lewis, has built a loyal direct-to-consumer following and is expanding its presence across retail, hospitality and events - but Tash and Antosh are equally candid about how much work sits behind that progress. It's a conversation about cocktails, branding and music, but also about something much bigger: making the leap from being an expert in your profession to becoming an entrepreneur — where suddenly everything is your responsibility. 🎙️ A brilliant founder story for anyone interested in drinks, hospitality, branding or the realities of building a consumer brand from the ground up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Why Modern Drinks Brands Need More Than Great Product | Rythmik Cocktails

  7. Jul 30

    Do Online Tastings Still Work in 2026? | Online Tasting Co

    🍷 How a Lockdown Pivot Became a Drinks Industry Innovation | Online Tasting Co Opening a new wine business just 36 days before the UK went into lockdown could have been the end. Instead, it became the beginning of something entirely unexpected. In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Alex sits down with Jamie Smith, co-founder of Online Tasting Co and EcoSip, to explore how a business built around in-person wine experiences reinvented itself during COVID and went on to create an innovative packaging solution that's now trusted by organisations including The Wine Society, Naked Wines and WSET. From delivering wine samples by hand during lockdown to building a specialist clean-room production facility and producing more than two million premium wine samples, Jamie shares the entrepreneurial journey behind one of the drinks industry's most innovative businesses. We discuss:🍷 Opening a wine business just weeks before lockdown 📦 Creating EcoSip's pioneering single-serve wine technology 🚀 Turning a crisis into an entirely new business model 🌍 Why alternative packaging could transform the future of wine 💡 Building trust, scaling innovation and challenging industry tradition Whether you're a drinks entrepreneur, wine lover or founder looking to innovate in a traditional industry, this episode is packed with practical lessons on resilience, creativity and spotting opportunity where others see obstacles. Out on Friday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and also on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Do Online Tastings Still Work in 2026? | Online Tasting Co

  8. Jul 16

    Building Commando Spirit: Creating a Challenger Brand in the Drinks Industry

    🎙️ Coming This Friday | Episode 9 What do you do after spending 37 years as a Royal Marine? For Rory Copinger-Symes, the answer wasn't consulting, retirement or the corporate world. Instead, he launched Commando Spirit. In this week's episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Rory shares the remarkable journey from military service to building an award-winning spirits brand inspired by the values, traditions and ethos of the Commandos. 🥃 How a whisky blending session in Scotland changed everything 🏄 Living in Hawaii before retirement and discovering a new purpose 🚀 Launching a spirits brand with no previous drinks industry experience ⚔️ Navigating trademark battles, business setbacks and industry challenges 🍸 Creating unique products inspired by Dartmoor and Commando training 📈 Growing a premium brand through authenticity, community and storytelling ❤️ Supporting military charities through the business One comment from Rory really stood out: "I had no business plan. I had no idea what I was doing. I just had an idea and decided to make it happen." A fascinating conversation about entrepreneurship, resilience, brand building and finding a new mission after a lifetime of service. 🎧 Episode 9 launches Friday. #DrinksEntrepreneurPodcast #CommandoSpirit #Entrepreneurship #RoyalMarines #FounderStory #DrinksIndustry #Whisky #Gin #Rum #BrandBuilding #PremiumSpirits #BusinessGrowth #VeteranOwned #CraftSpirits #DrinksEntrepreneur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Building Commando Spirit: Creating a Challenger Brand in the Drinks Industry
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About

The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast explores the real stories behind the people building some of the world’s most exciting drinks brands. Hosted by Alex Macintyre, Chartered Financial Planner and founder of Fortitude Wealth Management, the podcast features conversations with founders, distillers, brewers, winemakers and leaders across the global drinks industry. Alex specialises in advising drinks entrepreneurs and senior industry professionals on building and protecting long-term wealth alongside their businesses. Each episode dives into the realities of building a drinks brand — from launching a product and gaining early traction, to scaling companies, navigating risk, raising investment and creating lasting value. Guests share honest insights into entrepreneurship, leadership, brand building and the challenges of growing a business in the competitive worlds of wine, spirits, beer and premium beverages. If you are a drinks founder, industry professional, investor or aspiring entrepreneur, this podcast gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the people shaping the future of the drinks industry — and the lessons learned along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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