Mad about McLean's Gin: Interview with Colin McLean

So Colin, can you tell us how your business developed from an "inconspicuous cupboard" into the purpose built gin lab you now run in Strathaven?

It’s very much a “grass roots” story – one that we’ve been very fortunate to have! It all started on Dec 25th 2015, with a Christmas gift from my Mother and Father-In-Law…a “make your own gin” kit. I’d previously experimented (with mixed levels of success) with making wine and beer, and so they must have seen spirits as the next step.

The kit gathered dust for a month or two, that is…until February 13th 2016 – the day before Valentine’s Day. I hastily put 2 + 2 together and thought “Jessica likes gin – let’s get started!”. The next evening we sat down to dinner and I gave her a swing-top Kilner bottle filled with some home made gin. We poured some into a glass, added a splash of tonic, took a sip and simultaneously said “that’s bloody delicious!”.

Over the next 9 months we experimented with the recipe, tweaking some botanicals here and there and the following Christmas my Mother and Father-in-law woke up to some of our homemade gin. The gin went down a storm with everyone! So we decided, more people need to try this. How do we make that happen?

In January 2017 we started laying down the plans for McLean’s Gin, and the next 9 months is something of a blur of research and development, sourcing suppliers, botanicals, bottles, labels, graphic design works; everything that goes in to starting a new business from scratch (whilst – I should add - both working full-time in entirely unrelated fields – construction and medicine). In September 2017 we sold our first bottle of gin (12 bottles, in fact) – each bottle was individually made in its entirety from the disused cupboard of our flat.

Only around a fortnight after launching our gin, we attended a tasting event and bumped into a journalist from The Evening Times. She loved our gin and our story, and so she penned an article on “Scotland’s Smallest Gin Producer” for us. The article was very well received – not only by the public – but the following day we had telephone calls from both ITV and BBC, both eager to give Scotland’s Smallest Gin Producer some airtime. We had ITV round to our flat to take a video for a news feature, and ended up on BBC Scotland with none other than Kaye Adams the very next day. The entire week was a complete blur and the ITV video was viewed almost 750,000 times – needless to say we noticed a little upturn in sales!

Our business was progressing well - as were our family plans - so in June of 2018 we relocated to the outskirts of Strathaven; a historic market town in South Lanarkshire. We’ve upscaled our production from 1 bottle at a time to (around) 50 bottles per batch, however, the process and “home-made, hand-made” elements generally remain the same as day one. To this point we’re sitting at around 10,000 bottles produced – it certainly sounds like a lot of gin, but we are still very much a small business. One of Scotland’s largest ginneries are reported to be producing around 2,000 bottles per hour, so in 5 hours they’ve produced the same amount of gin that we have in 3 and a half years!

What has remained the same and what has changed as you have grown? Do you hanker for the less professional days of being a start-up?

Our production processes generally remain unchanged, although we’ve added a filtration step and did get ourselves a labeller, which to this day is some of the best cash we’ve ever spent. Prior to this, every bottle we produced was labelled by hand…not only is it time consuming, but as a perfectionist, a little frustrating when things don’t line up quite right (which – admittedly – was the case more often than not). There’s lots we miss about the early days – starting a business is a real adventure and every day brought waves of new excitement – but we’ve learned a lot in the time we’ve been doing this and have become a lot more professional as a business. It’s nice to feel like we’re “in the swing of things”.

Who comes up with the products and new recipes and what inspires you/the ingredients?

It all started with our Signature Gin, but after taking this to a few shows we learned that it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. The reason? One of the key botanicals here is star anise, so anyone who’s had a bad experience with Ouzo or Sambuca (which is a surprisingly large proportion of the population) could find this one a little challenging. So we decided to extend our range to appeal to a wider audience. It started with our Floral gin, with Citrus, Spiced & Cherry Bakewell to follow shortly afterwards. Most of the recipes were built on trial and error – over our R&D phase we’d amassed a collection of over 50 botanicals!

Cherry Bakewell is a bit of a curveball; this one has a slightly different story. We enjoy hiking in our spare time and – having never done so before – decided on a blustery October morning to traverse Ben Lomond, our closest Munro. With wind speeds of around 45mph on the ground, we weren’t vaguely prepared for quite how windy it would be half way up a mountain (it was difficult to stand up, never mind hike), and so took some shelter under a rocky outcrop to refuel with a flask of tea and a packet of Bakewell Tarts. “I wonder if we could make a gin that tastes like these”, said Jess. “If we make it home…we’ll try”, I replied. Seven attempts later and Cherry Bakewell is still our overall best selling product (however, Something Blue is – quite literally – only a handful of bottles behind, and catching up fast).

There are pros and cons here. The rugged landscapes and often “chilly” conditions do make growing some botanicals – for example – oranges - near impossible. However, we do have an incredibly diverse range of flora and fauna on our doorstep, and whilst we do like to experiment and use botanicals acquired from overseas, we love working with what we can find in our immediate surroundings, too. We’re currently working on a new expression (which should launch around August of this year) which will feature exclusively hand-foraged botanicals collected from within 10 miles of our doorstep.

Water, however, isn’t something we’d consider sourcing from elsewhere. Scotland’s water is well known to be some of the freshest in the world. There’s nothing quite like refilling your water bottle while out on the hills, and its soft, fresh flavour is perfect for spirit dilution, too. We use filtered tap water for our dilution; the soft water that flows from our taps travels here from the stunning Loch Catrine.

How do you stand out in a country that has gone quite mad for gin? Are you predominantly targeting the UK or is world domination your plan?

It is – admittedly – very challenging to stand out in what has become a very saturated market. We were slightly ahead of the curve, being around the 30th Scottish Gin start-up…there are now close to 500 different gins being produced in Scotland, from around 100 distilleries (not accounting for the growing number of gins that are “contract distilled” i.e. produced at a distillery for a brand who haven’t yet invested in their own)

Having a diverse range of products has certainly helped us stand out, but the story of how we begun producing our gin really captures peoples imagination. There are many producers with annual marketing budgets larger than our annual turnover, but an organic, compelling and inspiring story is tough to beat. It’s a very “human” story – we didn’t set out to be a huge commercial animal, but just wanted to have a go at carving our own path.

For the moment, we aren’t looking outside of the UK (although it is possible to order throughout much of Europe via one of our e-commerce partners, Craft56Scotland). We do have plans for expansion into international markets, but the logistics of exporting alcohol are tricky to navigate and so we wouldn’t expect this to happen in the immediate future.

It’s a strong Scottish surname, and so after some head scratching on what to call our new business, we settled well with McLean’s. Our logo is a modern take on the McLean family crest with a botanical element climbing up the castle, and Virtue most definitely is our Honour; we place a high value on our ethics; ship all of our products in 100% recycled and recyclable packaging and work closely with a number of charities.

We haven’t fully explored the heritage of the McLean clan in our marketing, but, would certainly look to build on this when we do look to international markets…there are many incredible stories to tell here. However, we were very fortunate to travel to the Isle of Mull in July of 2019, where we had a sit down with none other than Sir Lachlan Hector Charles MacLean; the chief of Clan M(a)cLean! Lachlan was very supportive of our endeavour and - once permitted to open to the public again - there are some collaborative family plans in place.

Did you celebrate your Scottish Roots and Scottish culture when you were younger or have you come to appreciate your heritage more recently?

More of the latter, although we have always taken an interest in our roots. It’s now doubly important to us, as our business, in part, feeds into the image of our clan overall, and so we are actively educating ourselves on our history with each passing week.

Any stories of Scottish traditions you followed as a child or now?

We’re always keen for a good ceilidh, and often find ourselves scratching our heads as to why we only eat haggis once per year! More widely, we are very proud of our Scottish heritage and try to enjoy a natural way of life; it’s easy enough when surrounded by so much natural beauty and history.

Do you have a favourite variation of the MacLean tartan? Are you a kilt or a trews man?

Our favourite would have to be the McLean Hunting Tartan, which I wore on the day of our marriage on 2nd June 2018. Kilt all the way, although admittedly I have been eyeing up a pair of matching trews for quite some time…

I had a lovely time on your website perusing the gins and what to pair them with on your website. I love Cherry Bakewells so am definitely going to order myself a birthday bottle of that one. Do you have a favourite? Any random combinations? Last month we put Mackays Dundee marmalade into a cocktail!

Our favourite from our range is Something Blue; it really is a gin like no other. It contains a total of 8 botanicals, but the focus is on 2 of these in particular. Something Blue “marries” our two favourite botanicals – Tonka Beans and Buchu Leaves. They’re an unlikely marriage from opposite sides of the world (Panama and South Africa, respectively) and we’re fairly confident that we’re the first to have ever brought them together to offer them as a culinary experience. It’s a rare twist of fate that such exotic ingredients would meet in the cupboard of a Glasgow tenement flat, but one that we’re certainly very pleased about!

If that combination isn’t random enough, then how about some McLean’s Cherry Bakewell Gin with American Cream Soda? One of our best customers told us they’d run out of tonic water and so put this to the test…it’s now our Perfect Serve. Try it if you don’t believe me! Our Cherry Bakewell Gin contains no added sugar, weighing in at just 65kcal per measure, so pairing it with a sweet mixer works (and isn’t anywhere near as sickly as it might sound).

Any special secrets that make your products so good/what makes you stand out from the competition?

We have a growing wealth of botanicals in our Gin Lab, but tonka beans and buchu leaves still take the top spot. Tonka beans are sort of a vanilla/marzipan hybrid, with floral notes and a very nostalgic flavour. Buchu leaves are much fresher – think blackcurrant leaf, mint, hand-rolled Cuban cigars…when our first order of buchu arrived we could smell it through 2 layers of packaging! Other favourites are a little more common – orange peel, rosemary, cardamom, rose petals (picked fresh from our garden every summer and dried for use throughout the year), but we do certainly have a few curveballs in the range. Our Spiced Gin uses voatsiperifery pepper from Madagascar, which adds woody, smoky, almost peaty notes, coupled with some classics like cinnamon and allspice. For our forthcoming locally foraged gin, we’re experimenting with sweet cicely, water mint, Scots Pine needles and chanterelles, to name a few (when I’m not making gin, I’m often found foraging for edible fungi and/or plants…a lockdown-inspired hobby that looks like it’ll be sticking around way beyond the coronavirus restrictions!)

How has Covid affected you as I feel like I have been buying lots of nice food and drinks to keep our spirits up and experimenting in the kitchen more with more time in the house?

There have been positives and negatives for our business. It certainly put the brakes on Something Blue…no weddings = a significantly reduced number of wedding favour orders! Just prior to the pandemic we were introducing Something Blue to a number of premium wedding venues (of which Scotland has more than its fair share), but this ground to a halt and being realistic, it’s unlikely that many wedding venues will be in a buying position again for the foreseeable future; they’ve been hit much harder than most businesses by the pandemic. However, Something Blue has still been selling well in 70cl form; you don’t need to be getting married to enjoy it

We’ve had reduced trade and wholesale orders with on-trade orders all but non existent, but have saw a significant increase in direct-to-consumer orders. Whilst we’ve lost gin festivals and other such tasting events, we’ve kept revenue flowing with virtual tasting events held on Zoom and local deliveries of cocktail boxes (this element has actually become a new business in itself – we teamed up with an events company to expand both our delivery radius and offerings here and now deliver cocktails throughout Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and Dumbartonshire every Friday and Saturday evening). We’ve put some time into new product development too, and have recently ranged our 20cl Trio Sets in 2 variants; Classics and Colours. There are more gift sets coming soon – we had some beautiful glassware made exclusively for them (but by popular demand are now selling these as a standalone product, too).

In revenue terms, the end of the financial year is fast approaching and we’re on track to finish up around 5-10% above the 2019-2020 period. This isn’t quite the 51% growth we had between 2018-2019, but in truth, we’re just thankful it’s gone in the right direction (at the beginning of the pandemic we genuinely feared the worst). We’re aware that a great many businesses will have suffered far worse than us, and so we’re extremely grateful for the support of our customers, never more than throughout the past 12 months.

Have you been able to keep producing as normal or what have the challenges been? While half the country were enjoying the sunshine last summer were you flat out making gin?

We had a busy summer with our DIY cocktail kits and fortnightly gin tastings, but overall found we had a pretty good work/life balance. Work doesn’t feel like work when you’re delivering fresh cocktails in the sunshine or pottering away in the Gin Lab; we’ve been working from home long before the pandemic hit, so didn’t have any major problems adapting. If anything, it was probably an easier summer than previous ones with the absence of gin festivals (which we’d usually find ourselves presenting at every other weekend, from The Borders to The Highlands and everywhere in-between…they can be great fun and are very good exposure, but we haven’t been missing those 16 hour days!)

What can we expect from McLean's Gin in the future?

The gin is certainly in, but we do have our eyes on some other spirits, too. Whisky might be a little further down the line (and we wouldn’t like to make any promises on that at this point), but lovers of vodka and rum shouldn’t have to wait too long… We’ll keep working away behind the scenes and hopefully it won’t be too long before our products are available around the world.