Page 66 - Introduction & Preamble

Chase, the founder of Tyrrells Chips, who sold his potato

chips business for an estimated £40m in 2008 to private
equity firm Langholm Capital began his distilling business. "I

thought if we could do the same story we did with Tyrrells, but

with distilling - where we've actually got a farm and we're

making it ourselves - people would buy into that. I'm really into
provenance." From the idea in 2004, it took us until April

fool’s day 2008 to harvest the first of his potatoes, making

the first batch of vodka in June 2008. Upon tasting the very

first drop from the column before filtering, Chase was so
enamoured and proud of it, he decided to call it Chase

Vodka. And so, Chase Distillery was born. Chase then found

that where he thought he had a contract with Tyrrells after
its sale this was not so

"When they bought it, they had a contract with us to keep

supplying them, but then they found they could get them

cheaper elsewhere." Furthermore, they forced Chase to

rebrand his fledgling distillery, which was a “bit of a bugger”,
he says, but also a blessing in disguise: “You don’t want a

premium drink associated with snacks.” Chase then started

the work of implementing his strategy for building the Chase

Distillery and brand.