As Christmas steals all the attention the year’s end is never far behind and can often sneak up on us. So, we wanted to take the time to look back and remember all that has happened during a very busy and exciting year at McQueen Gin, and maybe take a peek ahead at things to come while we’re at it!

New Website

One of the first major developments of 2018 for McQueen, was the new look for our website. It came as a much needed and timely refresh ahead of a year that would see a lot more eyes fixed on our gin, and a lot more visitors online.

Greener Gin

This year saw us make the very difficult decision to leave our award-winning blue ceramic bottle behind, but at the same time the very easy decision to move to a fully-recyclable glass version. Coming from a rural area like Callander, a gateway on the road to Scotland’s oldest national park, we know as much as anyone the importance of the environment around us. Please remember to recycle so that our beautiful blue bottle did not die in vain!

Awards

It’s always nice to be told you’ve done the right thing, and not long after our switch to glass our new bottle design was a ‘highly-commended’ finalist in the UK Packaging Awards. However, the highlight of the year was the Scottish Gin Awards, where our Mocha Gin and our Spiced Chocolate Orange Gin were awarded Gold and Bronze respectively! And we’re already getting excited for next year, having recently been announced as a finalist at the Scottish Rural Awards 2019. Fingers crossed.

New Stockists

As good as 2018 was for putting trophies on in our cabinet, it was even better for putting our bottles on shelves! Sainsbury’s and Asda both became stockists of our Sweet Citrus Gin, and our Super Premium Dry Gin is now available in 153 Morrisons stores across the UK. Biggest of all though has been our partnership with Aldi, first stocking our McQueen Sweet Citrus, then launching two very special Aldi exclusives…more on that below.

New Gins

In case you didn’t notice, we launched a couple of new gins this year through our relationship with Aldi. First there was the overnight sensation of our colour-changing McQueen Forest Fruits! Viral colour-changing videos swept over social and led to a nationwide shortage that nobody saw coming (well, almost nobody – we had a sneaky suspicion that it’d be a big hit!). Following a tough act, our bright and berry-licious McQueen Pink Gin did not disappoint. Packed with raspberry and cranberry notes it has been hugely popular, especially as we lead up to Christmas. If you fancy a festive bottle, both new gins are available in Aldi Scotland stores and at Aldi online now!

New Distillery

Adding new gins to our range and with all our new stockists, demand for McQueen Gin has gone through the roof and 2018 saw us break ground on our new distillery building to increase capacity by 1000%! Those of you following our #distillerywatch posts on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages, will have seen the progress made (battling the elements) and we are excited for the official opening in early 2019.

More to come?…

2018 saw us grow revenue by 352% here at McQueen Gin, and for that we are thankful to all of our customers both new and old. We’ve worked hard to achieve what we have in 2018 and are in a great position to further drive our brand in a forward direction.

What else might we do in 2019 and with all our extra space in the new distillery? Well, you’ll literally need to ‘watch this space’ to find out. What we can promise you is, like all things McQueen, it will be worth the wait.

From our family to yours, have a wonderful Christmas and a great start into the New Year.

Slàinte