By James Atkinson
Australia's Pure Distillery Company now has close to 700 on-premise accounts for its 666 Pure Vodka and a committed following from bartenders who effectively act as ambassadors for the brand.
Pure Distillery CEO Dean Lucas (pictured) told TheShout that while his company cannot compete head-to-head with the major players in spirits, its strategy of engaging with the bartenders that sell its vodka has been proven to succeed.
"We don't have the marketing budgets that the big guys have, so our approach is very much about introducing the product to bartenders and turning them into ambassadors for the brand," he said.
"They then in turn recommend the product to consumers and consumers will then go to their local bottle store and ask for the product."
Lucas said Pure Distillery will soon launch another innovative flavour SKU, following the release of its Autumn Butter flavour last year, and the industry will once again be involved in fine tuning the taste profile of the product.
"Being a small independent brand we're able to do that. There are 20 bartenders around Australia who played a part in how the final Autumn Butter tasted," he said.
"We had great feedback from that and it builds a lot of loyalty to the brand as well."
Lucas said the recent launch of the Local Craft Spirits distribution business had been a boon for 666 Pure Vodka in Western Australia..
"We're picking up accounts in WA that we weren't able to service, geographically it's too hard for us to service them on our own. Now our volumes in WA have just started to take off, it's been fantastic," he said.