When Andy Gaunt took over as CEO of Sullivan’s Cove, many saw it as a move from premium mixers into premium spirits. But for Gaunt, it was more of a return, going back to the whisky category he had worked in before his time at Fever-Tree.
Speaking to The Shout about the role, the distillery and the broader category, Gaunt said the move came more from a moment of serendipity than an active search for change.
“I’m very proud of what we achieved at Fever-Tree from 2014-15 with a tiny little business in the on-trade, having just started with SouthTrade. To then having market share leadership against Schweppes and supermarkets and tonic water by the time I left. Production had started up and there’d been a plan for a while about setting up a new market company and building a subsidiary here.
“I always felt that there was going to be a phase of 18 months to two years of transition, change, learning, everyone gets up to speed and then you can really hit the ground. That two years would have been July this year. At the back-end of last year I’m thinking ahead, ‘we’ve done all this bloody hard work for the last five years to get this whole business model, it’s all now ready, we’re going to be able to move to the next stage’.
“There’s lots of exciting things happening in sophisticated adult soft drinks and the mixed drinking culture generally. I was really looking forward to what the next few years with Fever-Tree would take on. It’s such a great brand.”
Despite his enthusiasm for Fever-Tree, Gaunt said his long-standing passion for spirits never faded.
“But I had never lost my passion for spirits and that’s kind of why Fever-Tree has been so enjoyable because the occasionality of consuming Fever-Tree was with spirits. We worked really hard to build good relationships with the distilling community both Australian and internationally because of the partnership benefits.
“But I’m also watching the industry that I have loved. For years before Fever-Tree, whisky had been a big part of my career, and I’d seen what Sullivan’s Cove did several years ago and saw Lark coming and lots happening and thinking ‘what would I do if I was involved?’
“Then an opportunity just came along, one of those tap on the shoulder ones and it’s a really interesting time for Sullivan’s Cove. It did come to a difficult decision because turning your back on what felt like unfinished business at Fever-Tree, with a brilliant team of people. But then jumping into whisky again and being part of hopefully building the Australian whisky and being part of an industry that’s growing and building government support, I did think that would be really interesting.
“Once I made the decision I actually thought ‘why was that so difficult?’ but it was very difficult to get to the decision.”
Andy Gaunt
Building a global category
One key theme for Gaunt is the need for government support, something he sees as critical to developing a globally competitive Australian spirits industry.
Drawing parallels with the growth of Australian wine, he believes the same coordinated effort could transform local distilling.
“I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have a spirits category goal that says in 30 years from now, our volume share of global spirits should equal what Australia’s wine volume share of global wine is.
“Why wouldn’t that be possible? When you think about the perception of Australia as a high-quality place of produce. Beer is a very domesticated category, it always has been. But spirits and wine are very international. That’s a really big, ambitious, powerful goal that would be worth serious dollars.”
However, he said the lack of large-scale investment remains a barrier.
“If you take away the global gin boom that everyone rode and just think about everything else, there are a lot of entrepreneurs doing things, which is brilliant, you need that. But the stage of development of any industry does change and we are at that point now, it’s that we don’t have big [government] support.”
The scale challenge
According to Gaunt, one of the key reasons behind this limited support is the issue of scale.
“If you look at just whisky, and Tasmania combined, last year’s capacity would have been something like three-quarters of a million litres of alcohol.
“Glenfarclas alone produces or can produce three million litres of alcohol per year. Glenfiddich, I heard, can produce 23 million litres of alcohol per year. So, for us to achieve any market share growth, there is an infrastructure challenge.
“The only way to meet that challenge is hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in infrastructure – to plan for the next 10 or 15 years.
Andy Gaunt
Nobody who owns these whiskey companies anywhere in Australia has that level of capital at the moment.
“There’s no sign that the Japanese brewers or the big global spirit companies are ready to start putting some significant funding on the ground.
“We need $200m to do this and because these companies have good portfolios already with a good market share of whisky, so in some ways all the investment would do is compete with their own brands.”
The legacy of Sullivan’s Cove
Gaunt’s passion for whisky, Tasmania and Sullivan’s Cove is clear, as is his excitement for what comes next.
The distillery’s 2014 World’s Best Whisky win put not only Sullivan’s Cove but also Tasmanian and new world whisky firmly on the global map. It followed up with back-to-back World’s Best Single Cask awards in 2018 and 2019, an achievement never before accomplished.
That recognition created global demand the distillery wasn’t yet equipped to meet. Sullivan’s Cove has always chosen patience and precision over rapid expansion, asking, “How do we make the best whisky we can?” rather than “How much can we get to market?”
Now, a decade after that first world-beating release, the whisky laid down in response is reaching maturity.
“We’ve been holding allocations tight over the last 10 years and that has created this cult, highly revered status. I’ve travelled to Singapore and Hong Kong as well around Australia the last few months and it is great that Sullivan’s has got such good recognition amongst the bar and restaurant trade and the whiskey community. Almost all say ‘I’ve heard of Sullivan’s Cove, but I’ve never tried it’.
“So there’s this wonderful position that 10 years on from the decision [to increase production], the whisky that was laid down 10 years ago is now at maturation.
That allows us to now open up allocations in a way that we haven’t been able to do for the last five to 10 years.
Andy Gaunt
“We’ve got a price point in market that is earned from its quality and its reputation and it’s really important for our ownership group, for the brand and for those that have known Sullivan’s Cove over the last five to 10 years that we stay true to our positioning and our price point.
“So while we have more whisky we’re only going from having very, very, very, very little whiskey to very, very, very little whisky.”
A different role in Australian whisky
For Gaunt, Sullivan’s Cove occupies a distinct and prestigious position within the broader whisky landscape.
“I think the role that Sullivan’s Cove will play in the whiskey matrix is going to be different to the role of Lark, to the role of Starward, to the role of Archie Rose and to others.
“I always see us being to whiskey what Krug is to champagne. So that’s the ambition: to harness our place as the pioneer whiskey brand globally that put new world whisky on the world map, and to lead new world whiskey from a quality benchmark point of view. Not size, but from the reference point of quality for new world whiskey globally and for Tasmanian whiskey and to be one of Australia’s iconic drinks brands. But also being one of Australia’s iconic luxury brands in the truest sense of the word.”
Maintaining that legacy – while continuing to grow – is a responsibility Gaunt doesn’t take lightly.
“I think our business model allows us to do something that not many others can do and I’m very conscious of stepping into a business that’s had decisions made and choices made over the last 15–20 years that have created this wonderful, revered reputation. I think how to take the brand forward without compromising that reputation and building on it so ultimately it’s about unleashing the full global potential of Sullivan’s Cove, which is pretty exciting.”