Alkemy Distillery were named Best New Start-Up at the Bury Free Press West Suffolk Business Awards
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Joining me now is Rob and Will Tapster
00:05 from Alchemy Distillery,
00:06 winner of the Mentor Best New Startup Award.
00:10 Congratulations, how does it feel to be a winner?
00:13 - Thank you, yeah, it feels great.
00:14 Yeah, we're really happy.
00:15 - Yeah, a little bit relieved.
00:17 - Now that's done, we can kind of enjoy
00:18 the rest of the evening, but yeah.
00:20 - It's a long night ahead of you,
00:21 and I match well, and you've got the rum, I guess, yeah.
00:25 Now, anyone who's spent any time in and around
00:27 the very St. Edmunds will know of the waft of sugar beet,
00:31 which floats delicately, you know, on the breeze,
00:34 but not in my wildest dreams,
00:36 where I thought you could make rum from sugar beet.
00:38 Where did that idea come from?
00:40 - We were making rum previously for about five years
00:42 over in Africa.
00:43 It made no sense when we moved back here
00:46 for us to be moving even the molasses or the rum
00:49 from all the way from the other side of the world.
00:51 So we decided to use exactly what was in front of us.
00:55 Takes a bit more work, but yeah,
00:57 we're pretty proud of the product that we've come out with.
00:59 - Yeah, so not only does it taste great,
01:01 but it's better for the planet.
01:02 - Yeah, exactly, and that's quite an important thing for us,
01:05 and you know, it's a difficult thing, like Will said,
01:07 you know, the smell of the sugar beet that you associate
01:10 isn't always a positive thing.
01:12 It's not the most delicious substance,
01:14 so it's taken a lot of work to kind of get it to that stage
01:17 and to be able to make something that's, you know,
01:19 in our opinion, more enjoyable than rum.
01:22 - Can you, it tastes different to other rums, does it?
01:24 - Yeah, so it's not sweetened like a lot of rums.
01:27 It has a slightly more refined taste.
01:28 It's got a strong oak flavor from the aging process
01:31 that we use as well.
01:32 So yeah, it's totally different to rum.
01:34 It does make it a little bit difficult
01:36 to sit into a category.
01:36 It's not rum, it's not whiskey, it's not vodka.
01:38 It's its own thing, but it's nice to come out
01:41 with something that's brand new.
01:43 - I grew up on a farm.
01:44 My dad grew sugar beet.
01:45 I love this idea.
01:46 I love this idea.
01:47 What next for you guys?
01:49 - Just try and get it out to as many people as possible,
01:50 you know, because it's such a new thing.
01:52 It's difficult for people to know what it is.
01:54 It takes quite a while of getting it out to people,
01:57 which is why things like this are important.
01:59 It's great for people to see what we're doing,
02:01 maybe pick their interest and for them to try it,
02:03 'cause that's the most important thing.
02:05 'Cause once you try it, you understand it
02:07 and see what it is, 'cause it's quite difficult to explain.
02:10 - You brought your hip flask, then.
02:11 Are you going around, have a try?
02:13 - Yeah.
02:14 - Couldn't get past security.
02:15 - No, we know the security.
02:17 - Well, congratulations.
02:19 - Thank you very much.
02:20 - Thanks, thanks a lot.
02:21 [Music]
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