Berry Bros. & Rudd Expanding Horizons to Spirits

I don’t get down to London nearly enough. For those of you that have ever been to the smallest county in the UK, you will know that it’s quite a nice place and therefore, tricky to leave. The journey door to door from where I live in Rutland to say, Mayfair, is around two hours, so really not too bad, and Mayfair is nice isn’t it? What happens when I do make the journey is essentially a cramming of libationing. It’s really very fun but crucial to spit. This happened fairly recently and my day was to begin at the Spring/Summer wine tasting at Waitrose, a supermarket in the UK for those that don’t know, but a very lovely supermarket. What you find if you return to tastings year after year is that the Buyer for each region has a style and their style either suits you, or it doesn’t. I’m sure they try very hard to buy without any personal bias, but it is almost impossible to avoid when it comes to tasting wines and believing that they will sell. Fortunately, my tastes align with a lot of the Waitrose Buyers, it’s a very happy place to be, they even have Petit Vega from Ribera del Duero on the books now, and Laurent Perrier’s Grand Siècle grand Cuvée No.26. There was also a very exciting vermouth, Antica Formula Vermouth di Giuseppe B. Carpano NV, only £15! I could go on, but my point is, there is so much comfort in familiarity, I would try anything they told me to. And, talking of familiarity, my next visit was to Berry Bros. & Rudd, a door almost impossible to not walk through on a wander through St James’.

The wine shop itself has always been a cosy place to spend time in, lost amongst bottles, checking bank balances and reassuring oneself that ‘one more bottle won’t hurt.’ After all, it is Berrys, so what you’re buying has already probably gone up in value by the time you walk out of the door, right? Well, I’m afraid where the bank balance may have taken a gentle spanking in the past, prepare yourself to be TKO’d, for Berry Bros. & Rudd has opened a Spirits Shop. If, unlike me, you hadn’t been spitting all day and you were a little on the inebriated side, you would be forgiven for believing you had stumbled upon an Oasis. Berry Bros. & Rudd have taken on the lease of next door, previously a cigar shop, and they have then linked the wine shop through an incredible feat of structural engineering so you could be looking at the Loire section and then stagger a few steps past a beautiful solid Elm table and before you know it you’ve bought a bottle of No.3 London Dry Gin. 

The opening is more than the opportunity of taking on the lease of next door as Berry Bros. & Rudd have recently reported a +42% revenue growth in spirits year on year, with increasing sales across Sake, Bourbon and most whiskies. The shop at No.1 St James’ will be selling a range of almost 1,000 products from around the world including their own range of spirits, a range I didn’t realise had so much breadth. Spitting long forgotten, I sat down with Joshua Meyer, a Lawyer that made the huge mistake of doing his WSET qualifications and realising his passion for wine and spirits outweighed his passion for lawyering and I suppose, making money. Joshua was splendid and the man to blame for my renewed interest in Mezcal. Joshua poured a sample of El Camino del Pensador, a very limited-edition creation from Oaxaca that has the different types of agaves involved, handwritten on the back label. These include Bicuishe, Madrecuishe, Tepextate, Arroqueño, Refrescadera and Miahuatlán… I was reassured that with time, these names would become as recognisable to me as grape varieties. I sniffed and sipped and there was no going back, what a fascinating flavour profile! I now have plans for this drink, what must it taste like with game? With a BBQ? The smoky flavours are so smooth and palatable and the options, endless. And that’s what it’s all about, while Berry Bros. & Rudd might think opening a new door is about them, it’s actually about me, and my new found love for Mezcal.