Halewood Wines & Spirits is rapidly expanding its GTR business with the launch of brands, fresh flavour variants, activations and a raft of new listings across airports, airlines and ferries.

In addition to its yacht in the harbour village at the upcoming TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes, Halewood will also have a stand at this year’s event (Green Village J66). The stand will be used to unveil its new Dead Man’s Fingers travel exclusive one-litre range of rums and Crabbie’s single malt scotch whisky, the latest brand in the portfolio.

Whitley Neill handcrafted dry gin, the sixth fastest selling gin in the premium and super-premium category worldwide and number one premium gin in the UK, continues to drive the company’s travel retail business.

NEW LAUNCHES

Recently launched Whitley Neill full-strength gin flavours with various travel retailers have added momentum, according to the company. Flavours include blackberry, pink grapefruit, parma violet, lemongrass and ginger, blood orange and rhubarb and ginger variants. The latter is the biggest seller.

Simon Roffe, Managing Director Global Travel Retail, Halewood commented: “Our figures show that the introduction of the new flavoured gins has brought incremental gains. The existing sales are not being chipped away by the introduction of the latest sensational flavour.

“Sales of rhubarb and ginger, for example, have tripled in the last year across travel retail and where new variants are added. An example of this is lemongrass and ginger with Dufry in the UK. The brand has continued to outperform all expectations and in the UK domestic market, we are selling five-times more Whitley Neill raspberry gin than a year ago.

“These full-strength gins, which offer uniquely a world of wonderful flavours, are exactly what the consumer is asking for and retailers love the rainbow colours of the bottles that really pop in an often bland spirits environment.”

Whitley Neill Gin and The Pogues Irish Whiskey are being launched with travel retailer 3Sixty in 26 airports across the Americas including Chicago, Orlando, Dallas, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Ottawa, and Cozumel. Whitley Neill will also feature on the Canadian border with a number of major operators including IGL, Peace Bridge (in its new store) and Blue Water Duty Free.

In addition to new listings for Whitley Neill in Australia, Malaysia and Thailand, Halewood is expanding its gin partnership with DFS Group. As a result, Halewood will feature Marylebone Original and Cask-Aged gins at DFS Group’s spirits festival in Singapore next month.

INFLIGHT BUSINESS

Regarding the company’s inflight business, Easyjet is stocking a Whitley Neill pink grapefruit 5cl exclusive until the end of October. This is alongside the raspberry and rhubarb and ginger flavours which are selling well.

British Airways has also chosen the new Whitley Neill Blackberry Gin one-litre as an airline exclusive from Q4 and will list Dead Man’s Fingers spiced rum for the first time. As part of a wider collaboration with the airline, Halewood is supporting the summer-long Beach Hut, which serves miniature gin and rum cocktails in British Airways’ Heathrow Terminal 5 lounge.

Whitley Neill will also feature in the Best of British spirits campaign in the Virgin Clubhouse lounges.

Thomas Cook, Ryanair, South African Airways and Kenyan Airways are among the other carriers to have listed the Whitley Neill handcrafted dry gins.

Roffe commented: “We have excellent relationships with the airline concessionaires. They welcome the newness and quality of Whitley Neill. With so many fabulous flavours, we are able to offer them something a bit different from their competitors.”

He concluded: “We are also running promotions with Lagadère UK and Heinemann in several European airports this summer, including Amsterdam Schiphol, our top airport location for Whitley Neill, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Johannesburg. Berlin and Vienna will follow in the autumn.

“Whitley Neill is leading the way for us in travel retail and we are following up with our other full-strength premium gins, our quirky Dead Man’s Fingers rum and now our Crabbie’s single malt whiskies.”

See the White Spirits report in September for more insights on gin.