A gin distillery crowdfunder campaign has been heavily oversubscribed as the business gears up to push ahead post-lockdown.
Management at Burleighs Gin said while sales to pubs and bars dropped off when the pandemic hit, deliveries to shops and online sales had done well.
The business is now planning for Christmas and 2021 with the introduction of miniature gift sets, a new non-alcohol gin and a ready to drink gin and tonic.
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Burleighs, which has a distillery in the Charnwood Forest, just outside Loughborough, has already passed the £100,000 target it hoped for from the Seedrs crowdfunding campaign – with three more weeks still to run.
Overall Burleighs is selling a 4.68 per cent stake in the business and more than 127 investors have bought shares, varying from £10 to more than £50,000.
The campaign values the business at £2.3 million.
The distiller is the official gin partner of Leicester City Football Club, Leicester Tigers and the King Richard III foundation and has a variety of different gins including one launched last year inspired by Marilyn Monroe.
Direct sales to customers via its online site were almost £200,000 in 2019 and commercial director Sam Watson said despite the impact of Covid, 2020 has been a year of forward momentum.
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He said: “The success of our crowdfunding campaign with Seedrs will now allow us to further drive our growth and progress with a number of exciting projects.
“The first three months of lockdown the team went down to just myself and our distiller, very much working on e-commerce and doing a lot of deliveries because there was such high demand for people wanting to drink at home.
“From the start of July, when places started to reopen – at least outside Leicester – trade started to pick back up so when flexible furlough started to come in we were bring back people two or three days a week.
“We plan to have the full team of six back full-time from the start of October, and are looking to take on a seventh member for the sales team.
“We hope to get £150,000 from the Seedrs investment to enable us to crack on with the projects we have in the pipeline before Christmas.
“We are developing 200ml variants for our Signature and Pink gins, for off-licence sales in gift packs. We’re also looking at other gift ideas for the bigger bottles.
“The other thing planned is a non-alcoholic gin which should launch around January time. We’ve been working on the recipe for a little while and are pretty much there.
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“I think it’s definitely got a place in the market and the options and varieties have expanded so rapidly as people are more conscious and health aware.”
He said earlier plans to crack the US had slowed, but the Marilyn Monroe gin had gained traction in Spain and was selling in the 海角视频 through stores such as Ocado.