Setting their sights upon expansion both at home and further afield for 2022, the Cardigan-based craft gin and whisky distillery In the Welsh Wind has appointed Dan Jones as its new Sales and Export Manager. The brand, which began trading four years ago, has won numerous awards for its Signature Style and Palo Cortado gins, as well as for a number of the spirits it produces on behalf of other brands.
Dan joins the team at Welsh Wind following a decade-long tenure at the Pembrokeshire dairy brand Daioni Organic, where he successfully cultivated sales of the company’s organic dairy products both domestically and internationally, by introducing them into Middle Eastern and Asian markets.
He arrives at the distillery at an exciting time. In the Welsh Wind’s most recent project, to create an entirely Welsh single malt whisky ‘from grain to glass’, represents one of the first serious attempts to revitalise Welsh production of the spirit – more conventionally associated with Scottish and Irish distilleries. Only a handful of brands have produced whisky in Wales during the last century, ever since the liquidation of the Welsh Whisky Distillery Company in 1910.
‘I'm delighted to be joining the In the Welsh Wind team and being part of their exciting journey, as we look to launch the brand into the UK and global markets,’ Dan says. ‘2022 will be a defining year for the company as we build a platform for future success.’
The distillery’s co-founder and director Ellen Wakelam has expressed her happiness to have Dan on board, and also shared an insight into the brand’s plans for growth in the near future:
‘We’re now ready to take a more targeted approach, so that as many people as possible can enjoy the premium spirits we produce here on the Welsh coast.
‘We already work with international customers on the custom spirits side of our business, producing gin for brands as far afield as France, Malta and Japan. We’re now planning the export strategy for our gin, and our grain to glass Welsh Origin whisky.’
Both the distillery at Tan-y-groes and In the Welsh Wind’s newly opened gin bar in Cardigan, Bar 45, are expected to recruit further staff throughout 2022, as the business continues its expansion over the months and years ahead.
