Tiffany Kerruish: Crafting Spirits and Culture at Fynoderee Distillery

As we look forward to the Interceltic Business Forum, we’re delighted to introduce some of the notable speakers who will be sharing their experiences and insights. One such speaker is Tiffany Kerruish, Co-Founder of Fynoderee Distillery, the leading drinks producer on the Isle of Man.

Founded in 2017 by Tiffany and her husband, Fynoderee Distillery has grown from a small garage operation into an award-winning producer of premium Gins, Vodka, Rum, and Isle of Man Single Malt Whiskey. The Kerruish family has combined their passion for craft spirits with a deep love and pride for their island, using their products to promote the unique culture and folklore of the Isle of Man.

Join us as we explore Tiffany's journey in creating Fynoderee Distillery, the challenges of operating on the Isle of Man, and their exciting plans for international expansion.

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Can you tell us about the founding of Fynoderee Distillery?

The Fynoderee Distillery is a family business founded by my husband and myself in 2017. We started making gin in our garage to become the biggest drinks producer on the Isle of Man making an award-winning range of premium Gins, Vodka, Rum (from scratch) and Isle of Man Single Malt Whiskey.  We wanted to combine our passion for craft spirits and with the love and pride we have for our Island, using our products as a way of promoting our unique culture and folklore to the rest of the world.  

The Fynoderee brand is so much more than just making premium spirits (although we are very proud of what we make) we aspire to embody the principles of the IOM Biosphere by actively pursuing to be an asset to our Island’s community, working as sustainably as we can, promoting our heritage and outstanding living landscapes – the fact that we hand-forage and grow locally as many ingredients as possible means that our products contain the true essence of the Isle of Man and the ecosystems of supporting other local businesses and contributing a new revenue stream to our economy is very important to us.

What are some of the challenges of founding a distillery on the Isle of Man?

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Part of our uniqueness is the fact that we are an Island nation in the middle of the Irish Sea, this results in shipping challenges in both supplies coming in and product going out! We also have a limited employment pool, and accordingly we have focussed on training up local people to help develop the skills to meet the growth we plan for the business. Whilst a challenge, this also will bring resilience to the business going forward. Attendance at trade shows and trying to develop roving sales off-Island means we now must engage off-island expertise to manage the costs of travel on and off the Island and our sustainable credentials.   As there was no meaningful existing distilling community on the island before us, we have had to develop our skills in running our operations ourselves through extensive reading and many trip to meet other inspiring distillers, many of whom have been from our Celtic neighbour nations!  

What are some of your international expansion hopes for Fynoderee?

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We have recently taken on some investment that means we are in a position to expand our sales to international markets, and we have significant capacity to meet growing sales.

We see expansion as critical to our future.  Currently, we export through B2C and B2B sales throughout the British Isles, and we have a very busy e-commerce site sending product off -island every day. In the next week we are launching a B2C offering to several European countries via our website using a fulfillment platform in Denmark. This additional ‘direct reach’ to consumers we hope will build our brand exposure throughout Europe and in turn endeavour to garner interest from relevant distributors in those countries.  We are very keen to work with distributors in other Celtic nations and have some strong demand for our products from Brittany, Ireland and Galicia, which are all presently a challenge for us to service since Brexit.

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Why is it important to be presenting at the Interceltic Business Forum this year?

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We visited the FIL in 2019 and saw for ourselves what an immense opportunity it is for the Isle of Man to promote itself to the Celtic community, and the forum is an incredible platform for the Isle of Man to appear as equals in the mix of our far larger Celtic cousins.  As a nation, we “Manxies” are fiercely proud of our national identity and what makes us unique and special – while at the same time have a very outward looking perspective.  Manx businesses such as ourselves are looking to collaborate wherever possible - we believe as a business that collaboration with others is far more successful that trying to do it alone, if we can do this within the Celtic family of seven nations then nothing would make us happier.

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Attending the forum this August

As we look forward to the Interceltic Business Forum, the insights and opportunities shared by speakers like Tiffany are invaluable for driving economic growth and collaboration among the Celtic nations.

Don’t miss out on the chance to be part of this dynamic event. Join us on August 12th in Lorient to network, learn, and help shape the future of our interconnected economies.

‍Sign up now and be a part of this exciting journey!

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