The Apprentice jumps on the gin bandwagon

BBC television programme The Apprentice centred its latest episode, aired last night (Thursday 8 December) around the production and marketing of gin.

The reality game show, hosted by entrepreneur Lord Alan Sugar showed the two teams, Nebula and Titan, being given the task of visiting gin distilleries to produce and pitch the products to three potential buyers.

Sugar said: “The gin industry, is once again, growing rapidly, so for your next task I want you to tap into this market by creating your own gin.

“I’ve laid on a gin distillery for each team and I’ve arranged for you to bid to three big potential clients.

Lucrative market

He added: “The team that secures orders worth the most amount of money will win and in the losing team, at least one of you will be fired.”

The programme highlighted the fact the UK gin market was worth almost £1bn a year and said the current trend for different flavours and brands “can turn a tasty tipple into a tidy profit”.

The teams realised the importance of provenance and heritage with gin drinkers and each team came up with a story to pitch their products to the three clients.

Failure of the task

Candidates visited gin distilleries and two members of team Titan, Grainne McCoy and Trishna Thakrar drank a little too much when producing the spirit and missed numerous calls from team mate Frances Bishop.

Team Titan produced an orange-coloured spirit, ‘Colony Gin’ with the story behind it revolving around a naval officer travelling around the world and coming across ‘the most exotic flavours and spices in India’.

However, the team failed the task miserably as consumers were not impressed with the orange colour of the spirit and only securing a total of £5,280.

The winning team, Nebula produced raspberry and pink pepper-flavoured ‘Giin’ with the story being about sharing the spirit with friends.

Nebula secured a total amount of orders worth £71,400.