International Drinks Specialists - Why drinks competitions matter and how we can help

It all began in the, sometimes treacherous, waters of drinks competitions and awards, when keen and forward-looking producers would ask questions such as: how could they improve their drinks, achieve higher scores, and which competitions would be worth entering. So International Drinks Specialists started up, with the aim of giving enthusiastic drinks producers and brand owners honest, constructive feedback from people who are themselves leading specialist judges and experts, with a true love of the drinks industry. 

This might sound like a rather niche area, but savvy brand owners understand that awards and competition medals are great for marketing purposes and improving sales, both b2b and to consumers. 

We’ve had the pleasure of helping many small and medium sized distillers and brand owners: from those starting at the research and recipe development stage, through to advising on more established products to improve them even further and building competition entry strategies.

For instance, one of our clients wanted to make a premium gin with a local touch - this went through three iterations, to improve it and then be able to fine-tune it, with our feedback and recommendations. This gin ended up as a top runner-up in the finals of the World Gin Awards. It makes us incredibly proud and happy to work with such a talented distiller, and that we could help this product to evolve to be of such outstanding quality.

In many other cases we see multiple pre-production samples or let’s say pilot products and we help to decide which final version should be released. This is a very thrilling and exciting process and also personally we find it a very special feeling to be able to assist people with our personal expertise.

There is nothing happier and more satisfying than working with talented drinks-makers, learning about how they envisage their products and helping to perfect them. It is always a true pleasure to see how our suggestions can take an already-great product to an excellent one.

Every case is slightly different, but any time when we work together with such wonderful people and learn together it feels that we might be making the spirit industry a better place.

Part of our product evaluation process is that we give a score badge - this is an indicator of quality and a possible outcome at respected international drinks awards or competitions. We are very happy to report that our scores have been proven very accurate by judging panels globally. 

Although we started as a business to business service, more and more people are now using our score badges in a customer-facing application, alongside the different award medals and competition scores, and other accolades they have achieved. It is just lovely to see our score badges appearing on different mediums including social media communications, marketing materials and as stickers on actual bottles. Seeing our score badge on a bottle is really heartwarming. 

This is one of the best testimonies to our work. Speaking of testimonies, we have received a large amount of feedback from clients which is wonderful to read. And in fact many of our clients actually become friends and start working with us on a long term basis. It’s really worth having a look here: https://www.drinks-specialists.com/testimonials/

Finally it is lovely to be able to help our clients to continue to move to greener and more sustainable ways of production whenever we can. 

From a little friendly consultancy project, it is very humbling to see our idea growing into a globally respected service with a global reach. We are grateful to all our clients and specialists and to all the people who trusted us and supported us so far. It’s a very exciting journey, and such an honour to help make the drinks industry better.

Thank you!

- Tobias 'Toby' Gorn IDS Co-founder and Senior Partner, International Drinks Specialists