Ask most craft distillers what a bulk spirit supplier does, and they will describe something like a producer that delivers in large volume.
Unless they themselves are a big operation, that is rarely who they are actually buying from.
Bulk spirit supply is one of the most searched topics on Everglow. Especially for gin makers looking at NGS.
The Bulk Spirit Suppliers cheat sheet remains one of the best performing pages on the site. But a directory only tells you who is out there. It does not tell you what you are actually paying for, or how to evaluate a supplier once you have a selection of prices, and the difference between them is negligible.
So I sat down with Bert Albrecht, UK Manager for Bulk Alcohols & Spirits at Ethimex, to find out what actually happens between a raw spirit and your storage tank, and what separates a supplier you can build a business on from one that is simply the cheapest option for your raw materials.
For context, Ethimex have been trading spirits and alcohol globally for over twenty years. They run two connected but distinct operations: international trading, and distribution. While the scale of both puts them at a level that separates them, having two parallel channels is not uncommon for bulk spirit providers.
Recognising the difference between the two is the first step to understanding what you are actually buying when you buy bulk.
Most are traders first, distributors second
Trading is global. A buyer in one country needs bulk spirit from another, does not want to handle sourcing or importing themselves, and companies like Ethimex arrange it. Container loads, deep sea vessels, ISO tanks. In these situations, the trader rarely sees the end customer or the final product. They see the supply chain and make it work.
Distribution is different. The trader is the buyer and the distributor. For example, they bring tankers into the UK and Europe, break the bulk down, and sell it on to distilleries, brands and bottlers in volumes that actually fit the customer’s operation.
An IBC. A 200 litre drum. All the way down to a 25L jerry can. While volumes can be large, typically it looks like a few IBCs, rather than an ISO tanker turning up outside a unit in South London on a Tuesday morning.
Albrecht was clear that this only works when it earns its place.
“It has to make sense, and once it makes sense, then you have a reason to exist. People do not like brokers or distributors for the sake of it. But if you can add something, smaller volumes, faster supply, consistency and compliance, then it makes sense.”
Beyond a certain scale, a direct relationship with a producer is often the more logical one. Below that scale, most distillers need volumes split in ways the major producers are not set up to provide, and that is before factoring in import licences, export licences, and the logistics of getting product across a border at all.
Speaking to me based here in the UK Albrecht noted “If you come to me and say, I want an IBC of English whisky, I say, well, talk to your neighbour, because you are surrounded by them. I can buy it for you if you like, but it is going to cost more and sometimes, that is justified.”
The value hidden in logistics
The part of the business most distillers never see is where a lot of the real value sits.
Ethimex have spent twenty years learning shipping routes, container positioning, and where global capacity is tight or loose at any given time. Rerouting a shipment for cost reasons alone can save up to fifty per cent on freight.
Albrecht described a frequent situation to us “I hear the logistics guys on the phone making deals. I can send you containers for the Caribbean, but you have to help me with the bourbon in Kentucky. We help each other and get synergy between the two. It is not just the price of the product, it is the price of the actual operation and the shipping itself.”
Then there is customs. Albrecht described a container stopped at the Mexican border for a random inspection. A certified surveyor has to accompany the process, arranged by the shipper. Ethimex knew who to call and had it resolved in days. “If it takes longer, you have the demurrage, and that is charged per day. So, if it is two weeks, suddenly your margin is shrinking very quickly. If that is your only tank you are importing, that is hard.”
Ethimex ship enough volume that a single delayed container is a manageable cost. For a distillery importing one tank of agave spirit or Scotch or ENA, the same delay can be the difference between a good deal and a very expensive lesson.
Which is why it is worth remembering that a bulk spirit supplier is not just the producer, and often is not the producer at all. It is the service that gets the liquid from A to B, consistently, legally and cost effectively as well as the bulk litres you need. That is the actual product they sell.
Consistency is the real premium
Price is the easy question to compare providers. The harder one, and the one that actually determines whether a relationship works, is trust. As Albrecht put it, “How much do I trust this supplier with my product?”
Trust breaks down into specifics. Consistency of supply, ideally from UK stock so there is no hassle at the border and an emergency order can still land next day. And consistency of product, which matters more in some categories than almost anything else.
Take agave spirits. There is no fixed benchmark for tequila. Every producer is slightly different, and quality can shift from one lot to the next. The same is true across rum and whisky, and even within categories that sound standardised on paper. Neutral grain spirit is not one thing, even when from the same base material. There can be a significant gap between one producer’s output and the next, even when both are technically the same specification.
Albrecht asserts that this is where scale and relationships do real work. “We actually go there, to Mexico, and we visit these people on site. We look at the tanks, we look at the stills. Online and AI can help you but only to a point.”
I said it back to him at the time, and it stands: Being told and seeing for yourself is not the same. An informed supplier who has stood in front of the stills and knows the producer’s history is doing something a spec sheet cannot. More so when it comes to their capacity to recreate the same quality over and again.
Contingency planning: the angle nobody budgets for
Most distillers think about alternative supply in terms of physical security. That’s the natural question: what happens if my usual source runs dry? Albrecht agrees, “You need a contingency plan. If there is a fire at a distillery, if a crop goes wrong, you need an alternative as a bulk spirit supplier. You cannot just put all your eggs in one basket.”
But availability is only part of it.
Climate, conflict and shifting consumer demand all move bulk pricing in ways that have nothing to do with your relationship with any one supplier. A poor harvest, a war disrupting a growing region, a spike in demand for one category over another. Cost of living alone is why bourbon pricing today looks nothing like it did six years ago.
Ethimex’s answer is to smooth this out rather than pass it straight through. They negotiate prices three to six months ahead, which gives a buffer, and when costs do rise they feed the change in gradually across the whole stock rather than repricing batch by batch.
Albrecht talks about it in plain terms. “We try to keep a stable pricing. Sometimes we take small hits and wait for a more convenient moment to adjust. Distribution is not spot trading.”
For a distillery, this is worth asking about directly and talking about ahead of time. A supplier who can absorb short-term volatility is protecting your production planning as much as their own margin. So, what does absorbing look like, both up and down? The fair relationship is a supplier who moves as quickly to bring prices back down as they did to put them up. That isn’t always the case.
Either way, contingency is not a box to tick once a year. It is a live part of how a supplier prices and plans, and it is worth understanding how yours does it.
New audiences, new demands
One of the most interesting shifts Albrecht described has nothing to do with distilling at all.
“We see many people coming in from the fizzy drink side. They understand canning, they understand volume. What they do not always understand is excise, legislation and how alcohol works with the flammability.”
This is worth acknowledging even if your own background is firmly in distilling, because it changes who else bulk spirits suppliers are now increasingly serving, and what kind of support they are building around that.
Ethimex and others have responded by building more support into the relationship, including running one- or two-day courses for client teams covering the technical, commercial and logistical basics, from flammability to bonded warehousing.
Increasing the depth of understanding and the ability to service that is something Albrecht is not coy about. “It is quite important that you have a team that understands that. You have to be technical, but also understand what your customer wants to achieve, and then you can have a good conversation.”
The traffic runs both ways too.
RTD and food sector entrants bring standards around traceability, certification and documentation that are already normal in food production but were not always expected in bulk spirits. Or distilling even. Ethimex have gained certification against recognised food safety standards in response and that understanding and that knowledge are trickling back into the usual day-to-day work with distillers.
“[Fruit juice and food-led producers moving into RTD’s] want to know what field the grain comes from, which we cannot always supply. But they want supporting documents through the whole process. Not just the product, also the organisation, the transport, even the IBCs we use. Everything needs to be documented. That is definitely a massive change.”
When buyers or investors are approaching supply chain reviews from outside traditional drinks, expect this level of documentation to become the norm. From what I’ve experienced, it’s already spreading into spirits more broadly, as retailers and wholesalers start expecting the same standard from every producer they work with.
Origin, provenance, and an honest word on carbon
Provenance is a word distillers reach for a lot. In bulk spirits, Albrecht draws a sharper distinction between provenance and origin.
“Bulk and provenance do not always go together, because often these are large distilleries. There is not much of a story. It is quite industrial, top quality, but there is not a husband and wife farmer with a donkey pulling the millstone.”
That is not a criticism. It is simply what bulk means.
Origin, however, is different and more commonly requested. Distillers ask for Jalisco over Oaxaca, Speyside over Islay, Caribbean over Latin American or a specific country of origin for their neutral grain spirit. Particularly where a label claim like “Made in Britain” requires it. Where origin preference exists, price is usually the deciding factor in the end. Irish whiskey carries a real premium over Scotch, and plenty of buyers who start with a preference end up choosing on cost.
Pressed about sustainability, Albrecht points out that while it’s of high importance, it’s less of a deciding factor. “Sustainability often seems to be a side effect. Clients in the UK want a British product, which we can provide, and as a side effect there are not many travel miles.”
He continued by explaining that the fact that it’s a more sustainable choice than picking the likes of a Canadian NGS is by-the-by. The decision is made on transport costs, ease of supply and so on, not because the local NGS carries less carbon mileage. That is an added benefit.
The same challenge shows up in carbon claims more specifically, and this is worth being direct about. Carbon accounting in bulk spirits often starts at the point the product reaches the end producer, not at the point of origin.
A craft distiller can genuinely calculate and reduce the footprint of everything from their site onward, while the miles, energy and practices involved in producing the raw spirit itself and getting it to the bulk supplier’s dispatch hub too often go uncounted. Albrecht agreed this is a real gap, not a hypothetical one.
Food production has a different standard, tracking a product from the actual field. Bulk spirits, for the most part, do not yet do the same from grain to glass. It is worth knowing where a supplier’s sustainability claim actually starts before repeating it on your own label, or before confidently stating you’ve calculated yours fully.
The plateau, and how the best distilleries get past it
There is a real scale constraint that catches smaller distilleries, but there are practical ways through it.
“There have been instances where scale is an issue, especially if they pay duty upfront and buy duty paid. It is a lot of money to front. And do not forget, they have to buy glass. You cannot buy a hundred bottles, you buy thousands, same with the same labels and boxes. They have to put all that money forward.”
That combination can trap a distillery at a certain scale, unable to bring the unit cost down because they cannot yet buy in the bulk spirit volume or format that would get them there.
Ethimex’s response is worth noting. They have restructured freight for smaller customers, with multiple shipping options specifically tailored for small volumes, which meaningfully cuts cost for the smallest orders. They will suggest distilleries nearby buy together to reach better volumes.
“Sometimes if we can see what they are trying to do, we will work on it just to get them over the line. We can see some people have good ideas, they have the appetite, they have the market. It is only a matter of time before they grow big enough to buy a drum rather than a jerry can. It is not just an email. You have to get to know them.”
This is also where growing safely matters. As distilleries move beyond a handful of jerry cans or the half-empty IBC in the corner toward proper stainless steel storage, the safety features that come with scale, flame arrestors, better containment, clearer reporting and zoning compliance are worth investing in earlier rather than later.
You can make cost savings by increasing the bulk and changing the delivery format, but you can also upgrade your site’s safety as you do it too. While it’s counterintuitive, when done well bigger can actually be much safer.
Do what you do best
I asked Albrecht where he thought distillers should be putting their attention over the next few years. His answer was simple, and it is advice worth repeating to anyone building a brand as it can be applied to the entire supply chain.
“Focus on what you are strong at, and outsource the rest if you can. You do not want to invest in a team that is too large to deal with upstream supply. What you claim about your brand has to be real, and you have to understand your customers the same way we have to understand ours.”
This is where the conversation landed on something I say to distillers constantly, coming from a bulk spirit supplier of all people.
The liquid itself is rarely where the value of a bottle sits.
Anyone can buy raw ethanol for a set cost per litre. But the reason a bottle sells for high retail premiums has less to do with the hard cost of the actual raw spirit inside it. It has everything to do with the brand, the story and the experience wrapped around it.
The supply chain is not where the true craft lives. Do what you do best. Add clarity and intent to what you redistill and how you transform the bulk spirit. Build joy. Own the serve, the occasion and be of relevance to the drinker. Connect with them. Let the people who have spent twenty years mastering logistics, compliance and trading handle the supply, because that is genuinely where their value is.
What they cannot do is sell your story for you. That is the one part only you can do, and it is where the actual craft sits.
Albrecht made a similar point from his side of the table. “The passion has to be in the brand. People must feel your passion, and if you can channel that into your brand, they will pick it up on the other side. Sometimes I look at websites and think, that could be done so much better, why not involve an expert. People engage with pictures, they love the stories, they like your brand. It makes sense to them.”
At the end of it all, while reducing cost of goods matters, always, the best distilleries are not the ones who chase the cheapest litre. They are the ones who build relationships and find partners who they trust to empower them and help provide them with the materials they need. Those who give them a solid foundation.
They are the distillers who know exactly what they are building and who are obsessed with the end drinker, and know precisely which parts of getting their product to market, or making it in the first place, are worth handing to someone else.
