We’re Neil and Chris, the founders of Broken Chimney Spirits Ltd, the home of Timber® Botanical Rum.
The picture here was taken on the night the idea for our new spirit was born with our pal Andy.
What happened next?
Our Story
Cast your mind back to 2019...
The days before global pandemics. The three of us were on a weekend trip to London from our homes in Edinburgh (we’re neighbours there), and had arranged to do a rum-making course. As spirits lovers we had a great time, trying out different recipes and cocktails and got talking about how you could bring a rum to market. A seed had been planted.
During the months of lockdown in 2020 we returned to the topic. We’d each had that feeling that if we didn’t follow up what we’d discussed that night in London we’d regret it. It would be the cause of that nagging feeling when we looked back in our later lives. What could have been. Lots of virtual and back garden meetings were held.
And then it was time to put our hard-earned money where our mouths were. We did it. We set to work, came up with a business plan and established Broken Chimney Spirits Ltd in October 2020.
We had one product in mind for our new company. It had to be a rum that we started with. We’re all rum drinkers but, despite that, we never seemed to agree on one that we all liked. So that was the plan; make one that we did. We agreed it had to be a versatile spirit too. A sipping rum. A rum comfortably enjoyed with mixers or taken neat. Smooth. Premium ingredients. Attractively bottled.
Plan A was a spiced rum and we started trying different combinations of ingredients. Early on we tried a botanical rum too, just to see a different production technique (a botanical rum takes a base rum and is re-distilled with new botanicals ).
We liked it. Although the first recipes we tried weren’t quite right, they had the smoother mouthfeel we were looking for. We took the bold decision to focus only on botanical rums from that point on. Spiced rums had been ditched; Plan B had arrived.
Over the next 6 months we refined down our list of botanicals, tinkering with quantities and different production methods. Many rounds of R&D and over 40 recipes later we were sampling a new batch of 16 fresh recipes based on a single set of botanicals...and there it was. Recipe “1/1” of the batch was a complete stand out.
Just some of the recipe development for Timber
We always blind tasted the recipes we’d received in each R&D round, agreeing never to reveal which ones we liked until a we met to disclose the scores we had each given them. But this had been different; our text messages suggested that we’d found “the one”. A quick meeting confirmed it. We independently come up with the same recipe. Our distilling partner loved it too. The 15 other variations didn’t quite work, but this one was outstanding. It stood out a mile. Timber® Botanical Rum had its recipe.
We spent the intervening months working on the branding, bottling and design too. Much like the recipe development, that had been a labour of love. Should the branding be for a “traditional rum” or a “modern rum”? Should we go with the time-honoured pirate theme so synonymous with rum or try something new? Many designs were tried and discarded before we arrived at our bold black and gold design featuring our wood grain effect. We worked through it all and learned a lot! By November 2021 we were ready to launch…
So that’s the story. We’re really proud of Timber®. We’ve made the versatile, smooth and premium spirit that we set out to. We love drinking it, and we’re sure you will too!
And what’s more… soon after our launch we we entered the London Spirits Competition , with over 2000 other spirits… and we WON SILVER!
Cheers!
Chris and Neil
“I have a background in the Scottish whisky industry so this has been a labour of love for me. To bring Timber to market has been an amazing journey.”
— Chris
“After so many months of recipe development, having that eureka moment when the botanicals aligned so perfectly was incredible. ”
— Neil
You’d have to ask Chris that question when you meet him to get the full answer. But, to cut a long story short, he owes Neil a new chiminea for his garden. We already had the Timber brand name decided but, when it came to naming the limited company we were setting up, the Broken Chimney name just stuck!
