Small Brand Spotlight Beeble the sustainable drinks brand Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Food Small Brand Spotlight Beeble the sustainable drinks brand By You Magazine - November 11, 2021 Every week, we shine a spotlight on the best small brands we think are worth shouting about. We love our great British high street, but there are so many fantastic independent brands out there making clothes, accessories, homeware and more from a place of passion and love and we need to support them – now more than ever. From fashion and beauty to homeware, accessories and food, we bring you the best small businesses you need on your radar. This week, we chat with Matthew Brauer and Nicola Reed, co-founders of Beeble, the sustainable drinks brand turning leftover honey into delicious spirits. Beeble What is Beeble and how did it come to life? MB: Ten years ago, Nicola – my business partner – was given a beekeeping course as a gift, she fell in love with it and started beekeeping as a hobby. She began to notice that the honey wasn’t going far enough and when she spun the honey there was a lot of wastage. NR: ‘Spinning’ is a way of harvesting honey. There is a well known contraption called a honey extractor, that you can slot your honey frames into and spin. The centrifugal force spins the honey out of the honeycomb. I don’t actually use a spinner – I scrape the honey comb by hand into a metal cauldron and then put it through a huge sieve, as I can’t stand wasting a drop as a bee only makes half a teaspoon of honey in its life time. Last time I used an extractor, I covered my entire kitchen and self with honey and ended up feeling like Paddington Bear! MB: So, Nicola soaked the frames in whiskey and inadvertently created the first batch of Beeble and people really loved it! At this point, Nicola invited me to work with her on turning her hobby into a brand. I had just finished my accountancy training and was ready for a fresh challenge so it worked out perfectly. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BEEBLE (@beebleco) What three words describe Beeble? MB: Community, artisanal, sustainable. Who is the Beeble customer? MB: You can find us in your local farm shop or independent. Most of our customers are people with at least one eye on sustainability. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BEEBLE (@beebleco) Tell us a bit about how Beeble’s honey whisky and vodka is made. MB: We work with a family run distillery in Perth where we create our own honey blend that we infuse with a 3-year old scotch to make the honey whiskey and for the honey vodka we use a sustainable British vodka. Both take about a month or so to mature before it’s ready to be bottled. What does a typical day look like for you? MB: Nicola is the beekeeper and I’m just the bookkeeper! On a typical day I cycle to work, grab a coffee in my reusable cup then we have a stand up team meeting to discuss operations, the bees and other admin. We have a bespoke marketing approach and we take great pride in harnessing a close relationship with all our customers as they are instrumental in improving our products and helping us grow. I mainly take care of the financial and sales side of things whilst Nicola is an excellent designer and takes the lead on anything that involves bees. NR: A day beekeeping depends on the time of year. During the spring it can feel very busy checking the hives to make sure that all the colonies are healthy and have enough space to expand into. I have to make up frames and have enough clean supers [the part of a commercial beehive that is used to collect honey] ready to go into the hives. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BEEBLE (@beebleco) What’s the best thing about running your own business? And the most challenging? MB: Being able to have a positive impact on our local community, the environment and most importantly our workforce. That said, growing the team’s skillset is both the most challenging and the most rewarding. With the nature of our business depending on the bees, the weather can provide a level of uncertainty, which can also be challenging. NR: The biggest stress is not being able to control the weather or predict how the bees behave. This year I lost a few hives due to the late frost. I also had to ‘re-Queen’ three hives that had lost their queen, one hive had an unpleasant Queen – fortunately she moved on! As soon as she had gone the hive transformed into a friendly colony. Beekeeping is never boring, I am learning all the time and we really want to encourage more people to pick it up. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BEEBLE (@beebleco) The best Beeble moment so far? MB: Sponsoring the Bees for Development bee garden at this years’ Chelsea Flower Show. We’re also currently planting a forest of tress around our beehives in Wiltshire. Which Beeble drink is your favourite? MB: The honey whiskey, it’s delicious. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BEEBLE (@beebleco) Anything exciting in the pipeline? We’re developing a honey rum which we’ll launch next year and we’re all very excited! YOU s 3 favourite things Beeble Honey Whisky – Queen Size, £31, Beeble Beeble Honey Vodka – Queen Size, £31, Beeble Beeble Christmas Cocktail Set, £55, Beeble Shop the whole range at beeble.buzz and follow @beebleco. 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