It is now easier than ever for bars across Australia to support local Australian spirits, after Nip of Courage launched its wholesale offering NOC Wholesale.
The one-stop-shop for Australian spirits was initially announced last year by Nip of Courage Founder and Australian spirit advocate Kathleen Davies, who along with the NOC team has been working hard on making NOC Wholesale as user friendly and convenient for the industry, as well as helping products become wholesale market ready.
“The main thing that we offer now is a one stop shop for Aussie craft spirits, big and small. There’s over 300 producers and brands in Australia now, but not everyone knows about them. So if someone does want an Aussie craft spirit, this is a great reference point to start looking when stocking their back bars or even speed rails in bars, as well as restaurants and bottle shops,” Davies told Bars and Clubs.
“A lot of trade customers don’t want to be dealing with hundreds of different suppliers. NOC Wholesale does the running around for them and brings it into one place to make ordering a lot easier.”
The official launch comes after a soft launch in recent months where NOC Wholesale worked with existing customers to make the new portal as user friendly as possible. This includes making it mobile compatible, and providing search functions that allow customers to shop by state, spirit, or even size of the bottle.
“We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make it as user friendly as possible and also easy for the trade to shop how they want,” Davies said.
“We’ve taken into account everyone that we’ve been dealing with over the years – not everyone wants to use a portal so we’re still open to taking orders by text, email, phone calls… we’ve got all the options available to still be flexible.”
The first stage of the NOC Wholesale launch sees 108 brands available for trade customers, alongside flexible purchase options where customers can buy single products or mix and match products from different brands in their orders, rather than only being able to buy full cases. A second intake of brands is also currently underway and a full portfolio booklet will be released next week.
The portfolio booklet is named ‘1992’, in honour of Tasmanian distiller Bill Lark and “the year he got all the laws changed to start paving the way for Australian craft spirit producers.” The booklet was developed with feedback from liquor retailers and includes not only a full catalogue of the products available through NOC Wholesale, but also industry stories and information from the Australian Distillers Association.
With the launch of NOC Wholesale, the Nip Of Courage brand has now become the consumer facing part of the business. Trade customers will be directed to the NOC Wholesale website for ordering, while consumers can purchase directly from the Nip Of Courage shop too.
Trade customers can now sign up at: https://www.nocwholesale.com/ and sign up applications will usually be approved within a day.
“We’ve all worked extremely hard behind the scenes and we’re relieved to get to this milestone, so we’re ready to get to the next one. Now it’s all about onboarding, making sure that everyone can use the platform and drumming up new business and showing people this new service,” Davies said.
“It’s a more important time than ever to be supporting local. A lot of the distilleries are doing it really tough at the moment with restrictions on cellar door visitations and a lot of the rural distilleries are shut down and facing constant lock downs as well. A lot of them that don’t have the marketing dollars for exposure are really struggling, so this is kind of a little light of hope for them.”
