Photo credit: Tom Pattinson (photograph of Daniel Szor).
🥃 What makes someone walk away from a successful 30-year career in finance to start making whisky in the English countryside?
For Daniel Szor, founder of Cotswolds Distillery, it started with a passion for whisky, a field of barley and a dream of creating something truly special.
But turning that dream into one of England's most recognisable whisky distilleries would prove considerably more challenging, and expensive, than he'd ever imagined.
In this episode of The Drinks Entrepreneur Podcast, Alex Macintyre sits down with Daniel to explore his extraordinary journey from working at one of the world's largest currency hedge funds to building an award-winning spirits business in the heart of the Cotswolds.
It's a fascinating story of ambition, calculated risks, unexpected opportunities and the financial realities of turning a passion into a successful business.
And perhaps most surprisingly, while Daniel set out to make whisky, it was gin that became one of the business's earliest success stories!
🎙️ In this episode, we explore:
💼 Leaving finance behind – Why Daniel walked away from a successful 30-year career to pursue an entirely different ambition.
🌾 The field of barley that started it all – How a chance moment in the Cotswolds inspired the creation of a distillery.
💷 The true cost of making whisky – Why starting a distillery required substantially more investment than anticipated, and the challenges of funding a business while waiting years for its whisky to mature.
🍸 The unexpected success of Cotswolds Dry Gin – How a product originally created while the whisky matured became a major part of the business's success.
🥃 Taking on the whisky establishment – The challenges of building an English whisky brand in a market traditionally dominated by Scotland.
📈 From start-up to established brand – Raising investment, scaling production, attracting customers and managing a business growing far beyond its original ambitions.
🤝 The people behind the business – The importance of investors, colleagues and building the right team to support long-term growth.
💡 Lessons from the entrepreneurial journey – What Daniel has learned about risk, resilience, financial planning and adapting when things don't go quite as expected.
What makes Daniel's story particularly interesting is that he came into the drinks industry with decades of financial experience. Yet even that couldn't fully prepare him for the realities of establishing and growing a distillery.
From the challenges of raising capital to the unexpected success of gin and the complexities of scaling a business, Daniel shares a wonderfully candid account of the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.
Whether you're building your own drinks brand, considering a major career change or simply fascinated by the business behind some of Britain's most exciting spirits, this is a conversation full of valuable insights and great stories.
Because following your passion might be what gets you started. But building a business that lasts takes something else entirely.
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