The Soruhl Journal

Starting a drinks brand

When I started Soruhl, I thought making a really good drink would be the difficult part.

That was slightly naive.

I'd spent years developing the recipe, so once I finally had something I was proud of, I assumed the hard work was more or less done.

Then I started putting Soruhl in front of people.

I knew exactly what Soruhl was. Nobody else did.

Sorrel was familiar to me. Hibiscus was familiar to me. I knew why ginger was in the recipe and why I wanted orange and warm spices alongside it.

The person looking at the bottle for the first time knew none of that.

So the questions started.

What's sorrel? Is it juice? Is it cordial? Is this a mixer? Do I drink it straight? Why hibiscus? What's Jamaican about it?

And one that still comes up regularly: how do you pronounce Soruhl?

I quickly discovered that starting a drinks brand involves much more than making the drink.

You have to work out how to explain something that feels completely obvious to you to someone encountering it for the first time.

That's much harder than it sounds.

I was trying to tell people too much

My first instinct was to answer every question before anybody had the chance to ask it.

I wanted people to understand the Jamaican tradition, the hibiscus, the ingredients, how I made it, why I'd started the company and what I wanted Soruhl to become.

All before they'd taken a sip.

Eventually I realised I didn't need to do that.

People are perfectly capable of being curious.

Give them enough information to understand what they're looking at. Give them a reason to taste it. Then let the drink start the conversation.

That lesson ended up shaping far more than the way I talk about Soruhl.

It helped me understand what the brand itself was about.

Quench Your Curiosity came from that thinking.

I don't need everybody to understand everything about Soruhl immediately.

I'd much rather they want to find out more.