No sweat over Fever Tree

David Bromige, one of the Co-Founders of Martin Miller’s Gin, is suitably stoic when he recalls how he and his colleagues in Reform Spirits invented Fever Tree tonic water.

To go with the Super Premium gin they’d invented in Martin Miller, the team at Reform Spirits needed to come up with a Super Premium tonic to accompany it.

And this is how they came to launch Fever Tree in 2004.

However entrepreneur Charles Rolls had just sold Plymouth gin and he decided to buy into Fever Tree which was at the mere sapling stage that same year.

The Fever Tree’s inventors were delighted with the cash injection but didn’t have the vision that Charles appeared to have. It wasn’t long before Charles bought up the rest of their shares and by 2013 was the sole owner of the brand.

“Charles came along and saw more in the Fever Tree brand than we did at the time,” Reform Spirits’ David Bomige, Co-Founder & Creative Director of Martin Miller’s Gin, told me ruefully, “He had more confidence in it.”

He was right to have had more confidence in it….

Fever Tree is now valued at around £1.5 billion.