Ambient · Spirits · Liqueurs
Wild & Wonder
Elderberry liqueurs, a rosehip spritz and a birch sap vodka, made on the East Lothian coast from what grows wild in Scotland. Two Great Taste awards in its first year, both judged blind.
Visit wildandwonderdrinks.com
Where it stands
Great Taste results per the Guild of Fine Food award directory, checked 6 October 2026, and Scotland Food & Drink, 28 July 2026. Duty at the rates in force from 1 February 2026, per gov.uk. Prices are Wild & Wonder's own RRPs.
The product
Hedgerow flavours, built for how people drink now.
Wild & Wonder is Tom Chisholm and Martin Peel, based in Haddington on the East Lothian coast. One brings years in the drinks trade, the other a background building food and drink businesses. The ingredients come from Scottish hedgerows, woodland and wild verges: elderberries, rosehips and birch sap.
The Elder liqueurs are the core, with 3,000 elderberries in a bottle. Elder Berry is the original. Elder Orchard adds bramble and apple and is made for a summer spritz. Elder Spiced adds ginger and orange for winter. Elder Black Forest, with sour cherry and cacao, is the newest. The core three are 17% ABV, in 50cl and 20cl.
Rosehip Spritz is a rosehip and rum liqueur at 20%, made to be topped with soda, light tonic or sparkling wine. It is a Scottish alternative for the shopper who already orders a spritz and fancies one that is less bitter.
Silvertear is the vodka. Every bottle is 60% pure birch sap, tapped from the tree, which is where the smooth texture comes from. Nature Smooth, Orchard with apple and bay leaf, and Raspberry Blossom sit at £35 for 70cl. Silvertear Vintage, a limited annual release, is £45 and is the one that took three stars.
The range
Buying for spirits, liqueurs or a Scottish range? The trade price list, specs and serve material are ready to send.
Book a 30-minute callWhy a buyer stocks it
Two award winners, and a reason to buy in every season.
Blind-tasted proof, twice
Three stars for Silvertear Vintage, the only vodka to reach three at Great Taste 2026, and two for Rosehip Spritz. Great Taste strips the branding off before anyone tastes, so this is a result the liquid earned, not the label.
It plugs into the UK's favourite drink order
The leading spritz is now the UK's most popular cocktail, taking 13.6 per cent of all cocktail spend in the on-trade in the third quarter of 2025, up 3.7 points in a year. The growth has moved to the newer spritzes too: the elderflower Hugo Spritz was up 196 per cent year on year in April to June 2026. Rosehip Spritz and Elder Orchard give the shopper that serve to make at home.
Lower strength, lower duty
Duty is charged on the alcohol, not the bottle. At the rates in force since February 2026, a 50cl Elder liqueur at 17% carries £2.60 and a 50cl Rosehip Spritz at 20% carries £3.06, against £9.52 on a 70cl vodka at 40%. The owner of three of the UK's best known spirits brands is now trialling 20% versions of its gin, rum and vodka at a national multiple, which tells you where it thinks the shopper is heading.
Scottish, which shoppers say they want
84 per cent of shoppers in Scotland want more Scottish options on supermarket shelves, and nearly 80 per cent say they would be annoyed or disappointed not to find Scottish goods there. More than half of British shoppers say they actively look for Scottish products. Spirits are already the biggest part of Scotland's £1.6bn take-home alcohol market, at £480m.
A liqueur range that sells outside December
Liqueurs live or die on seasonality. Orchard and Rosehip Spritz carry spring and summer, Spiced and Black Forest carry autumn and Christmas, the 20cl at £15 does trial and gifting, and the bundles are already shot and ready for seasonal space.
The objection
Spirits are shrinking, and the spritz belongs to one brand.
Two things a buyer will put to you. Both are fair, and both are better answered before they are asked.
Spirits volume is falling. In The Grocer's 2025 spirits report, NIQ data has the category down £128.8m in value, with volume down 4.3 per cent even after a 2.1 per cent rise in price per litre. Mintel says volume sales of dark spirits and liqueurs eroded in 2026, and aperitifs as a group fell 6 per cent in the UK between 2023 and 2025. If you are adding a liqueur, the honest question is what it takes space from.
The answer is that the growth has moved rather than disappeared. It has gone to the serve, where a spritz is now the most popular cocktail in the country and the newer spritzes are growing fastest. It has gone to lower strength, where the duty system now rewards it and the biggest brands are following. And it has gone to provenance, where 84 per cent of shoppers in Scotland want more Scottish options on the shelf. A Scottish liqueur at 17 to 20 per cent, built for a spritz, sits where all three meet.
Now the second one. The category leader says it serves nearly 90 per cent of all spritzes in the UK. Nobody is going to out-advertise that, and I would not try. A challenger wins this at shelf, as the alternative next to the leader, for the shopper who has had the same spritz all summer and wants something different. Only 13 per cent of spritz drinkers say theirs is served well every time, and 54 per cent say the brand in it matters. That is a shopper who is open to being moved.
And on the vodka, the premium end is not the easy end right now. Super-premium and above spirits fell 15 per cent in value across 21 major markets in 2025. So Silvertear is not pitched as a luxury trade-up. It is pitched on a three-star result and a birch sap story a shopper can repeat, at a price just above the premium tier rather than up with the prestige names.
Spirits value and volume: NIQ via The Grocer, Alcohol: spirits 2025. Mintel, UK Dark Spirits and Liqueurs 2026. Aperitifs: IWSR via The Spirits Business, 1 September 2026. Spritz share of cocktail spend and serve quality: NIQ, March 2026, on-trade, Q3 2025 against Q3 2024. Hugo Spritz: Square sales data via Asian Trader, 30 July 2026. Leader's share is the company's own figure, via The Spirits Business, 9 September 2026. 20% ABV trial: drinks-intel, 14 September 2026. Scottish shoppers: Scotland Food & Drink and The Knowledge Bank, February 2026. Scotland's alcohol market: Worldpanel via Scottish Grocer, December 2025. Super-premium: IWSR via The Spirits Business, April 2026.
In the fixture
Two fixtures, two price ladders.
The liqueurs and the vodka are different buyers, different competitive sets and different price logic. This is where each one lands on shelf today.
Silvertear at £35 sits just above premium and below the prestige names, which is the right place for a three-star story a shopper can repeat. Vintage at £45 is the limited release and prices above all of them. The liqueurs sit with the premium spritz liqueurs rather than the gin liqueurs, and the 20cl at £15 gives a shopper a way in below the lot.
Shelf prices observed online at Tesco, Ocado and Waitrose, 6 October 2026. Standard shelf price shown where an offer was running. Tiers shown, brands not named.
What I do
Trade pack and pitch
Turning a strong consumer brand into the deck, price file and specs a spirits buyer needs to make a decision in one meeting.
Scotland first
Building distribution where provenance counts for most, then using that rate of sale to open the national conversations.
Range architecture
Deciding which lines lead with which buyer, so the award winners open the door and the 20cl does the trial work.
Seasonal selling
Spritz in spring and summer, Spiced and gift bundles for autumn and Christmas, so the brand earns space all year rather than for six weeks.
Next step
Want the range, the terms and the serves?
I run the retail conversation for Wild & Wonder. The trade price list, case sizes, product specs, the Great Taste results, and serve and point of sale material are ready to send, and samples can follow. Twenty minutes is usually enough to know whether this fits your fixture, and I will tell you if I think it does not.
Founder rather than a buyer? This is how I work, and these are the other brands.
Wild & Wonder is for adults of legal drinking age. Please enjoy it responsibly: drinkaware.co.uk.