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Pink Marmalade is a dry, zesty, unmistakably premium gin that balances organic botanicals with a singular moment of pure colour-changing magic. We spoke to co-founder Will about surviving the pandemic, Pink Marmalade’s collab with pop sensation Sophie Ellis-Bexter, and future plans for the growing brand:

Tell us about Pink Marmalade, what inspired the product launch?

Our events company was called Pink Marmalade, and this name always sounded like something we wanted to drink. So as you do, we decided to make a gin! But this gin was going to represent the essence of a great night out so we bottled that idea and turned it into a natural colour changing reality.

Why gin?

For starters, the three of us are huge gin fans and we wanted to push the botanical boundaries by using bold flavours whilst trying to create something that all corners of the gin world could enjoy.

I understand you also have an events company, tell us about that?

Immersive events are our bread and butter. We met at university where we were transforming student club nights into nocturnal festivals – as we grew older, our tastes matured and we wanted to bring this immersiveness to the private and corporate world, so we formed Pink Marmalade events. We thrive on pushing the boundaries and turning the traditional upside down to create experiences that people don’t forget.

Did you change your game plan in order to survive the pandemic? 

We went full steam ahead with the gin business and kicked things off by doing a lockdown ‘care package’ which contained gin, tonics, garnishes and a handwritten note (on the white bottle). These proved really popular in the pandemic as we saw people gifting friends, family and just giving loved ones a pick-me-up with a bottle of the good stuff!

I see you have a collaboration with Sophie Ellis Bexter, how did that come about?

Funny you ask. When the pandemic came about we were selling off some of our props from the events company to help us stay afloat. One of these props was a lifesized fibreglass horse that we’d customised with Ziggy Stardust makeup and mirrorball hooves (safe to say he was a hard one to say goodbye to!).

After posting him for sale on a Facebook group, we received an email a few days later titled ‘serious about buying your horse’. From memory, the email read something like ‘I’d love to buy your horse, if I sit on it will it take my weight?’ A few emails later we realised that the communication was coming from none other than Sophie Ellis-Bextor. As huge fans of Sophie’s we eagerly jumped on a call with her to make the sale of the horse and mentioned our gin company which led us to send her a bottle. Safe to say she loved it and together we decided to do a special edition, collaborative bottle together which helped raise money for the WeMakeEvents campaign as it was so important to help out the industry we’re both in. So in a nutshell the collab with Sophie came about via Cyril the Disco Horse!

Plans for the future? 

We’ve got some big plans in store for the future, but any more would be telling so keep an eye on us to find out more.

For further information on Pink Marmalade gin, see here.