Babysham brothers strike back: Founding family return in plot to conquer the fine dining market – with cider!

‘We want to open up the idea of having cider with food as a wine alternative,’ he says. The drink has already found success with Michelin-star restaurants such as L’Enclume in the Lake District, run by chef Simon Rogan, as well as upmarket hotels including the Savoy.

The result, called Showerings Triple Vintage, uses wine-making techniques to blend three types of aged cider.

With the rise in demand for low-alcohol drinks among the Gen Z cohort, the family is hoping the sparkling perry can recapture the popularity it enjoyed 60 years ago.

to burden the next generation with a choice of either taking on a very large debt if the business continues, or forcing them to sell it,’ he told the Mail.

Champing at the bit: From left, fathers Matthew and Jonathan, and sons Nick, James and Keith, with their posh fizz

Nick Showering, 35, plans to bring cider into fine dining, challenging its image as a drink to be consumed in quantity in pub gardens in summer.

Expansion has continued apace. In 2005, Brothers Drinks began to be sold in pubs and shops. A year later it started bottling for soft drinks giant Fever-Tree.

Inheritance tax will stifle ambition 

The launch of the Triple Vintage follows a turbulent few decades for the Showering dynasty.

‘We’re on a bit of a roll,’ Matthew says, adding that the firm has fresh plans for Babycham now it is back under family control.

It is in the firm’s wood-panelled offices, across the road from the factory, that I meet two generations of Showerings, all of whom manage a part of the firm. It is a team of seven – four brothers and their three sons – though only five can make it today.

On the edge of town, silo-like tanks loom over nearby buildings, filled to the brim with cider. The faint smell of apples lingers in the air.  

The light, sweet drink was first marketed towards women, as an alternative to pints in pubs. It was the first alcoholic product to be advertised on TV in 1957.

They form part of the Showering Cider Mill, a family-owned business that traces its roots back over two centuries.

The comments come amid an intense backlash against Reeves’ plans to impose inheritance tax on business properties and agricultural land.

During the Second World War, it supplied American GIs on Salisbury Plain as they prepared for the D-Day landings.

Matthew, 60, and Jonathan, 62, are joint managing directors while Francis, 67, and Daniel, 54, look after the maintenance and legal sides of the firm, respectively.

In the 1950s the firm hit gold when the bosses’ great-uncle, also a Francis, oversaw the creation and launch of Babycham.

Matthew says: ‘We see a future in it.’

A series of corporate deals followed in which their great-uncle tried and failed to bring the family business back under their ownership.

But their great-uncle was undeterred, despite then being in his late 70s, and encouraged the four siblings to start a new family business from scratch down the road from the factory.

We’ve 350 staff on the payroll with well-paid jobs. We want that to carry on. Otherwise, it may get bought by a private equity firm and, before you know it, it will shut it down and move somewhere else.’

Business seems to be going well. In its latest accounts filed with Companies House, Brothers Drinks posted a profit of £5.2million for 2023, swinging from a £14.9million loss the previous year, while sales rose to nearly £100million from £71million in 2022.

‘We want to put our family name to a no-expense-spared cider,’ Nick says.

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