Selling out at the brilliant Taste of Wicklow!

Third time's a charm for another very successful Taste of Wicklow event in the Abbey Grounds in Wicklow Town. The sun pelted down as the grounds filled up with foodie lovers, families and people of all ages. All happy in the knowledge they were going to spend the day sitting on the grass, feasting on delicious food from over 35 stall holders and watching how the professionals chefs do their thing - with demonstrations from Neven Maguire to our own Paul Smith from Wicklow Town. 

We had an extremely successful day with long queues forming throughout the day... we couldn't believe it! Once again we roped in family members who rolled up their sleeves to help us, with a special mention to my little cousin Luke who is only 11 years old! Future Black Castle employee right there! With such heat our ice cold soft drinks went down a treat, so much so that we sold out an just under an hour before the event closed!  

We were also very lucky to meet Neven Maguire who made a real effort to speak to all the stall holders and stop for photos. What a gent! He was very encouraging of our new venture and later Tweeted us with some kind words!

We must also say thanks again to our amazing friend Aileen who helped throughout the day when things got a bit manic! For now all we can repay her with is our drinks (and maybe a few cocktails!) but we won't forget how helpful she's been! 

Looking forward to next year's Taste of Wicklow already and we'll have even more stock and more tricks up our sleeves by then! A big well done to Josh McKenna, Paul Smith and all the Taste of Wicklow committee and volunteers. Thanks all!

We went National!! Black Castle on the Today FM Sunday Business Show

On the May Bank Holiday Sunday we were invited on to Conall O Morain's Sunday Business show to have a chat about our new soft drinks business; being the show's 'Start Up' guest that morning. We arrived at Marconi house, while Dublin still slept and found ourselves getting excited and a little bit nervous at the prospects of being on NATIONAL radio! 

Just waiting to go on Air!

Conall had a chat with us and the other guests just before going on air, which helped calm the nerves! Once on air we had less than 10 minutes to get across our new business idea and what we are trying to achieve. Compared to our East Coast FM interview, this had a more serious business undertone and a quicker pace, meaning Conall gave us a few tougher questions with little time to answer! 

We did fail to mention a couple of people such as Sean Gilbride from St Angela's College in Sligo responsible for our recipe development, and the very talented husband & wife team Owen and Laura McGauley for our branding and bespoke logo. Sorry guys, promise you'll get a proper mention when we're on The Late Late! Haha!

Having said that, feedback on the interview was very positive and we received great interest from new clients straight after we came off air and in the days after. Very encouraging indeed!

You can listen back to the full show here... we're on at about 25 minutes in: http://www.todayfm.com/player/shows/The_Sunday_Business_Show/22/20718/31st_May_2015_-_The_Sunday_Business_Show_Part_1

http://www.todayfm.com/player/shows/The_Sunday_Business_Show/22/20718/31st_May_2015_-_The_Sunday_Business_Show_Part_1

Ice cold soft drinks @ The Wicklow Arts Festival 2015

This year the Wicklow Arts Festival pulled out all the stops; from the Medieval Village to the Art Exhibitions in wooded areas to yummy food stalls and a brilliant Ska band Interskalactic to close the festival there was something to suit everybody. And the weather could NOT have been better...the sun shone down for the full three days, which made for some thirsty festival goers. Perfect! 

We set up our stall for the two day arts and street food market in the Festival's new location, the Abbey Grounds in Wicklow Town.  This was our first market experince selling our drinks directly to customers...well it was great and we really enjoyed getting first hand feedback and seeing people experience our new drinks for the first time. 

Interskalactic 

Having ice was a big draw as the rays pelted down, and we nearly ran out on the first day. thankfully our friend Aileen, the superstar, arrived with an ice cooler just in time!

On our second day we ran out of our Fiery Ginger Beer, so Mum was roped in to serving while I ran home for a few more cases! We really are very lucky to have friends and family that are so supportive. 

Thanks a million to everyone who bought one of our drinks, and BIG thanks to Geoff, Eliza and all the volunteers of WAF15 for a brilliant few days. Here's to next year!!

A week in the media!

Easter week we were lucky enough to be both in the paper and on the radio! These were our first interviews about Black Castle drinks and needless to say, we were pretty nervous. Delighted though that there was such an interest in our soft drinks! 

First up was our interview for the Wicklow People (which gets covered in the Bray People and in the 'regionals' section of The Independent). As it turned out there was really no need for any nerves, Myles Buchanan gave us a call, was put on loud speaker and we did the interview sitting in our front room! He was very relaxed and interested in what we had to say - making it very easy for us to get across our ideas and the story behind Black Castle drinks. Once the call was over, one of their photographers popped down to take our picture sitting in the back garden - simples!

Then on Good Friday, (it being deemed an appropriate day to chat about grown up soft drinks!), we drove down to Bray to come on and chat to Declan Meehan on East Coast FM's Morning Show. Declan was such a class act, making us feel very welcome and getting genuinely excited (at least we hope so!) about our drinks - he loved the sounds of the 'Fiery' Ginger Beer, our 'Spiced' Red Lemonade and our Berry Bramble 'Sting'. As we wrapped up the interview and gave our thanks, he asked us to stay in touch! And we sure will - hopefully we'll have even bigger and better news to give him the next time, 

Thanks again to both The Wicklow People and The Morning Show on East Coast FM for having us!