Inside serial entrepreneur Jamie Koh’s six-year journey to opening Brass Lion Distillery.
When Jamie Koh decided to open a gin distillery in Singapore, she didn’t have a roadmap to follow. Despite being famous for the fruity “Singapore Sling” cocktail, the country wasn’t actually home to a single local distillery that could supply the key spirit — or any spirit, for that matter.
“This was before the whole craft cocktail, speakeasy movement happened in Singapore, but people were starting to have a bit more awareness about what they were drinking,” Koh says. “Before, it was just more like, ‘Give me a gin and tonic or a vodka soda.’” Around the same time, while traveling around the world, Koh realized, “As a Singaporean, there was a huge shame that we didn't have a Singaporean spirit,” she says. “Everywhere I went, they had something local to represent who they were as a country — so that gave me the idea to open a Singapore distillery and create the first Singaporean spirit.”
Though distilling was uncharted territory, Koh, who got a business degree in Atlanta and worked in finance in New York, did have experience introducing new concepts to her home country. At 24, she opened Singapore’s first shooters bar, Chupitos — a process set in motion when she noticed a “win this space” sign in an empty storefront, submitted a business proposal, and surpassed some 300 other entrants to secure a free, six-month lease. Three years later, she created its first Southern American comfort food restaurant, The Beast.
Finally, in 2018, Brass Lion Distillery opened; in the five years since, the business has won international awards for its various craft gins, welcomed countless visitors for distillery tours, opened the country’s first gin school, and just this year, debuted Singapore’s first whisky. But that’s not to say any of it was easy for Koh. The journey from distillery idea to reality spanned six years and three continents, with plenty of frustration and uncertainty along the way.
Here, Koh opens up about building her businesses, being a woman distiller and entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, and managing the stress of entrepreneurship.
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How did you go about building Brass Lion Distillery from the ground up?
“It was a six-year journey. The first three years were spent, while running my other concepts back in Singapore, gaining the knowledge. No one in Singapore could teach me [distilling], so I had to enroll myself in distilling school in the U.S., but I also wanted to gain practical experience which could only be achieved by working at a distillery. I wrote to hundreds of distilleries all around the world, but most distilleries were either too small or didn’t require anyone.
“In the Black Forest of Germany, distilling is a way of life. Most people own a still, and the art of distilling has been passed down through generations. Not knowing German or any distiller, I decided to fly there and knock on doors asking people if they would be willing to teach me. We soon got to know the community of distillers there, and [my business partner, Satish, and I] met our master distiller, who was this guy called Frank, and Frank taught us everything that we knew.
“After a couple of years, we were fairly confident that we had the theoretical but also the practical knowledge to create the recipe for our first gin. That was when I brought all the ingredients down to the Black Forest and we created the recipe for the Singapore Dry Gin. Coming back, it was dealing with regulations and licensing. There were no distilleries in Singapore — the license didn't even exist — so we kind of had to write it from scratch. [That] was a long journey [that] took us about three years, and we finally opened our doors in 2018.”
What did it feel like when you finally opened your doors?
“For me, the impactful moment wasn't the opening of the doors; it was when we [made] the first batch, bottled it, put the label on it, and then we had a physical product. That was the definitive moment — like, ‘Okay, this is like a real brand.’ Because it was always a dream. It was a fun journey — frustrating at times — but it was very fun and rewarding to see this finally come to life."
It was always a dream. It was a fun journey — frustrating at times — but it was very fun and rewarding to see this finally come to life.
Where did the inspiration for Brass Lion, specifically, come from?
“When people think of Singapore alcohol, I think all they know is the Singapore Sling, which is quite a famous cocktail. Back in the day, I just felt it was a huge shame that people were using a foreign gin as the base for a Singapore Sling. The idea was to create a Singapore gin that would complement the Singapore Sling but also something that would be great for our tropical weather and would feature botanicals that we are familiar with in this part of the world.
“I didn't want something that was super dry and juniper-heavy, like a typical London dry gin. I knew that it had to be citrusy, refreshing, and very tropical. It was just a matter of figuring out which botanicals would melt together to create that flavor profile we wanted. We took 60 different botanicals, I packed everything into a suitcase and flew it to Germany because we didn't have the license to distill back then, and we distilled everything one by one. Then we started blending different ingredients together, seeing how it would affect the taste. That was how we came up with the combination we have right now, which is the 22 botanicals that make up our Singapore dry gin.”
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced?
“The initial bit was within the first six years; we were kind of in limbo because we didn’t know whether we would open or not. It was that thought that we're working so hard for this, we're buying the still — which is a very expensive piece of equipment — but we might not even be able to bring it into the country or we might not even get a distilling license. That was quite hard mentally because you don't know if what you're working for every day for six years would even be realized.
“And then [there were challenges] once we opened. I like bringing new concepts to Singapore — the first shots bar, the first Southern American bar, chicken and waffles, and American whiskey — and it's always that education piece where we struggle. We have to bring people on board initially and spend time gaining their buy-in. So [with Brass Lion], it was, ‘Yes, we do make local spirits in Singapore. Yes, local spirits can be as good, if not better than international spirits.’ To prove that, we took part in the International Wine and Spirits Awards, and we won gold and double gold, so that was a seal of recognition. But then after that, it was convincing the bars and restaurants of why they should support local, why they should carry our products. A lot of people tend to stick to the brands that they're quite familiar with, but we managed to overcome that as well.
“Now we have a new challenge, which is that we’re trying to expand the brand to the rest of the world. Singapore is a great market, but it's a very small market as well. Now it’s the global domination bit; that is the challenge right now. There are always different challenges at different stages.”
This is a very male-dominated industry. How has that impacted your career?
“In the beginning, I had a pretty hard time. [Men] wouldn't think very highly of us or take what we said very seriously. Over time, I just blocked it out. I just knew that I was going to do my thing, and I never looked at gender when I was in the room; I just looked at people as humans. We would go to a distillery and say, ‘We want to learn,’ and I wouldn’t think, ‘Frank is a guy.’ I would just think, ‘Frank is a very nice man because he's willing to teach us everything he knows about distilling.’ I think when you go in with a chip on your shoulder like, ‘I'm female and it's all male[-dominated],’ you're less confident. I just go in and do my thing and don't take gender as an issue to be considered.”
What do you love about what you do?
“I love the fact that every day is different. This week, for example, we were at a trade fair and then attended an event that featured Brass Lion. Today, I did training for the new batch of tour guides coming in, yesterday I did a talk at Google for women, and tomorrow we have a tasting for one of the retail stores that wants to carry our cocktail. Every day is completely different. I think that's what I enjoy the most.
“And, being able to have a crazy idea and then working toward it to make it come to life. So if I think of, for example, a local brand that I really want to work with, I say, ‘Let's do a collab,’ or, ‘Let's create an event and invite people, and we can serve cocktails or create a product that could feature both brands’ or something like that. I really enjoy having the ability to do that.”
How do you manage the stress of being an entrepreneur and business owner?
“I know when I work best and which are my productive hours — so when I can sleep in, I do. And when I know that it will be better for me to work from home or take a day off, I do that. Of course, sometimes work gets busy and I have to work at night, but then I try to compensate by taking the next morning off. I’m aware of myself and my energy levels, and then knowing that, ‘Okay, I did this, but then I need to recover by doing that.’
“I also try to keep a routine, do certain things I enjoy, and fix [them] into my schedule. I play soccer, for example, and I fix it in: Every Tuesday night, I'm going to go play soccer for two hours, and you can't touch this time slot.”
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What’s your favorite cocktail to make with Brass Lion?
“We have several products, but I'll talk about the flagship product, which is our Singapore Dry Gin. That has 22 botanicals that are familiar with locals, because [they] feature quite heavily in our cuisine — things like pomelo peel, lime leaves, and chrysanthemum flowers — and it's such a bright drink. [Singapore is] hot and very humid, so I want something very refreshing [and] I don't like overly sweet stuff. So I usually make something like a Tom Collins, with gin [and] fresh lemon juice. I'll go pluck some herbs — whether it's lemongrass, or mint leaves, or thyme, or rosemary, or lemon balm — chuck that in, muddle it, sweeten it a little bit, and then top it up with soda water. That is very fresh and bright and thirst quenching; we created a drink to be drunk in the tropical weather, and that cocktail perfectly encapsulates what I wanted to bring to Singapore.”
Photos: Brass Lion Distillery