How To Start A Gin Club
Start A Gin Club
From tasting flight to loyal member
Starting a gin club comes down to four decisions: what goes in the box, how often it ships, what members pay, and what they get back. Get those right and the club sells itself at the distillery door. Here is the playbook Australian distilleries follow, and how Members One runs the busywork for you.
Five Steps
The distillery door club playbook
Design your clubs
Start with two clubs, not five. A core-range club built on your signature gins and a limited-release club for small-batch drops and botanical experiments covers most distillery doors. Each club should have an obvious next step up, so upgrading feels natural rather than salesy. Name clubs after how members drink, not how you organise stock: a “gin of the season” sells itself in a way “Club 2” never will.
Price the allocation
Members expect to do better than the walk-in price. A member discount plus first access to limited releases is the standard trade, and it counts for more in gin than most categories: small batches sell out, so first dibs is a benefit money can't buy elsewhere. Price each shipment so the discount is real but the margin still works once freight is included, and bake freight into the shipment price rather than springing it at checkout.
Set the billing rhythm
Monthly, quarterly or per release: pick the rhythm that matches how your still actually runs. Quarterly suits a core-range club, frequent enough to stay in mind but spaced enough that bottles don't pile up. Per-release billing suits limited drops, charging members only when a batch is ready. Members One bills each cycle automatically and retries failed cards for you, which is where most clubs quietly lose members.
Sign members at the distillery door
The minutes after a good tasting or a masterclass are the highest-converting moment your distillery has. Sign guests up on the spot at the counter. A signup takes less time than pouring the next flight, and their tasting purchase already sits on their new member record. Train every pourer on a ten-second pitch: the discount, the first access, and that there is nothing to pay today.
Keep them renewing
Churn is the club killer. Give members reasons to stay, like member pricing at the distillery door, first allocation of limited releases and member-exclusive nights. Then give them a portal where they can update cards and delivery details themselves instead of cancelling. Watch the first renewal closely: a member who takes delivery of a second box rarely leaves after that.
What Members One runs for you
The playbook above is the fun part. The busywork of billing, retries, member records and pricing at the till is what Members One automates.
- Billing on your schedule, with failed-card retries handled automatically
- A member portal for self-service card and address updates
- Club pricing applied automatically at the distillery door POS
- Member-exclusive access to events and releases
Starting a gin club, answered
The questions we hear from distilleries planning their first club. For the deeper detail, see the Subscription Clubs page.