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Dublin diamond

The winner of NOffLA’s Bombay Sapphire Dublin Off-Licence of the Year 2022 Award, McHughs Off-Licence on the Malahide Road, Artane, has something special to offer everyone, regardless of their budget. Gillian Hamill caught up with owner Cathal McHugh to learn more about what makes this store stand out from the competition

Award sponsored by Bombay Sapphire

“Wine is bottled poetry,” the Scottish poet Robert Louis Stevenson famously said. Selling wine can likewise be something of a subtle and delicate art in reading the customer. Something which Cathal McHugh knows only too well, as the owner of McHughs Off-Licence on the Malahide Road, Artane, which earlier this year was named The Bombay Sapphire Dublin OffLicence of the Year 2022.

Helpful customer service

The personal touch never goes amiss, even for customers who prefer to browse the shelves without assistance. “There are some customers that don’t want to engage with you, so we try to get as much knowledge as possible onto our point-of-sale materials. We put little quotes, notes or something that appeared in a newspaper onto our signage to help customers select a bottle of wine.

“We’ll always try to offer our assistance; very gently, very subtly,” he continues. “Can I help you?” And if they say no, you say to them ‘well, I’ll just be over there if you need to ask anything’. Sometimes people feel intimidated but once they do engage with you, I’d like to think that our staff, they would be a very well-trained team and they’re always able to give pointers across wines, beers and spirits.”

In fact, given their enthusiasm and knowledge on spirits, “if anyone comes in looking for a good whiskey or gin, they’ll get the ears burnt off them talking to them about it!” McHugh laughs.

He himself is a seasoned hand within the trade, explaining: “We’re second generation within the grocery and drinks business and in 1995, we opened the first of our two independent offlicences, which are situated on Kilbarrack Road and on Malahide Road in Artane.

Proudly serving an excellent range of wines, with 900 labels in-store, and options across all price brackets, from €10 all the way up to the €300/€400 mark, McHugh says he would much rather the person looking for an inexpensive €10 bottle came in their door, instead of heading into the supermarkets. “We have a good range within the €10 –€12 bracket but our main specialty and expertise comes at the higher levels of wine. However, we want those people buying a €10 wine to come in our door instead of the supermarket because one day, they’ll approach us and look for something better but if they’re not coming in our door, we’ll never get the chance to sell them that something better.”

Pre-made cocktails

Cocktail fans are also in for a treat at McHughs as the business has created its own range of premium pre-made cocktails. Explaining how this development came about, McHugh says: “During Covid, there was a big move towards cocktails and cocktail-making at home but also pre-made cocktails. We saw that trend and started bottling our own pre-made cocktails. We also own a restaurant and we have a mixologist there, so we mix batches of really premium cocktails with all the best ingredients and we bottle them in 500ml bottles under our brand, Shake Me! Cocktails, and they’re going very well.” The core range of these top-quality cocktails includes a Magarita, Cosmopolitan, Old Fashioned and a Porn Star Martini.

As well as an extensive range, McHugh’s believes it’s important to offer “extensive refrigeration. Most drinks are consumed quite soon after purchase, so we make sure that everybody can buy beer cold from us.”

With floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the store, “the whole impression as you come into the store is large and open and inviting,” says retailer Cathal McHugh

The off-licence has extensive refrigeration, so that customers are always able to enjoy an ice-cold beverage straight from the fridge McHughs often display notes, quotes or snippets of information or articles on their shelves about products to help shoppers make an informed choice

With the increasing competition that has developed within the craft beer sector in recent years, only the best will make it on to the shelf at McHughs

Revamp

With all these factors in play, it’s not hard to see why the offlicence was deemed a worthy Dublin winner, “I suppose probably what got us over the line this year,” says McHugh, “is that towards the end of the Covid period, we revamped the store. We hadn’t refurbished the store in about 15 years, so it was long overdue. We created a very open-plan feel which was very well received by our customers and presumably that contributed to the award.”

A feeling of spaciousness is a key element within the store’s new design. “We have no pillars, no high display units and floorto-ceiling windows at the front, so the whole impression as you come into the store is large and open and inviting,” McHugh says.

Craft beer competition

Speaking of inviting, the store’s passion for craft beers means that craft afficionados will find a warm welcome and knowledgeable guidance in-store. According to McHugh, the increased competition in this sector means that to warrant shelf space nowadays, the product must be top notch. “Over the past 10/15 years, craft beer has become a really established part of our business and with that, it’s become more competitive,” he says. “Ten years ago, there weren’t as many breweries, and everybody got a space on the shelf, whereas now there are so many Irish breweries, British breweries, American breweries, and European continental brewers, that it’s quite a fight for space on the shelf and they have to be top quality to survive.”

Staff training

The team at McHugh’s, which includes three full-time and six part-time staff are certainly well placed to know what constitutes the best in every category across the store, as staff training is an important element within the business. “We would always support education, so we send our staff on wine courses, including with WSET and Maureen O’Hara’s Premier Wine Training for formal wine education.” In fact, a number of staff have WSET Level 2 and 3 qualifications while McHugh has also reached WSET Level 4. Regular tastings for staff are also vital, according to McHugh. “All of our reps that call to our door know that we want them to come in with a bottle open so we can sample the product and everybody in the team can sample the product. There’s no point in just me knowing about the product; every person behind the counter needs to know what it tastes like because they could be the one selling it.”

Although customer tastings naturally “tailed off during Covid”, McHugh is happy to note that aspect of the business is starting to come back. At the time of our interview, he notes: “For instance, we held an event last week just to mark our award. We had five tasting stations set up inside in our store, so there was a whiskey one, a cocktail station, two wine tables and we had Hope Beer which is our local brewery all showing their wares.” The reaction was extremely positive, and McHugh is keen to continue in-store tastings in the future.

Passion for product

We’re sure this was an enjoyable event given that McHugh’s enthusiasm for the product is infectious. “Nearly every product that we sell comes with a really interesting back story; we love everything about the wine business, where the grapes are grown, the farmer that grew the grapes, all the different processes that go into choosing different styles of wines and then similarly in craft beer and in spirits, with emerging breweries and distilleries, we love all their stories.”

The story of McHughs is also one that’s continually developing! “Our plan would be within the next 12 months to do a similar revamp for our Kilbarrack Road store so that’s a big project right now,” says McHugh. “Other than that, it’s resetting after Covid, getting back to brass-tacks retailing because during Covid, everything took on a different dynamic and really now we’re coming back to the world of 2019, and you have to put your best foot forward at all times, so you need to be showing value and quality at all times.” Sounds like a premium recipe for success to us! ■

noffla contacts

If you have any queries regarding NOffLA membership or services, please contact our administrator, Reggie Walsh, at Block D, Unit 6, Nutgrove Office Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, by telephone on 01 - 296 2326, by fax on 01 - 296 2451 or by email at info@noffla.ie. The NOffLA website can be found at www.noffla.ie. ■