Cheers! Barnard Castle man unveils liqueur for vegans

A TEESDALE man is toasting international success after launching a creamy liqueur for vegans.
Peter Smith, of Barnard Castle, is receiving calls from Canada, America and Europe for his festive tipple which is essentially made from a weed.
Mr Smith came up with the idea of using milk squeezed from tiger nuts to create what is fast becoming known as the vegan Baileys Irish Cream while living in Spain.
He moved to Barnard Castle with his wife Penelope to be closer to their children after she suffered a heart attack.
He said: “One evening, as a joke, I mixed brandy with a drink called horchata and the result was delicious. Horchata is the tuber of the tiger sedge plant. It is as old as the Egyptians. It is a nutty flavoured milk. We took the milk, condensed it and added brandy.”
After developing the drink, Mr Smith had to come up with an idea of how sell it in a market already dominated by Baileys.
He said: “The answer was quite simply the vegan market. They can’t drink Baileys. There are about one million vegans in the UK and the market is worth billions of pounds really.”
Describing the taste, Mr Smith said: “You get the wonderful warmth of the brandy and then the lovely nutty aftertaste.”
Along with his Besos de Oro liqueur, which literally translates into golden kisses, Mr Smith also produces chocolate bars and milk powder from horchata.
He added: “Anything a cow can produce, we will be able to produce. This is the most amazing product. This is phenomenally healthy, full of vitamins, full of phosphorous, full of all sorts of good things, and it is a weed, it grows like crazy.
“It is about 72 per cent oleic acid, which is one of those plant fats that has a major benefit of lowering LDL cholesterol. It is going to be the biggest alternative milk. All the vegan communities are going crazy for it.”
While all of the products are manufactured in Spain, Mr Smith runs his growing vegan product range from a small office on Galgate where he has a growing list of customers from around the globe.
The business really got off the ground about four months ago when, after failing to get cash for any of the banks, he was awarded a £10,000 loan from the Business Enterprise Fund.
Julie Micklethwaite, investment manager for start-ups at BEF, said: “We’re really excited to see Peter’s business kick-started here in the UK and I’m thrilled about the opportunities that have already sprung up for him.”
Next year the liqueur is to be marketed in Germany, Switzerland and Holland, all of which have large vegan communities.