Babycham: the Showering family bought their sparkling perry back and relaunched it

Francis Showering, a Somerset innkeeper, launched Babycham at Shepton Mallet in 1953 and made it a marketing phenomenon: it was the first alcoholic drink advertised on British television, 'I'd love a Babycham' entered the language, and after the family firm merged with Allied Breweries in 1968 the brand sold 144 million bottles a year at its 1977 peak. Then alcopops, mixers and prosecco squeezed the sweet perry out of the market. The brand passed through successive corporate owners and ended up with Accolade Wines in the 1990s, a dormant line far from the family that built it.

The buyback was pieced together over years. In 2016 Brothers Drinks — the cider firm the fourth generation, Matthew, Jonathan, Francis and Daniel Showering, started in 1992 — bought back the old Babycham factory. In December 2021 it bought the brand itself from Accolade Wines, and in 2022 it repurchased the original offices too. The first priority, Jonathan Showering told the BBC, was refurbishing the 15ft fawn statue that had stood over the town for 60 years.

The relaunch bet was that the vintage itself is the product. Matthew Showering said the family would move back toward the original recipe and look: 'quite a retro feel which, oddly, will make it more modern.' Against dry prosecco, Babycham's sweetness became a differentiator rather than a flaw, and the target drinker was the younger audience that had revived craft cider.

Brand, original offices and the 1950s factory back under family control; production returned to Shepton Mallet with a retro relaunch aimed at younger drinkers

The brand's equity survived in memory: a 144-million-bottles-a-year peak and the first TV alcohol advertising gave it recognition no launch could buy.

Ownership changed what the brand was worth: under Accolade Wines it was a neglected line; to the family it was the identity of four generations.

The family sequenced the buyback — factory first in 2016, brand in 2021 — so each purchase raised the value of the next.

Retro positioning converts age into the product: the collector market for Babycham glasses showed the vintage mystique could be sold, not just remembered.

A dormant brand is cheapest in the hands of the family that knows why it worked. Buying back the factory, offices and recipe let the Showerings relaunch on authenticity rather than ad spend.

Production returned to the old Shepton Mallet headquarters, and the family began restoring the drink toward its original recipe and packaging while keeping the vintage credentials intact. Brothers Drinks, already a Glastonbury festival partner with the UK's second-largest cider plant, planned a revamp of glass and bottle that stayed within the brand's 1950s look. The Observer reported in February 2023 that the aim was a new generation of drinkers; the relaunch trades on the same point-of-sale showmanship — the deer on the bar — that made the brand in the first place.