Nishant Sharma is the founder and CEO of Rutland Square Spirits, the Edinburgh gin and rum brand named after the street where he collects his Indian visa, and the man behind a hydrogen-powered whisky distillery and 200-bed hotel now taking shape in Midlothian.
He built the business from £20 in his bank account, a solo sales run through Edinburgh gin bars, and a heart attack at 38.
“This is the industry that traumatises you. You are against your wall every single day.”
That’s Nishant Sharma, founder of Rutland Square Spirit, on the drinks industry he chose over a string of failed ventures: a production company killed by COVID mid-way through a BBC deal, a bespoke leather shoe line nobody bought, a property business he couldn’t feel part of.
He talks about growing up in a joint family in Assam, the move to Punjab at 12 that emptied the family’s finances and got him bullied at school for what his father couldn’t afford, and the £500 flight to Glasgow in 2007 that started with three jobs in his first week.
His grandmother’s funeral in India reset everything. Watching her cremation, he made himself a promise: build something with meaning, tied to his great-grandfather’s story. Gin came first because whisky was the dream he couldn’t yet afford.
Two years later, selling one bottle at a time with no team behind him, the stress caught up with his body. A COVID-vaccine blood clot and sustained pressure triggered a heart attack that a doctor told him, the next morning, he was lucky to survive.
He kept building anyway. In 2024, with £20 in the bank and a payroll due, he gave an investor a five-hour deadline to wire money or walk away. They wired it.
This is what The Burnout Files is actually about. Not the highlight reel version of building a business — the real cost, and what it takes to keep going anyway.
About The Burnout Files
Hosted by John Glover. Every episode explores the side of entrepreneurship that doesn’t make the highlight reel: the setbacks, the sacrifices, and the very human stories behind building something from nothing.
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About Nishant Sharma
Nishant Sharma is the founder and CEO of Rutland Square Spirit, an Edinburgh-based drinks company producing Chai Spice gin and rum, with whiskey in development.
The business runs a roughly 25-person team across Edinburgh and India and supplies buyers including Avolta’s travel retail network. Sharma is also developing a hydrogen-powered whiskey distillery and 200-bed hotel project in Midlothian.
Follow Nishant Sharma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishantsharma08/
Follow Rutland Square Spirits:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rutlandsquarespirits
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