CLASS magazine

I launched CLASS magazine (an acronym of Cocktail, Liqueur And Speciality Spirit) in August 1997 and I believe it paved the way for a new style of bartending magazines - perhaps the very first out-and-out bartending magazine.

Although publishing it was not always a joyous experience, I took great pride in having given birth to CLASS and I hated my then board of directors for forcing me to sell it in the wake of the 2001 dot.com crash.

I re-acquired the right to publish CLASS magazine in 2009 and set about rebuilding my baby. However, neither the magazine format nor the name CLASS worked the second time around, particularly in America where 'class' appears to have different connotations. So on 25th March 2014, I wrote "This is our last CLASS magazine, but what is something of an end of an era for us, and particularly me, heralds the launch of a new and exciting diffordsguide.com". It was a page I signed off with "We hope you're going to like the new look diffordsguide.com. In the meantime, goodbye CLASS. This time for good."

But as Justin Smith, the present publisher of CLASS magazine says, "It's hard to keep a good title down". He and a very capable team at Agile Media, led by Hamish Smith in the Editor's seat, have brought my old title back. I wish them the very best.

In September 2022, Hamish Smith asked me to write a piece on the creation of CLASS for the magazine's 25th-anniversary issue. Here's what I wrote:

One idea led to another

I didn't set out to create CLASS, I didn't even set out to create a magazine.

In 1997, in my early 30s, I'd already started half a dozen businesses. One of the more successful ones was my off-licence, then south London's answer to Gerry's, particularly for consumers and bar owners wanting cocktail ingredients and more esoteric spirits. This gave me the idea to launch a magazine-style mail-order catalogue specialising in the stuff I'd been selling in the shop. Remember, this was pre-internet days and mail-order catalogues were the nearest thing to e-commerce.

I named the company Cocktail, Liqueur And Speciality Spirit Limited with the idea that I'd trade under the acronym CLASS. I foresaw an annual directory with in-depth info on spirits and liqueurs along with cocktail recipes – a reference work and mail-order catalogue combined. In addition, to cover seasonal specials, new releases and generally update this almanack, between issues, I foresaw a quarterly magazine-style publication.

My wholesale business had been absorbed into Coe Vintners, then one of London's largest and most influential wholesalers. When I told its owner, John Coe, of my new business idea he offered to come in as 50/50 partner – we invested £50 each in shares and I re-mortgaged my house to fund my half of the £60,000 initial loan capital – a substantial sum 25 years ago.

Coe Vintner's customer list included most of London's best bars, and starting by targeting this mailing list seemed like an opportunity. Hence, CLASS began as a bartender-focused 32-page magazine written by me and posted to John's database via the franking machine in his office. With the help of John's PA, in August 1997 I stuffed that first issue, with its pink cover (it was meant to be red), awful design and logo into envelopes. Over the months and years that followed, through trial and error but mainly by hiring a great team, I learnt how to edit and publish a beautiful-looking substantial monthly magazine.

First issue of CLASS magazine, published August 1997

These were pre-digital days – before we'd all discovered the internet. Dan Malpass, my trusted designer and photographer to this day, remembers when we first started using email. It was a revelation. As was digital photography and digital print. We are still replacing cocktail photography we shot over 20 years ago on medium-format film. I had a lightbox on my desk and we had to courier transparencies to be scanned at the repro house to turn them into digital files. When we'd set that month's magazine it would take days to "rip the files", then the repro house would produce 4-part films (3 colours plus black) for each page and I'd then pick the films up, usually late at night, and drive them to the printers. We always pushed chasing the print deadline it to the last possible hour, let alone day.

As circulation grew so did advertisers, as did costs as I hired more writers, designers and commissioned more photographers. CLASS may not have been profitable but from the first issue it developed a life of its own. John and I (actually mainly John) invested to ensure its growth, and my original ideas for a mail-order directory were parked as I was drawn into the all-encompassing cycle of putting together a monthly magazine, and selling the ad space to help pay for it.

Then I noticed the internet – what an opportunity! Forget the mail-order catalogue, I wanted a website. Hence I set about raising big bucks from bankers and investment funds. In early 2001, as the dotcom crash hit our fledgling website, my new investors insisted on selling our main asset – CLASS magazine. I was pissed-off, very upset and after its sale I vowed never to publish a magazine again.

With CLASS behind me but still with Dan and some of the original team, I started publishing books and eventually, thanks to my part in the creation of St-Germain liqueur, I finally got rid of the investors. With 100% control of the company I'd worked for since I established it back in 1997, I set about building a website (again). Meanwhile, CLASS magazine's then publisher had gone bust and despite my better judgment and advice from Hannah Sharman-Cox I couldn't help but to ask CLASS magazine's owners if I could start publishing under licence from them.

So, in 2009, I became editor and publisher of CLASS once again. Dan ensured it looked even more gorgeous than it had ever before and we kicked life back into our old magazine. Meanwhile, my website, Difford's Guide, was developing and with only a five-year licence to publish CLASS and growing print and mailing costs I sought permission from its owners to take CLASS online and publish on my website. Readership soared once it was on Difford's Guide.

Towards the end of a five-year second tenure with CLASS I had to choose between finding the money to buy it or concentrate on building the Difford's Guide brand. And to be honest, like rekindling an old relationship, it's not the same the second time around. Happily, Hamish is now caring for my previous love interest.

Cheers
Simon Difford