The ban took menthol away.
We put it back in a drop.

May 2020

The UK banned menthol cigarettes, and every cigarette with flavour built in, in May 2020. People who had smoked menthol for decades were left with flavour cards: little scented cards you squeeze into the pack and wait. The box said one or two hours. In practice you had to leave them overnight, and even then the flavour was faint.

A cigarette break

It was the middle of Covid. A manager from one of our other businesses had asked to work from our office, and one afternoon we went out for a cigarette together. She opened her pack and pulled out one of those cards, and explained the overnight routine. Our founder has a background in chemistry and chemical engineering, so he asked her to wait a few minutes, went inside and made up a mixture. One drop on the filter. She tried it, and she loved it. That drop is Instahit.

600 newsagents

We already distributed e-liquids to shops, so we put the drops in front of 600 newsagents to see what real customers made of them. They loved them too. We took the product to Bestway, the second-biggest cash and carry in the country, who took it on with six months' exclusivity. Today Instahit is stocked by every major cash and carry in the UK, including the two biggest, Booker and Bestway, and sits by the till in more than 20,000 shops. We set up our own manufacturing to keep up.

Six years on

Menthol was joined by Mint, Strawberry and Blackcurrant. Six years in, sales have grown every single year, and thousands of customers now buy direct from this site with tracked delivery. The next step is taking Instahit abroad: if you are a wholesaler or distributor outside the UK, we would like to hear from you.