The Scotch Blog

Still on vacation . . .

I am NOT able to approve comments whilst gone.

Originally Posted – December 15, 2005

Attracting new Scotch drinkers

Distillers figure (rightly so) that whisky is the next frontier. The
next great untapped drink ingredient. And the distillers and
distributors, most of them anyway, would really like to get a piece of that "potential market demographic" (that’s my marketing jargon ).

Are you surprised? Don’t be.

Yes, most distillers are in the whisky biz for the love of making
the stuff. But most distillers are owned by large companies, who are in
turn owned by shareholders. And it may surprise you to know that there
are many shareholders who own a piece of Fortune, Pernod, Diageo
and others, who could care less about the tradition and history of
whisky making. They want to see a return on their investment. Even
little independent privately-held Bruichladdich, is looking to make
some money.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making money. A profitable market helps all of our favorite distillers to keep on keepin’ on. And that’s a good thing long-term.

The issue that many of the old-guard have with these short-term
marketing tactics is that they could  dilute the mystique of single
malt. That may very well be true. But I’m not so worried about the
mystique as I am for the industry and some of the companies.

Since the path for getting a whisky from the still to the bottle is
a long term affair, the companies who are implementing the short-term
marketing tactics could be damaging their own future in the end.

How? Well obviously a smaller company like Bruichladdich has less
whisky in the pipeline, and any increase in output today won’t hit the
bottom-line for a number of years. So, I’ll pick on "the laddie" (but
it’s only ‘cuz I love you guys) and make a few broad predictions:

1. Bruichladdich ramps up production today, and by the time the
stuff is really ready, 10 years, the trendy market has LONG moved on
the the next big thing. Bruichladdich has a surplus of product that
they sell-off cheap, or it becomes the main ingredient in a nice blend.

2. Bruichladdich continues their trend in non-age-labeled product
(by releasing the product long before the standard 10 years aging) in
order to get some short-term profits. This results in a general
degradation of reputation of the product. This leads to a complete
abandonment by a notoriously snobby old-guard. If and when the whisky
trend goes the way of the wine-cooler trend, Bruichladdich sees some
very hard times.

3.Bruichladdich has played the market absolutely correctly and becomes the Grey Goose of single malts.

How it really works out is anyone’s guess. I think the big guys
(Glenlivet, Glenfiddich) have little to lose. Many people look down on
these two for be too populist, anyway. They’ll always have a market.

Bruichladdich has little to lose as well, they are already
considered to be a young upstart, but as far as I am concerned they are
doing some really neat things.

The middle market will likely sit back and wait to see how it turns out.

Me? I’ll continue to take my single malt neat, with a little water on the side (I’ve never liked mixed drinks anyway).