With Christmas, New Year and Burns Night falling within a month of each other, it’s probably the right time of year for a whisky revival. Thankfully, the industry has obliged us – and if the past few weeks are anything to go by, whisky is an industry on the up.
In fact, according to the Irish Whisky Association, the whisky sector is the world’s fastest growing spirits category with global sales increasing by over 300% and record exports of over €400 million in the last ten years. Its counterpart in the UK, the Scotch Whisky Association, recently called for a tax relief after figures showed the value of the country’s whisky industry was almost £5 billion a year.
With that in mind, FoodBev has taken a look at four of the things that distillers are doing to pour themselves a dram of the market.
Diageo’s new Irish whisky
Diageo said this week that it would repurpose an old power house at its St James’ Gate brewery in Dublin, which is more famously associated with stout than whisky. The €25 million investment will pave the way for a new distillery on the site, which will produce a premium blended Irish whisky under the brand name Roe & Co.
It’s named after George Roe, who at one point ran Ireland’s largest distillery in the centre of Dublin, near the present-day headquarters of Diageo Ireland.
The new whisky will add to Diageo’s flagship brand of Scotch whisky, Johnnie Walker, and represents the first Irish whisky in the company’s portfolio since the sale of Bushmills two years ago.
Last week, Diageo reported a 14.5% increase in its net sales for the first half of the fiscal year, at £6.4 billion, with volume sales increasing by 1%.
Stoli Group gets itself a whisky
If Diageo’s lead wasn’t enough, then take Stoli, which has secured itself a piece of the whisky market just a few days earlier. Dmitry Efimov, CEO of Stoli’s owner the SPI Group, had reportedly been scouting for a whisky – be it Irish, Scotch or American – to add to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya brands of vodka.
Stoli Group USA announced that it would take over the national distribution, sales and marketing of bourbon brand Kentucky Owl, before rolling it out into markets worldwide. Kentucky Owl has set itself up as a prohibition-era whisky; it traces its roots back to 1879 and produced bourbon until the beginning of American prohibition. It wasn’t until 2008 that the brand was re-established by the great-great-grandson of its founder, and brought back to market in small quantities.
According to Stoli Group USA president Patrick Piana, bourbons have been experiencing impressive growth recently and there is ‘a strong opportunity’ for the group to capitalise on the super-premium whisky category.
And innovation in the form of single-grain whiskies and personalised casks will help to drive value even further.
© Westland Distillery
Another piece of the Westland
SPI isn’t the only European group looking to take a slice out of the American whisky market. In December, Rémy Cointreau agreed to acquire the assets of Seattle-based single-malt whiskey producer Westland Distillery.
The acquisition will expand Rémy Cointreau’s portfolio into the high-end segment of the single-malt whisky category. Best known perhaps for its cognacs and liqueurs, the French company already owned Scotch whisky distillery Bruichladdich and there was speculation that it could tie up a deal for organic French whisky distillery Domaine des Hautes Glaces before the end of the year.
And now it had an American whisky to add to that portfolio – a sign that the sector is alive and kicking in the world’s second largest whisky-producing nation.
Welsh whisky – yes, Welsh
The surest sign of growing confidence in whisky would be the emergence of new markets. A year ago, you wouldn’t have thought of Wales as a whisky producer – because, by European standards at least, it wasn’t. A country has to have at least two distillers making whisky in order to be officially considered a whisky-producing nation, and Wales only had one.
But a second whisky from West Wales and the decision by a large drinks group to invest in a new distillery in North Wales changed all that.
First, Dà Mhìle Distillery in Ceredigion announced the release of a new single-grain whisky, which gave the country the right under European law to claim an official whisky industry. Then, in a boost to the sector, Halewood Wines & Spirits lifted the lid on plans to open a whisky distillery in North Wales, which will also produce gins and liquors and cover approximately 6,000 square metres. Halewood chief executive Stewart Hainsworth said that the proposals would ‘help to regenerate the area and deliver a number of new jobs within the local community’.
The next step, if the French and Welsh whisky markets continue to emerge as they’ve been promising to do, would be to hope for growth and development in even obscurer whisky-producing nations. There is potential for India, Canada and Australia to all take a large sip of this global resurgence – responsibly, of course.
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