| 19 Feb. 2006 | Glengoyne distillery has unveiled development plans for the distillery with a new Club Room including a Sample Room.With that, they will also plan new distillery menu tours. These plans for developments follow the exciting news that Glengoyne is to increase its output by 130,000 to 840,000 litres. This means that output has doubled since Ian Macleod acquired the distillery in April 2003. Source: www.glengoyne.com |
| 16 Feb. 2006 | Springbank local bere barley distilled again! "As production gradually increases continuing through January and February, the distillery has just finished distilling some more local bere barley, and will begin malting for Glengyle early next week with the intention of distilling in early April which should produce enough spirit to fill around 350-400 casks." ongrow 100 Proof is now available to buy in our Longrow 100 Proof is now available at the springbank online shop at £39.00 and, as it is part of their standard range. They have also revised the price of the standard Longrow 10y/o down to £36.25. www.springbankdistillers.com |
| 16 Feb. 2006 | Scotch industry given training tonic A TRAINING initiative to improve the employability of people working in the Scotch whisky industry has been unveiled. Ten leading Scotch whisky producers joined forces with the trade union, GMB Scotland, and the government's DTI Partnership at Work fund to develop the initiative. They hope that this will act as a blueprint for other companies in the whisky sector, which employs 10,000 people north of the Border. The scheme is designed to help employees develop their "soft skills" which are not normally incorporated into traditional training. Key areas being tackled include communications, team working, business awareness, and coaching and supporting. Source: news.scotsman.com |
| 16 Feb. 2006 | Diageo has released the interim results for 2006. They reported strong operating performance on all measures Operational highlights · North America: continued share gains, especially in spirits where value share in the US is now 28% · Europe: organic operating profit up driven by growth in spirits brands and cost efficiencies · International: very strong top and bottom line growth, particularly in Latin America, driven by growth of priority brands and successful innovation. Performance improvements delivered in Korea, Taiwan and Nigeria. Johnnie Walker performance was up 13%. Source: www.diageo.com |
| 15. Feb. 2006 | Seagram exhibition in Waterloo (Canada) Parched history buffs may have their thirst quenched with a new art exhibit that delves into the mysteries behind Joseph E. Seagram's once-popular V.O. Whiskey. The exhibit, called Initial Success: The Story of Seagram's V.O., and presented by the City of Waterloo's heritage services department, will trace the product's history, highlighting its production, packaging and marketing, while trying to demystify the origins of the initials. Source:www.waterloochronicle.ca |
| 15 Feb. 2006 | An interesting article published by the Nassau Guardian relates the impact of the American Prohibition on the Bahamas. In this article, they mention that the Bahamian officials were supporting the bottleggers and that all the warehouses were so full of spirit, that many cellars were rented as storage room. |
| 13 Feb. 2006 | Beam Global Spirits & Wine has announced the appointment of a new distillery manager for its Laphroaig distillery. John Campbell, 35, becomes the youngest distiller on the island of Islay, where the distillery is based. Campbell has been with Laphroaig since 1994. He has also worked at other distilleries previously owned by Allied Domecq including Tormore, Miltonduff and Ardmore, the latter of which now forms part of the Beam group. In July 2001, he returned from Speyside to take up the post of brewer at Laphroaig. “The role of managing this truly unique distillery was nothing but a dream ten years ago and today it has become a reality,” Campbell said. “I feel humbled by the great names who have gone before me.” Beam Global Spirits & Wine is the new name for Fortune Brands’ wine and spirits portfolio around the world. Source: www.just-drinks.com |
| 09 Feb. 2006 | Pernod Ricard toasts rising sales Rising sales are good news for Pernod boss Patrick Ricard Pernod Ricard has seen sales rise 66% rise following its purchase of Allied Domecq, but its shares in Paris fell as investors failed to toast its outlook. The world's second biggest drinks firm said sales for the second half of 2005 hit 3.3bn euros (£2.3bn). Shares in Pernod Ricard fell by more than 5.5%, with analysts unimpressed by the firm's earnings forecast. The maker of Jacob's Creek Wines and Jameson whiskey saw sales rocket in the booming economies of China and India. Chasing Diageo The firm also did well in the Americas, where Pernod said it had benefited the most from its acquisition of Allied Domecq. Pernod bought Allied Domecq last year as it sought to make up ground on Diageo, the world's largest drinks company. The purchase added Ballantine's whisky, Beefeater gin, Malibu, Kahlua and the Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagne brands to its drinks cabinet. Pernod confirmed that it expected to make cost savings of 300m euros as a result of the deal. Source: news.bbc.co.uk |
| 06 Feb. 2006 | The Famous Grouse has released an addition to its Scotch whisky portfolio in the UK. The Famous Grouse 10-Year-Old Malt will be rolled out nationally this month. The malt has been specifically created for the UK market and will replace the company’s vintage malt. “The 10-Year-Old Malt is an excellent addition to The Famous Grouse family and we’re delighted to be rolling out this fantastic new product from Scotland’s best loved whisky,” said Emma Heath, Maxxium UK’s senior marketing manager for The Famous Grouse. “Our new malt marries the finest whiskies including the award-winning Highland Park and The Macallan. It will particularly appeal to whisky drinkers looking for a premium yet accessible malt whisky with a competitive price, perhaps even introducing them to the malt category for the first time. “The unconventional purple packaging, reminiscent of heather on the Scottish hills, is sure to attract consumers attention and once tried we are confident that consumers will repeat purchase.” Source: www.just-drinks.com |
| 06 Feb. 2006 | UK: Invergordon Distillers sale a step nearer Several bidders are in the running for Whyte & Mackay’s Invergordon Distillers business and are conducting due diligence on the site, just-drinks understands Source: just-drinks.com |
| 02 Feb. 2006 | Heaven Hill has filled its five millionth bottle of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The distiller said yesterday (1 February) that it was only the second Bourbon producer to reach the figure. “Heaven Hill recognises this milestone first and foremost as a celebration of the legacy of my father and his four brothers,” said Heaven Hill’s president Max L. Shapira. “They played a major role in the development of a unique American industry. “This occasion is also testament to the craftsmanship of the Beam family. The result of their stewardship is unique and innovative American Whiskey enjoyed worldwide.” The company’s first barrel of Bourbon was filled in December 1935. “As we continue on our journey to 10m barrels and beyond, our family will navigate the future by building on the wisdom and hard work of earlier generations,” said Shapira. Source: www.just-drinks.com |
| 02 Feb. 2006 | The Malt Advocate Magazine voted the Highland Park 30 year old as "Import Malt of the Year. www.highlandpark.co.uk |
| 01 Feb 2006 | Scotch whisky brand The Famous Grouse is to continue its long-running involvement with Scottish rugby with a marketing campaign throughout this year’s Six Nations tournament. The brand’s UK distributor Maxxium is to oversee a GBP750,000 (US$1.3m) investment covering an outdoor media campaign that will “effectively dominate” the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. The brand will be advertised on buses, scooters, branded taxis and have a “heavy presence” at the city’s two train hubs, Waverley and Haymarket (...). Source: www.just-drinks.com |
| 25 Jan. 2006 | Historic whisky gets Burns' Night treatment An ancient form of barley that was known to Robert Burns as ‘Bere’ is being distilled on Islay tonight – Burns' Night – for the first time in living memory. The special distillation is being carried out at Bruichladdich Distillery and can be watched live online on the distillery’s webcams this evening. Twenty acres of bere were planted on a farm on Islay in the spring of 2005, and harvested later in the year. Eleven tonnes were produced after malting, which will make 25 casks of whisky. About ten thousand bottles will then be available for sale when the whisky is finally mature in 2016. Bere is a cereal that is traditional to the Hebridean Islands of Scotland, and has changed little in centuries. It was brought to the islands by the Vikings in the ninth century, but dropped out of commercial production by the eighteenth century in favour of higher-yielding crops.(...)Bruichladdich’s Distillery Manager Duncan MacGillivray said: “This is no GM crop. You can see why it died out – we had a disastrous yield per acre by comparison to modern barley varieties.” He added: “It smells a lot different to our usual organic barley – more nutty. We’ll have to wait and see what the stuff actually tastes like.” Source: http://www.wineint.com Note: The last disitllation of bere barley whisky was performed by Michel Couvreur in the 1980s with bere grown in the Orkneys. |
| 24 Jan. 2006 | New SWA top team plans to target fake whisky TWO spirits industry heavyweights took command of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) yesterday - as the trade body for what is one of Scotland's key industry warned the problem of "counterfeit" whisky-producers was mushrooming. The warning by SWA chief executive Gavin Hewitt came as the body announced that Richard Burrows, director of French spirits giant Pernod Ricard, has been appointed as the new chairman, succeeding Ian Good - chairman of the Edrington Group - who is retiring after five years. Burrows moves up from the vice-chairman position, and Paul Walsh, chief executive of Diageo, the world's biggest spirits company, becomes vice-chairman. Burrows said that Good had left "a strong legacy" and added that two priorities of the SWA were "to take a lead in securing fair access to our export markets and protecting Scotch whisky from unfair competition". The new chairman said Scotch whisky exports now totalled £2.3 billion a year, or 30 bottles a second - "the best performance since 1996-7". He said it was a marked turnaround from the early 1970s, when the Scotch whisky industry was declining 2 to 3 per cent a year. Burrows said the industry's "renaissance" was now clearly "not a flash in the pan. There is more sustainable long-term growth if it is looked after properly." However, he said: "This growth attracts people who want to trade off in terms of product substitution and counterfeiting." Burrows said the Chinese market offered the greatest growth opportunity for Scotch, but added: "Counterfeiting is a significant problem and is growing. The same would be true of Latin markets." Hewitt said other markets like India, France, Belgium and Australian were all suffering from the fake Scotch producers. He said: "In any one day we [the SWA] are prosecuting 50 cases [of Scotch whisky counterfeiting] around the world with people trying to pass products off as Scotch whisky." The chief executive cited the Indian authorities claiming Scotch whisky has 1 per cent - or about 55/60 million cases - of the Indian whisky market. But he added: "We know we only have 0.5 per cent of the market, which means there is as much counterfeit Scotch whisky out there as real Scotch." There are import tariffs on genuine Scotch whisky of up to 525 per cent. An SWA spokesman said later: "That makes Scotch whisky unaffordable and inaccessible to many Indian consumers. So they drift to the grey market." Hewitt said it was not unknown for producers of allegedly genuine Scotch whisky to give substantial discounts if the bottles and screw tops were returned after use. He said this was obviously to pass off fake product at a later stage again. Meanwhile, Walsh estimated that the true figure of counterfeit Scotch bottles in countries like India "could be as high as one in ten". Walsh said that, given the high sales of Diageo and Pernod in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, China, India, Thailand and South Korea, he and Burrows would be able to mix corporate and SWA work on their frequent travels overseas to promote the drink. Burrows and Walsh have known each other for many years, and six years ago Diageo and Pernod combined to mount a successful $8 billion takeover bid for Seagram's drinks business. Source: news.scotsman.com |
| 23 Jan. 2006 | ITS sickly pink colour and strawberry flavour would be expected to have whisky connoisseurs turning their noses up in disgust. But the new fruit-flavoured whisky concoction has received rave reviews from traditional whisky experts. Now Strawberry Kiss whisky liqueur - made with a single malt - is to go on sale in upmarket stores such as Harvey Nichols, Jenners and the Whisky Shop, which has branches on Princes Street and Victoria Street. The drink has been concocted by a pair of Edinburgh businessmen, who spent eight months in a home kitchen perfecting the whisky drink to a secret recipe. Glenmorangie's Master Distiller and bosses from the Whisky Shop are among more than 40 experts who have tasted the whisky and proclaimed it excellent (...). "We decided we wanted something aimed at the younger, female drinker - we thought there was a real gap in the market," said Mr Brown. "We chose a 14-year-old Speyside single malt whisky after trying a lot of different ones and then worked at adding ingredients to make it into a liqueur. Source: www.thescotsman.com |
| 23 Jan. 2006 | William Grant & Sons has announced a number of appointments to its global marketing team. The family-owned company said today (23 January) that Neil Brettell has become the global brand director for Grant’s Scotch whisky, while Fiona Burles is now the global brand director for Glenfiddich. Brettell joins the company from Allied Distillers where he was brand director for Ballantine’s. Burles has worked at William Grant & Sons for four years on the Grant’s brand. Christophe Prat and Liz Hodgson, both formerly from Allied Distillers, have been appointed as Glenfiddich global brand managers, where they will be supported by newly-appointed Glenfiddich brand manager Sylvia Lowe who joins the company from Diageo (...). Source:www.just-drinks.com |
| 17 Jan. 2006 | On Tuesday, the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. said that the industry should pull in $17.4 billion on a volume bump of 3.3% to 176 million 9-liter cases. Among the factors contributing to the gains are a gradual leveling of the playing field in the marketing and regulation arenas versus its beer and wine competitors; a consumer trend of "trading up" to more expensive brands; and the likelihood of less beer discounting, DISCUS said. That bullish outlook came on top of a 7.5% estimated revenue gain in 2005, with the strongest growth rates coming in the premium categories, the group said. And the industry's share of the alcohol market by supplier revenue stood at 32%, up from 31.2% in 2004 and almost four points higher than it was in 1999(...)."Spirits are very much back in vogue," said DISCUS President Peter Cressy, who noted that the growth is coming even as "per capita consumption of alcohol remains flat." The average American adult consumed about 2.5 gallons of pure alcohol last year in the form of beer, wine and spirits. That is almost identical to the 1995 figure bit is down nearly three gallons 20 years ago. By tipple of choice, vodka remained king in 2005, with 27% of sales and a revenue growth rate of 7% on sales of 45.7 million cases. Whiskeys were the second biggest player by volume, with 45.1 million cases(...). Source:www.marketwatch.com |
| 14 Jan. 2006 | Scotch whisky producer Chivas Brothers has produced its first results since being established in June 2004 in a reorganisation of French drinks giant Pernod Ricard's UK whisky operations. Accounts for Chivas Brothers - formerly known as Chivas Brothers Pernod Ricard - for the year to last June show it made pre-tax profits of £39.01million on a turnover of £336.19million. The results just released by Companies House also show that the rest of Europe outside the UK was Chivas Brothers' biggest market, accounting for £119.91million in sales. Next was Asia at £97.66million, then North America £50.35million, and Central and South America £39.38million. The UK accounted for just over £12million in sales. The accounts also show that the Paisley-registered company's unnamed highest-paid director received £458,000 in emoluments during the year. Source: www.pressandjournal.co.uk |
11 Jan. 2006 |
As seen on their website, http://www.springbankdistillers.com, Springbank has decided to modify the colour of their label to black on their 10 and 15 YO single malts. This new label was introduced last year with their Springbank 32 YO. In February, Springbank will release a Longrow 100 proof as well as Springbank 25 YO in April/May. www.springbankdistillers.com and Society Newsletter. |
| 30 Dec. 2005 | Pernod Ricard USA has appointed Southern Wine & Spirits of America (SWS) as its distributor/broker in 11 US markets. The company said on Wednesday (28 December) that SWS will be the exclusive distributor of its spirits and wine brands in Florida, Illinois, Metropolitan New York, Upstate New York, Kentucky and South Carolina. SWS will also become Pernod’s spirits and wine broker in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, and will continue to represent selected brands in Nevada and New Mexico. Following the acquisition of Allied Domecq, Pernod Ricard USA’s business has more than doubled. The US unit now ranks third in sales value and fourth in sales volume in the country’s spirits market.just-drinks.com |
| 22 Dec. 2005 | The Pernod Ricard Group signed today two agreements with Campari for the disposal of both its Glen Grant single malt whisky (brands, inventories, distillery and other associated assets) and Old Smuggler and Braemar (brands, inventories). These transactions amount to around €115 million and €15 million respectively. Pernod Ricard thus honours its commitment to the European Commission to dispose of Glen Grant, Old Smuggler and Braemar brands, within the framework of the Allied Domecq Plc acquisition. The Group’s priority brands of single malt whiskies remain The Glenlivet and Aberlour. Source: Pernod Ricard |
| 20 Dec. 2005 | REPRESENTATIVES of the Scotch Whisky Association have returned from the Hong Kong WTO meeting expressing "relief" over significant gains towards facilitating trade in Scotland's most valuable export. Source: the scotsman |
| 19 Dec. 2005 | UK: Edrington launches limited 44YO Glenglassaugh Source: just-drinks.com |
| 08 Dec. 2005 | Historic Agreement Secures Financial Future for Thalidomide Survivors.
Diageo plc has agreed a new financial settlement for those affected by the drug.Thalidomide was originally distributed in the UK under licence by the pharmaceutical subsidiary of the Distillers Company. It was withdrawn in 1961 when the side effects for pregnant women were discovered. Source: Diageo Press release |
| P.Brossard ©2006. All rights reserved. |