THE HISTORY OF FAMOUS GROUSE

THE MOST POPULAR SCOTCH WHISKY IN SCOTLAND

Each year 43 million bottles of The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch Whisky are enjoyed in no less than 94 global markets. But what is it that makes The Famous Grouse so popular? I'll try to analyse the setup and figure out the answer, for which purpose I'll need to start from the beginning.

In 1770, Joseph Gloag set up his business as Warehouse Goods Carrier, dealing with the import of paid-for goods like wine and other groceries from outside Scotland into Perth, the county town of Perthshire. His first child, Matthew, was born in 1797. In 1815, Matthew gained employment at the age of eighteen as assistant bottler (Butler) in Scone Palace -̶ a mile and a half away and famous for housing The Stone of Destiny-̶ the residence of the Earl of Mansfield. Such was his expertise that he was drafted into the residence of the Sheriff Clerk of Perthshire, James Murray Patton-the son of Lord Glenalmond, as a handyman and general factotum.

Apart from routine chores, he was made the manager of Patton’s personal cellar and the documented official manager of the Sheriff Clerk’s cellar that was used to stock and then sell off or auction seized, impounded, confiscated and expropriated liquor, mainly whisky, gin and illicit hooch. He wisely retained access to Scone Palace. Contacts made thereby were to prove very useful later in his fortunes.

While shuttling between the Sheriff’s office, residence and the odd 'dad's client', he met Margaret Brown, daughter of John Brown, a mason by trade, living in the first floor flat at 22 Athole (Atholl) Street, above a grocery run by one Peter McRorie since 1801 and serviced by 'dad' Gloag. She too was born in 1797. They wed in late November 1817. Matthew's brother, William Joseph Gloag, took up a job as an ironmonger.

Due to financial reverses, John Brown had to send Margaret as a ladies’ maid to one Lady Seton. They retained their postal address as 22 Athole Street. John Brown recovered his losses soon enough and bought off the grocery under their flat on McRorie’s demise. He was helped out by Margaret, who quickly learned the ropes. He died in 1824 and Margaret took over, assisted by her experienced husband in his spare time. He shrewdly ensured that all groceries in the homes he frequented were supplied by Margaret and took to informally calling himself a Grocer. She added a snuff line and, with her husband's backing and expertise, obtained a licence for adding a winery to her grocery in 1831. He had also risen in social standings with time, as Librarian in the Court, Keeper of the County Buildings, Captain in the Volunteer Constabulary and was well known, popular and a good businessman in every sense. They set up home upstairs.

         Progress: Under Matthew Gloag I 1835 22 Atholl Street----->     Matthew Gloag III 1899 20-24 Atholl Street

Matthew and Margaret had ten children, five boys and five girls between 1818-1839; Joseph, John (named after Margaret’s father), Ann, Margaret (named after her mother), another Matthew (named after his father), Janet, James, William (named after Matthew's brother), Lillian and Clementina. Their nephew, William's son, was named...Matthew! Matthew Gloag II. This Gloag would show little interest in the liquor business and remain on the fringe till his untimely death in 1858. In fact, he is usually totally overlooked and often, Matthew Gloag III, the grandson of Matthew the founder, is (wrongly) called "Matthew Gloag II." There is little mention of their fifth child either, the son named Matthew. That said, every generation since has had a Matthew Gloag associated with the brand in one capacity or another, with an indisposed Matthew Gloag VI (1947-) the latest.

SIX GENERATIONS OF MATTHEW GLOAGS

Matthew Joseph Gloag	Matthew Gloag I	1797-1860
Matthew William Gloag	Matthew Gloag II	1820-1858
Matthew Robert Gloag	Matthew Gloag III	1850–1912
Matthew William Gloag	Matthew Gloag IV	1882-1947
Matthew Frederick Gloag	Matthew Gloag V	1910–1970
Matthew Irving Gloag	Matthew Gloag VI	1947-

Matthew, the founder, was an outgoing and likeable person and had become adept at the liquor business, creating a pocketbook full of contacts. He joined Margaret in 1835 after his stint of a mandatory 20 years in the Sheriff Clerk's office and changed the business name to Matthew Gloag & Co. His first contribution was the expansion of the licenced liquor portfolio in the business, mainly Blended Malt whisky, or perhaps its consolidation, using his contacts across the Highland distilleries of Scotland, gaining in reputation for quality provisions, liquor and professionalism topped off with affability.

Margaret died in 1840 of severe Asthma, a serious personal blow. Putting her demise behind him, Gloag accelerated his upward journey in life with the award of the much sought-after contract to supply provisions, wines and liquor to the local Earl at Scone Palace (where he had contacts from his earlier days) when the Earl hosted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on their first visit to Scotland. Business prospered after this path-breaking success of 1842.

The Forbes-Mackenzie Act on vatting of whiskies when in a bonded warehouse was passed in 1853. A larger variety of blended malts were now available to vendors to sell. His business card showed him as an importer of wines and spirits as well as an agent for Schweppes Soda and whisky in Bond. Evidently, the truly strong blended malts (64.5-65.3% ABV) were drunk with soda. Here, the address showed him on Athole Street. What an ath!

Matthew died on 21 July 1860, the year blending of malt with grain whiskies was permitted for distillers under the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gladstone's Spirits Act. Grocers were brought into the purview of this concession under an Extension to the French Treaty Act 1863. In these three years, many other grocers got into the business full-time—John Walker, George Ballantine, Peter Thomson of Beneagles, William Teacher and the Berry brothers are good examples. His son, William B Gloag (1832-96), took over. His grandson, also a Matthew, Matthew Gloag III (1850-1912) joined the business when he came of age. 

William addressed his wine department aggressively but was quite content growing the business at a steady pace as a vendor of quality whiskies of distillers like The Glenlivet and Talisker and other blenders. He did not exploit the 1860 opportunity presented by revenue authorities allowing the blending of any spirit including grain whisky with pot still distilled malt whisky, reduced import duties of French liquor into Great Britain and vice versa as permitted by the French Treaty Act of 1860, and the subsequent inclusion of grocers into the blending clan. He thus fell far behind his contemporaries, the Walkers, Andrew Usher, George Ballantine, William Teacher and the Chivas Family, among others. His neighbours, Dewar & Sons and Bell & Sons also thrived handsomely.

He did not exploit the next major opportunity either, the triple whammy that constituted the Great French Wine Blight (1863-mid 1890s, viz., Odium mildew, Phylloxera epidemic and Downy mildew in their vineyards) that almost laid waste their entire wine industry. The Scottish whisky industry, soon to be renamed the Scotch whisky industry gained massively at the expense of French wines, Cognac, Armagnac and Champagne. William was content with the ensuing increase in the volume of his vending business, whereas he could have blended his own whiskies for guaranteed export to France, which country thirstily absorbed all imports, with space for more.

Despite repeated requests by Mathew Jr, he refused to enter the home-blending business, even though his contemporaries were raking in money hand over fist. He did, however, take a major step into commercial business by investing company profits to become, with Matthew, one of the original shareholders of the North British distillery in Edinburgh in 1887. It was only after he died in 1896 that Mathew Gloag & Son, under Matthew Gloag III, entered the home- grown blending business with his first blended Scotch, the 5 YO Brig o’ Perth, with the North British distillery supplying the grain whisky. Even these blends were bottled at ~65% ABV, as an indignant Arthur Bell once told a London customer who found his bestselling brand too heavy!

    The Initial Progression:

>>>>>

>>>>>

He followed his first launch with a number of other whiskies in quick succession over three years, bracketed under Gloag's Perth Whiskies, including the 7 YO The Famous "Grouse" Blend at 40 shillings a dozen quart bottles (1.132L). His supposedly “premium” whisky, the Perth Royal was marketed in 1897-98 and was the most expensive brand on his card as shown below. This brand, targeted at the affluent through Golf and other Clubs, didn’t meet with as much public approval as expected and rarely, if ever, would it emerge from the shadow of The Famous Grouse. The brand would linger on to the late 1990s, with limited sales and confined mainly to Perth and Perthshire.

All this was happening just as the 12-year low following the Pattison crash set in. A shrewd operator, the undeterred Matthew shifted tack to the increasing number of aristocratic and mainly British well-to-do Red Grouse hunting parties and adopted the red grouse, Scotland's primary game bird, as his/its motif and that whisky, prominently labelled Gloag’s "Grouse" Brand Whisky, also launched in 1897 would soon become The Grouse. He kept the price high so that he could maximise income from the socialites who had to keep up with the affluent and upper-class gentry for appearance's sake, not that it hurt the well-heeled more than a mite. He also initiated the practice of offering discounts on volume sales in the Yuletide (5,10 or 20-gallon casks), a concept that would continue year after year, even till today.

Matthew’s daughter Phillippa painted the very first, and now famous, red grouse that is seen on their bottles, albeit in black and white lithographs till colour printing came into being. It has rather different hues in the new millennium. The success of The Grouse Brand whisky was now so great that its name eclipsed that of its owner, and Matthew proactively considered stepping aside, dropping his name, and focussing on his priorities.

Matthew soon realised that he was making good money from two of his many whiskies, Gloag’s Grouse Brand and the 7 YO The Famous Grouse Blend, both of which were bracketed under Gloag’s Perth Brands. His pet whisky, The Perth Royal was only breaking even. The stocks of unsold new make whisky was increasing in his cellar. He had learned from his illustrious 'contemporaries and neighbours' that the more a new make matured in the barrel, the better a whisky it became. His bottles would soon house older whiskies, with the Brig o'Perth moving towards six years, the Famous Grouse towards eight and the Perth Royal towards ten.

One live problem was that Groag’s Grouse Brand was a bestseller only in the hunting season, just four months in a year, though with reasonable concomitant spillover. The 12th of August every year, The Glorious Twelfth, marks the beginning of the four-month (121 day) grouse shooting season, ending on December 10. The French Wine Blight had ended and Champagne had become the preferred drink of Royalty. The Famous Grouse Brand sold less per month than Groag’s Grouse in season, but when compared across the full year, it outsold the Grouse in volume but not in value. His basic outgo per brand- even if it did not sell- remained the same, eating into his profit margins.   

In its first-ever appearance on the market ~1897, The label showed the name The Famous "Grouse" Blend. It was placed in the ‘PERTH WHISKY DE LUXE’ category and The Famous Grouse Brand. Its age, 7 Years, was not visible on the front face. It was priced above the 5 YO Brig o’ Perth but below the Grouse Brand that he was assiduously trying to sell to the game bird shooting brigade. He shrewdly played the market, placing appropriate ads where they would be most effective, even marketing his Grouse brand overseas as the choice of the British Aristocracy. But he never took his eye off The Famous Grouse Blend of his Perth Brands. On the stroke of midnight into The Glorious Twelfth 1905, he re-branded the Gloag’s Grouse as The Grouse, taking his name off the whisky. More importantly, as time would show, the seven-year-old Famous Grouse Brand became the 8 YO Famous Grouse Blend. They were re-registered accordingly. Even so, he kept reminding the public at large that they were both his brands. The ploy succeeded and he pushed his increasingly popular 8 YO Famous Grouse Blend into an unassailable lead in income accrued by 1910, never to look back. The Glorious Twelfth 1905 marks the official birth date of The Famous Grouse that we see on the shelves today.

The lull in the Whisky industry (1896-1908), caused by a combination of circumstances, had initiated a softening in whisky prices and triggered a cascade of closures, contractions, and output reductions. Gloag saw this tough period through, increasing his sales of imported wines, brandy and champagne. By 1909, the industry was back on track. He did not ignore The Famous Grouse, using periodic fanciful ads while redesigning the standard newspaper advertisement to place the game bird provocatively in a large capital ‘G’, keeping it ever in the public eye. Scotland’s prime game bird lived up to its hype. And he was able to build up the age of this whisky to an 8 YO. The malts available to him then (also currently available & renamed) were Aberfeldy, Glenrothes-Glenlivet, The Glenlivet, Glengoyne, Tamdhu-Glenlivet, Macallan-Glenlivet and Talisker, plus, of course, grain whisky from the North British Grain whisky distillery.

The Scotch whisky industry expanded rapidly thereafter, with the USA targeted as a large market for most brands, including the Famous Grouse, till the onset of WW I, (1914-1918) which saw continuously increasing limitations being imposed on the use of barley and other food grains and increased taxes in a haphazard manner by the Govt. Most distilleries were rendered idle, but the existing stock of grain and malt whisky, as well as blends, could mature for longer periods in their casks. Matthew built up vast reserves of his brand for marketing as soon as possible after WW I ceased, pushing The Famous Grouse beyond the Grouse. Now he could strongly parade his best-selling whisky the world over, retaining the Grouse for the game-shooting brigade.

The war created many obstacles. Access to pubs or “public houses” was restricted in an effort to curb public drunkenness, especially among workers critical to the production of munitions and other essential war materials. The absence of several million young men on the battlefield didn’t help whisky demand either. By 1924, 77 distillers had closed down. During this period the companies that would eventually go on to dominate the industry began to emerge. Fortunately, relief was just around the corner. It would come in the form of the American Volstead Act. Prohibition in the USA from 1920-33 was the best thing that could happen to the Scotch whisky industry and they were quick to capitalise on it.

He then joined the other vendors and blenders in exporting large volumes of the Famous Grouse to Canada, Mexico, Havana and the Caribbean Islands. Like the others, and the British Govt., he simply turned a blind eye to the fact that a fair share of the whisky exported from home was being smuggled into the USA.

The Grouse was still available in the late 1930s, as seen in an advertisement on the back page of The Tatler of 12th October 1938. WW II came and went, and the hardy Gloag family sailed through this maelstrom along with most of the Scotch Whisky industry. Expansion was to follow soon after the war was won and sales increased rapidly. The Scotch industry was making waves in Asia and Australasia. The Gloags stayed with their primary markets, the USA, Canada, the Caribbean and home sweet home. They were also able to access new malts from Blair Athol, Bon Accord, Pulteney, Ben Wyvis/Ferintosh, and Inchgower.

There was no room for the Grouse now and it was absorbed by his leading brand. Even so, the labels showed the word Grouse in a larger font than its suffix and prefix, viz., THE FAMOUS GROUSE BRAND WHISKY. By the 1960s, the business had grown to such an extent that exports to America alone had risen to 12 million proof gallons. By 1968 it had risen to 33m. The future was looking rosy for Matthew Gloag & Sons. 

By then, there were a plethora of brands vying with each other for market share, if not market dominance. Strangely, not too much diversification was yet visible. The number of expressions per company remained rather low. The Gloags had just six or seven brands, and all were successful bar one.

Tragedy struck in 1970. Matthew Frederick Gloag – Matthew Gloag III’s grandson (Matthew Gloag V), a major shareholder in the company – and his wife died within two days of each other. Matthew Irving Gloag (Matthew Gloag VI, 1947-present) ran into unforeseen financial distress facing exorbitant Estate Duties and was forced to sell the company to Highland Distillers (for £1.25m), although he remained as a Director to continue the family’s involvement.

The new ownership began the transformation of the Famous Grouse into a name associated with numerous expressions. They brought Highland Park on Orkney Island and Glenrothes distilleries with them and immediately started on a number of projects. Quite a few Blended Malts and a few Single Malts were initiated. In the three decades they ran The Famous Grouse, more than a score Blended Malts and half a dozen Single Malts were casked. Great emphasis was laid on ageing these expressions, from 12/15/21/25/37 and 40 years with age statements and a few without. They acquired the 75% available stake in Macallan distillery in 1996, 25% having been bought by Suntory, from the Kemp Trust. The number of Blended Scotch also increased, mainly in the 6-10 year bracket, but bottled with no age statement (NAS). What set them apart was their unique process of maturing every blend or brand for their final six months of casking in the now freely available reused Sherry casks ex-The Macallan, probably Spanish, and at 46% ABV before bottling at the regular ABV.

Aged Blended Malts: The 21/30/37/40-Year-Olds

In 1979, the company breached the one million cases sales mark. By 1980 The Famous Grouse became Scotland’s brand leader and still is, a remarkable four decades. A new record was set in 1989, with over two million cases shipped. Sales continued to rise, and during the 1990s, The Famous Grouse grew by a staggering 25% – twice the rate of the premium Scotch sector.

To date, The Famous Grouse has produced over 75 different whiskies, totalling in excess of 175 expressions, from 5 years old to 40. Only about 60 of these have age statements. The majority remain NAS expressions, which is normal for most standard blended whiskies. The brand also has sold a remarkably large number of blended malts, and a half-dozen odd single malts. Most of these have come after it was taken over by Highland Distillers which was then fully absorbed into the Edrington Group in November 1999.

12-Year-Old Vintage Malt Whiskies: When Under Highland Distillers, The Famous Grouse had planned the release of a series of five 12-year-old Vintage Blended Malt Whiskies starting 2000. After taking over, Edrington's Board allowed the releases to go through. The release kicked off on schedule in 2000, with a 1987 vintage bottled in that same year, followed by a 1989 vintage bottled in 2001, a 1990 vintage strictly for the US market bottled in 2002, a 1992 vintage bottled in 2003 and finally a 1992 vintage bottled in 2004. These Famous Grouse Vintage Malts contain single malts from 6 different distilleries, mainly Macallan and the Orkney Island-based Highland Park complemented by single malts from the Glenrothes, Tamdhu, Glengoyne and Bunnahabhain, aimed at travel retail in one-litre bottles, with a limited number of 700 ml bottles for the local market. All of them were bottled at 40% ABV, except for the American version at 43% ABV. Edrington dropped their malt range (12/15/18/21) from the market in 2007 in favour of their regular non-vintage expressions so these bottles have now become scarce.

Since Edrington’s takeover, the process of premiumisation became ongoing at The Famous Grouse. In 2006, the peated Black Grouse was released, essentially created for the Swedish market based on their taste preferences. Swedish analysts write that it is as aromatic as The Famous Grouse but a slightly smoky blend with considerably tougher character and spice and it carries clear traces of Islay whisky. This was followed two years later by Snow Grouse, a blended grain whisky, which carried the more appropriate snowy white 'Willow Ptarmigan'. By 2010, The Naked Grouse was introduced as a premium offering as a Blended Malt, exiting the Blended Scotch category once and for all, though the odd bottle does turn up at auctions/ eBay.

In January 2009 the distillery started working with some heavily peated malt. The specifications were for the barley to be peated to between 80 and 120ppm phenols, and the resulting spirit is called Ruaidh Maor (a hunting lodge at Loch Turret) to differentiate it from the regular Glenturret. In July 2015, while still retaining the traditional Famous Grouse bottling, the company rebranded The Black Grouse as The Famous Grouse Smoky Black, and introduced The Famous Grouse Mellow Gold to the brand’s core range, which, till then comprised The Famous Grouse, The Famous Grouse Smoky Black, The Famous Grouse Bourbon Cask, The Naked Grouse, The Famous Grouse Ruby Cask, The Famous Grouse Toasted Cask and The Famous Grouse – Personalised. The Naked Grouse was taken off the core range in mid-2017. The Famous Grouse Wine Cask, finished in carefully selected Spanish red wine casks, the fourth edition in its series of innovative blended whiskies inspired by different types of oak casks, was added in September 2019.

The Famous Grouse was repackaged on the brand’s 30th anniversary as Scotland’s Number One Whisky in 2010. The bottle had a more prominent image of the Grouse, painted by wildlife artist Rodger McPhail, on a larger label. The year 1800 was subtly embossed on the packaging to reinforce the notion of heritage and longevity. The bird was lifted above the name and all bottle tops were changed to red. A fresh look was adopted again in 2018, by which time numerous fresh expressions had hit the market. A black and gold colour palette reflected the colours of the bird. Key elements of the previous bottle's design remain, including the distinctive ‘eyebrow’ bottle and label shape and the longer closure but in new black, red and gold hues. The distinctive purple on both the carton and the standard bottle makes it stand out on shelves. More is expected later this year, on its 40th anniversary as Scotland’s Number One Whisky.

The Famous Grouse Theme: Transferring the brand’s long-established icon into contemporary surroundings has been at the heart of the strategy designed to boost Famous Grouse’s appeal to younger drinkers. As many as 40 TV commercials have been released to date, the last dozen or so produced by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. The animation techniques are the same as those developed for Jurassic Park. A blasé grouse is central to the theme, sauntering along with a cocked eye, or creating an arabesque. The background music is the multi-dimensional Plink Plonk theme, which had a curious birth. It began as a waltz of assorted whisky sounds. Clinking ice, cut glass, opening bottle tops, all were pressed into play. Even the sound of a muso rolling a smooth dram of the Famous Grouse around the soft palate. This hit the right note, allowing its composers the nonchalance to drop the waltz rhythm for the plinky marimba sound.

Canned Grouse: The Famous Grouse launched a premixed can in 2010, combining one measure of whisky with cola at a steep price of GBP 1.75 a can in supermarkets. The can has been brought out to stay contemporary in the fast-expanding premixed cans market, as well as opening up a new target audience to the brand.

Edrington Group gifted a 21ft statue of a red grouse to Perth in November 2010 as part of its support for Perth’s 800th Anniversary of Perth’s Royal Charter celebrations. The imposing statue, built by Ruaraig Maciver, can be found on the Broxden roundabout, a key gateway to Perth.

Over time, the mascot has evolved from a silhouetted gamecock to the unmistakable painted likeness of not just any grouse, but an adult male “Red Grouse” (Lagopus lagopus scotica) sporting his red eye-combs while standing tall and strutting about on guard in the bleak Scottish landscape. He’s even been christened: Gilbert.

Gilbert “the Red” enjoyed a good and long reign as the lone, undisputed claimant of The Famous Grouse title. No longer. Today, there isn’t just the one famous grouse, but a small covey of famous grouse. The two new birds that have joined Gilbert on the block are the snowy Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) on the Snow Grouse, a blended grain whisky specifically designed to be drunk cold, served straight from the freezer and the Blackcock (Tetrao tetrix) on The Famous Grouse Smoky Black.

The pace of premiumisation was stepped up in its unrelenting bid to give the brand a renewed thrust. There was an urgent necessity to do so, as brand sales were flattening, losing out to the onslaught of single malts. Edrington’s Financial Report 2019 states that sales of The Famous Grouse declined in 2018-19 by 8%, despite which setback its market share grew in core markets. The chart, reflecting sales in million 9l cases, extrapolated from scotchwhisky.com, thespiritsbusiness.com’s Scotch Whisky Brand Champions 2014/19 and thedrinksbusiness.com does reflect public opinion. Its pole position in Scotland, however, remains unchallenged, while achieving its highest-ever market share in the UK. It is also the market leader in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Cyprus. Its progress outside the EU/Europe and the USA seems to lack the same intensity. The effect of Brexit remains to be seen.

BRAND	OWNER	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	% +/-
Johnnie Walker	Diageo	20.1	17.9	17.6	17.4	18.3	18.9	3.5%
Ballantine’s	Pernod Ricard	6.0	6.1	6.2	6.7	6.9	7.4	7.6%
Grant’s	Wm Grant & Sons	4.7	4.4	4.4	4.5	4.5	4.6	0.8%
Chivas Regal	Pernod Ricard	4.6	4.6	4.4	4.3	4.2	4.5	5.4%
Wm Lawson’s	Bacardi	2.8	3.1	3.1	3.0	3.1	3.3	4.8%
J&B	Diageo	4.0	3.7	3.5	3.5	3.4	3.2	-7.9%
Famous Grouse	Edrington	3.0	3.04	3.1	3.0	3.04	3.0	-1.3%
William Peel	Marie Brizard	2.6	2.8	2.9	3.0	3.1	3.0	-3.2%
Dewar’s	Bacardi	3.0	2.7	2.7	2.8	2.6	2.8	6.4%
Black & White	Diageo	N/A	1.3	1.5	1.8	2.4	2.7	14.9%

The growing popularity of single malts has led some distilleries to stop selling certain malt whiskies, reducing options for blenders. The classic example saw even Edrington struggling to get enough heavily peated malt of the right style to use in The Famous Grouse Smoky Black to complement the Ruaidh Maor, a solution first thought of in 2009 in order to ensure a consistent supply of heavily peated new make in an Islay style at Glenturret – two styles, same distillery. 

But the Glenturret distillery and its single malt brands were acquired by the Swiss Lalique Group and the Swiss/French wine producer and distributor Art & Terroir half and half on 01 Apr 2019. It previously was “The Home of The Famous Grouse”. Edrington will keep this well-known Blended Scotch Whisky and will give it a new home. The move comes two years after Edrington announced plans to switch its Perth-based management office to a new consolidated headquarters building in Glasgow. The sale severs Edrington’s last physical tie to the region, although the company may well continue to be a customer of Glenturret in future as the malt is a key constituent of The Famous Grouse blend.

The other Blended Scotch brands from the Famous Grouse portfolio are the Black Grouse Alpha heavily peated and the 12-year-old. The Alpha edition glided into travel retail in 2013 and then the main market as the Smoky Black gradually fades away. Neatly designed, the noble black grouse, otherwise known as a blackcock, Tetrao tetrix retains its haughty look of disdain, with a feather added to its neck. The initial years had the sleek black bottle clad in a crocheted overlay, with the feather sticking out cheekily.

The Video game Unravel Two: The Famous Grouse - PART 8, developed by the Swedish company Coldwood Interactive in 1916 and published by Electronic Arts, an American company, helped in promoting the brand in Europe, according to Master Taster Horst Luening at Whisky.de and at Whisky.com in his review of both the standard edition and the Black Grouse Alpha Edition. Related links to YouTube are placed below the video.

The Black Grouse Alpha Edition bottle has a red cork like the eye-comb on the grouse and celebrates the annual lek, where hordes of male blackcocks strut about in full splendour trying to outdo each other and win over the watching and waiting female. The Alpha uses mainly Glenturret and Tamdhu single malts, with only traces of Highland Park and The Macallan. The expensive Alpha has a cork whereas the others use screwtops. Its ppm level is assessed as between 7-9.

                             

The Famous Grouse

The Black Grouse Alpha Edition

39 Ads Set To The Plink Plonk Theme

SINGLE MALTS: The company released, among its half dozen odd single malt expressions, limited edition Single Malts of 1986 and 1988 vintage, bottled in 2014, generating a minor controversy. The vintage showed that the single malts were laid under the aegis of Highland Distillers, but the bottling was during the current Edrington era. The labels mentioned that this was a Glenturret single malt, which distillery was never under Highland Distillers.

The Famous Grouse 1988 was a 25 YO Single Malt bottled specifically for Taiwan. One cask was available for bottling, providing 312 700ml bottles. These were shipped at an ABV of 49.0%, labelled The Famous Grouse - Glenturret Single Cask Limited Edition 1988. Since these bottles never appeared in Europe, any controversy surrounding it abated naturaliter.

The 1986 vintage bottling controversy did build up and was quicky quashed by Edrington using legal means. The Famous Grouse 1986 was released as a 28 YO Single Malt specially bottled for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. The keen-eyed discerned that this whisky was actually 27 yr and 11 months old - not 28 years old. The whisky was subsequently withdrawn, but not before approximately 100 bottles had been sold. The label was reprinted, with the new version giving the distillation date and bottling date, rather than years. The label still denotes it is a single malt from Glenturret, bottled under the Famous Grouse brand.

The Naked Grouse, which is essentially a Blended Malt whisky that harks back to au naturelle, also had a difficult-to-find Blended Scotch version till 2015.

               

Visitors’ Centre: Remy Cointreau bought the Glenturret distillery from James Farley in 1981 and built a Visitors’ Centre. Highland Distillers acquired the distillery in 1990, which went to Edrington in 1999-2000. The centre was rebuilt for £2.2m in 2002 as The Famous Grouse Experience, the home of the Gloag heritage. But the Glenturret distillery and its single malt brands were acquired by Swiss wine producer and distributor Art & Terroir and the Lalique Group in Dec 2018, with a complete handover in a 100-odd days period ending 01 April 2019. Silvio Denz and Hansjörg Wyss will each own a 50% stake and have plans for their own Visitors' Centre. The previous “Home of The Famous Grouse” was closed and Edrington stated that they would retain this well-known Blended Scotch Whisky and give it a new home.

Financial Year 2019: As figures trickle in, sales are showing an uptick of around 09% in value, buoyed mainly by a shining Macallan. Overall expenses have also increased and the prognosis is a low profit of about 01-1.5%. Apparently, The Famous Grouse is lagging a bit. This has forced Edrington, given its commitment to certain social causes and steep expenses in setting up the new Macallan distillery and visitor centre, to sell off a 10% share to Japan’s Suntory, which is already a shareholder in The Macallan and distributes several brands from the Edrington portfolio in markets including Japan, Germany, Canada and South Africa, and through joint ventures in the UK, Spain and Russia. Moreover, Edrington plans to shut down operations in South Korea by the end of March this year.

The Famous Grouse was awarded a Royal Warrant by Queen Elizabeth II in 1984.

Sources:
Famous for a Reason: The Story of the Famous Grouse by Charles Maclean, 2015.
The Famous Grouse: A Whisky Companion: Heritage, History, Recipes & Drinks by Ian Buxton, 2012.
whiskybase.com; Whiskypedia Scotch Whisky
Edrington Annual Reports 2015-19

TOMATIN’S WAREHOUSE 6 COLLECTION & SPECIAL CREATIONS

42 YO Highland Single Malt ex-Sauternes Cask Released

Tomatin Distillery, located on the North-East Coast of the Scottish Highland Region, released their fourth expression of the acclaimed Warehouse 6 Collection, The 1977.

This luxury whisky is the first in their history to be matured in a Sauternes wine cask, resulting in an exceptional explosion of tropical flavours. This limited cask yielded just 390 bottles at 49%.

As with every Warehouse 6 release, each expression pays tribute to the Tomatin craftsmen that have been custodians of exceptional Scotch for generations. The 1977 is no different, and as with the previous luxury expressions in the series, (the 1971, 1972 & 1975), each of the 390 units is decanted into an exquisite hand blown Glencairn Crystal decanter with unique copper decoration. This luxury bottle is presented with two glasses (also Glencairn Crystal), a solid copper stopper, along with a numbered certificate detailing the remarkable journey of the whisky.

Distilled on 23rd September 1977, this precious spirit has been gently maturing for the past 42 years in Warehouse 6, laid low on antique wooden rails above cool earthen floor and stacked single level, in a traditional dunnage warehouse.  Cared for by several generations of their craftsmen, their dedication is perfectly matched by the complex meteorological conditions that surround the towns of Sauternes and Barsac to produce extraordinarily sweet wine. These fruity notes have influenced the whisky over time, resulting in a luxurious expression that dances across the palate for a gloriously long finish.

Tomatin 1977’s three predecessors in the Warehouse 6 Collection:

1. Tomatin 1971: Distilled on August 7, 1971, matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, 252 bottles with 45.8% ABV, bottled on May 16, 2016, released on June 30, 2016. 45 YO.

2. Tomatin 1972: Distilled on November 20, 1972, matured in three sherry hogsheads, 380 bottles with 42.1% ABV, bottled on February 10, 2014, released in 2017. 42 YO.

3. Tomatin 1975: Distilled on December 8, 1975, matured in an Oloroso sherry butt, 300 bottles with 46.5% ABV, bottled on January 8, 2019, released on March 12, 2019. 44 YO.

The 1977 is expected to retail for £3,000 in the UK for a 70cl bottle, and is available to purchase from specialist retailers worldwide.

Source: Whisky.com & Tomatin website. 

Cù Bòcan Creation Series

Tomatin Cù Bòcan is an experimental whisky from the Highland distillery, which is made from lightly peated barley malt and distilled in limited batches each winter. Cù Bòcan means 'ghost dog' in Gaelic. According to legend, the inhabitants of the Tomatin area were haunted by a ghost dog, which dissolved in blue smoke and disappeared over the highland bogs. Since only lightly peated barley is used, every Cù Bòcan creation holds their signature wisp of smoke, reminiscent of the ghost dog vanishing in a trace of smoke. Each edition is thus an exploration in the subtleties of smoke, the characters of the casks and the mastery of maturation. Each bottling of Cù Bòcan is matured in different barrel combinations to bring out the extraordinary flavours in the single malt.

Cù Bòcan Creation #1 (70cl, 46%)

Tomatin's smoky Cù Bòcan single malt range received a new design and new Signature expression in mid-2019, in a brand new series of expressions matured in a selection of interesting casks, called their Creations! Cù Bòcan Creation #1 was aged in Black Isle Brewery Imperial Stout and Bacalhôa Moscatel De Setúbal Wine Casks. An unusually creative collaboration, this intriguing mix marries the best bits of its wine and beer counterparts- a balance of big, chocolaty beer notes and rich, fruity wine, all backed up by lightly peated single malt. No caramel or chill filtering.

Cù Bòcan Creation #2 (70cl, 46%)

The second release in Tomatin's Cù Bòcan Creation series, which sees the lightly peated single malt aged in a variety of intriguing casks. For Creation #2, the whisky was drawn from a mixture of Japanese Shochu casks which made it ethereal and oily and European virgin oak casks that made it full-bodied and warm - not a common combination by any means. An experiment where the Far East and Europe meet. Once again, no caramel colour E150A or chill filtration.

    

CENTENARY OF PROHIBITION IN THE USA

THE WORLD OF SPEAKEASIES OF THE USA

Ramesses III

The Sumerians are said to have discovered the beer fermentation process quite by chance. Their successors, the Babylonians, knew how to brew 20 different types of beer. The ancient Egyptians made note of Ramses III, the Pharaoh whose annual sacrifice of about 30,000 gallons of beer appeased ‘‘thirsty gods.’’The modern term bridal joins the words bride and ale; a bride’s ale was brewed by a young woman’s family in preparation for wedding festivities.

The significance of beer in the average person’s diet was demonstrated at the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, in what is now the city of Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were headed for Virginia, but the ship was running out of beer. So they halted, went ashore and drank water that the seamen might have more beer.

Beer production and sales played colourful parts in U.S. history. The first American brewery was opened in Lower Manhattan by the Dutch West Indies Company in 1632. The crude streets of New Amsterdam (today’s New York City) were first paved to help the horse-drawn beer wagons make better progress, which were so often stuck in the mud!

Alcoholic beverages, often in combination with herbs, were considered the only liquids fit to drink, with good reason. Household water was commonly polluted. Milk could cause milk sickness (tuberculosis). But beer, ale, and wine were disease-free, tasty, and thirst-quenching, crucial qualities in societies that preserved food with salt and washed it down with a diet of starches.

In England the public house, or pub, developed during Saxon times as a place where people gathered for fellowship and pleasure. An evergreen bush on a pole outside meant ale was served. Each pub was identified by a sign with a picture of, for example, a Black Horse, White Swan, or Red Lion. These early ‘‘logos’’ were used because most people could not read.

When Europeans migrated to America, they brought the tavern with them. It was considered essential to a town’s welfare to have a place providing drink, lodging, and food.

Mowbray Tavern Massachusetts

In Massachusetts in the 1650s, any town without a tavern was fined! Often the tavern was built near the church so that parishioners could warm up quickly after Sunday morning services held in unheated meetinghouses. A new town sometimes built its tavern before its church. As towns grew into cities and roads were built connecting them, taverns followed the roads. 

It was also in the taverns that the spirit of revolution was born. These were the rendezvous spots for rebels, where groups like ‘the Sons of Liberty’ were formed and held their meetings. The Boston Tea Party was planned in Hancock Tavern, while in the Green Dragon, Paul Revere and 30 companions formed a committee to watch the troop movement of British soldiers.

When Americans pushed westward taverns sprang up along the routes west. As towns appeared the tavern was often the first building. Homes and merchants grew up around it. Drinking places without lodging started to appear. These kept the name tavern, while more elaborate inns adopted the term hotel. But the hotel kept its barroom; it was often a showplace, with a handsome mahogany bar and a well dressed bartender.

PROHIBITION

Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry,

Went across the border to get a drink of rye.

When the rye was opened, the Yanks began to sing,

"God bless America, but God save the King!”

Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, production, and transportation of alcohol imposed on January 16, 1920, and repealed on December 5, 1933. One anomaly of the “Prohibition Act” (Volstead Act) was that it did not actually prohibit the consumption of alcohol; consumers quickly stockpiled liquor for their own use in late 1919, before sales of alcohol became illegal the following January. From Scotland's perspective, Prohibition was one of the best things that could happen to their whisky industry and they were quick to capitalise on it.

The production of alcohol, although not necessarily its consumption, remained legal in neighbouring countries. Canada imposed prohibition nationally from 1918 to 1920. Canadian provinces enacted their own prohibition for varying periods between 1901 to 1948. Distilleries and breweries in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean flourished as their products were either consumed legally by visiting Americans or smuggled into the United States. The Detroit River, part of the border with Canada, was notoriously difficult to police and control, and soon became a bootlegger’s highway. Nassau, in the Bahamas, became a major center for the stockpiling of hard liquor destined for the American market and a staging ground for “rum runners.” When Washington complained to the London that British officials in Nassau were undermining its law, London refused to intervene. The province of Ontario enacted a prohibition on alcohol consumption from 1916 to 1927. The Ontario Temperance Act was the opposite of the Volstead Act. It prohibited the domestic consumption of alcohol, but continued to allow its manufacture and transshipment for export outside the province.

The Volstead Act had broad exemptions for the use of ethanol or grain alcohol for “fuel, dye and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.” Ten licenses were authorised for the production of “medicinal whiskey”, but only six companies applied for them. All of the companies had been in production prior to Prohibition and had stocks to sell.

The law allowed physicians to “prescribe” up to one pint of whiskey per week to their patients for “medicinal purposes.” The American Medical Association subsequently lobbied the U.S. Congress to remove the limit on the amount of whiskey that could be prescribed on the basis that physicians were “better qualified to determine the therapeutic value of a substance and the proper rate of its prescription.” In addition, there were a variety of liqueurs, especially bitters, which were successfully reclassified as “medicines” and thus exempted from the Volstead Act. The Scotch malt whisky Laphroaig, a heavily peated, smoky, phenolic whisky from the Isle of Islay, a whisky that is often described as being “medicinal” in flavour, successfully had itself reclassified as a “medicine” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Fire Arms and Tobacco. So too did the blended Scotch, White Horse, which prominently features another phenolic, single malt from Islay, Lagavulin. The two Scotch brands were the only ones that could be legally imported during Prohibition and were available for sale at pharmacies. Their purchase required a prescription from a doctor.

Prohibition had predictable results on the Scotch whisky industry.The copious  quantities of home brewed “bathtub gin” notwithstanding, demand for hard liquor remained strong. This demand was met largely by bootleggers, many of whom were part of organized crime rings that flourished during this period. A combination of British and Scottish liquor producers, domestic Canadian spirit producers, and various Caribbean rum producers, largely met the bootleggers demand. The Scotch whisky industry, far larger than their Canadian and Caribbean competitors, and already far more sophisticated in its marketing and distribution than their foreign rivals, was ideally positioned to capitalise on the burgeoning American demand.

Whisky producers stockpiled inventory in locations convenient for smugglers. Whisky exports to the Bahamas, for example, increased from 944 gallons in 1918 to more than 386,000 gallons in 1922, and they continued to increase as Prohibition progressed. Similar Scotch “depots” were established in Havana, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and on Grand Cayman. Comparable warehouses were set up in St. Johns, Newfoundland, and the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Scotch was also shipped to the province of Ontario for transshipment to the United States. The Detroit River was a major thoroughfare for the smuggling of illicit liquor. It was difficult to police despite the number of revenue agents assigned to patrol it. In 1927 for example, records from the Ontario provincial government show that boats carrying a total of 3,388,016 gallons of “hard liquor” had left Windsor, Ontario for Detroit. In that year, US agents were able to seize only a paltry 148,211 gallons—roughly four percent of what was shipped.

The economics of bootlegging were not unlike those of the contemporary drug trade. Smugglers would pick up stock in an offshore “depot” like Nassau and proceed to the mainland where they would wait just outside the US 12-mile territorial limit. As long as they remained outside of US territorial waters they were technically exempt from US jurisdiction. In reality, aggressive Coast Guard patrols often stopped and boarded smugglers and seized their goods as contraband.

Fast motorboats from the mainland would go out to the “mother ship” to pick up cargo and deliver it to shore. Landed on the coast, prices would double again. Delivered to a warehouse in a major city and from there to a local “speakeasy” would see another doubling at each stage. By the time a bottle of Scotch had traveled from Nassau to a “speakeasy” in New York, the price could have increased by a factor of 16 times. If the liquor was diluted the profits were even larger.

Most Scotch whisky exports were in the form of bottled stock. That made it more difficult to tamper with the contents and to adulterate them. The result was that of all of the illicit liquor being smuggled into the United States, Scotch whisky consistently had the higher quality. Exports from Canada and the Caribbean were usually in barrel form and were bottled after arriving in the United States. This made it easier to dilute the contents and the quality of the resulting product suffered accordingly. The Scotch whisky industry was fully set to increase production to meet the American demand. The superiority of Scotch among the other smuggled hard liquors would serve the industry well when Prohibition was repealed, and led to an immediate increase in the market share enjoyed by Scotch whisky in the American market. To this day Scotch whisky has maintained a dominant market position in the United States.

How Prohibition Backfired and Gave America an Era of Gangsters & Speakeasies

Those behind Prohibition saw a ban on the sale of 'intoxicating liquors' as a crusade against a moral evil. But the big winners were Al Capone and the mob.

One minute after midnight tonight," said the media on 16 Jan 1920, "America will become an entirely arid desert as far as alcoholics are concerned, any drinkable containing more than half of 1 per cent alcohol being forbidden." In fact, the Volstead Act – which prohibited the sale of "intoxicating liquors" – had come into operation at midnight the day before, on 16 January, 1920. But the authorities had granted drinkers one last day, one last session at the bar, before the iron shutters of Prohibition came down.

Today we often think of Prohibition as a deluded experiment, instinctively associating it with images of Al Capone, the mafia and the Valentine's Day Massacre.

Far from being repressive authoritarians, Prohibition's largely Protestant champions – a large proportion of whom were high-minded middle-class women – were the do-gooders of the day. Often deeply religious, they saw Prohibition as a kind of social reform, a crusade to clean up the American city and restore the founding virtues of the godly republic. And as American cities boomed after the civil war, swollen with immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, the campaigners' hatred of alcohol became steadily more ferocious. They looked in horror on the new saloons of the expanding cities, with their card games and fist fights, their bad boys and good-time girls. In particular, they became convinced that alcohol was a deadly threat to the health and virtue of American womanhood – papers of the time were full of stories of battered wives and broken marriages.

Only 1,500 federal agents were given the job of enforcing Prohibition – that is, about 30 for every state in the union. On top of that, the new regime never had unanimous public support, while neighbouring countries remained defiantly wet. Neither Mexico nor Canada had any intention of clamping down on breweries and distilleries near the American border.

Many Americans with a taste for liquor were determined to get hold of a drink one way or another. Illegal drinking dens had long flourished in big cities; indeed, the word "speakeasy" probably dates from the late 1880s. But now they bloomed as never before; historians estimate that by 1925, there were as many as 100,000 illegal bars in New York City alone, many of them tiny, spit-and-sawdust joints, others catering to the rich and well-connected.

The big winners from Prohibition were, of course, the nation's gangsters. The law had only been in operation for an hour when the police recorded the first attempt to break it, with six armed men stealing some $100,000-worth of "medicinal" whisky from a train in Chicago. From the very beginning, criminals had recognised that Prohibition represented a marvellous business opportunity; in major cities, indeed, gangs had quietly been stockpiling booze supplies for weeks. The first gangster to grasp the real commercial potential of Prohibition was racketeer Arnold Rothstein, whose agents had been responsible for rigging the baseball World Series in 1919. Establishing his "office" at Lindy's Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, Rothstein brought alcohol across the Great Lakes and down the Hudson from Canada, and supplied it – at a handsome profit – to the city's gangsters.

By far the most celebrated gangster of the day, though, was Al Capone, a New York-born hoodlum who controlled much of the Chicago underworld in the mid-1920s. Living in splendour in the city's Lexington hotel, he was said to be raking in some $100m a year from casinos and speakeasies. To many people, he seemed a real-life Robin Hood, opening soup kitchens for the unemployed and giving large sums to charity. Unlike Sherwood Forest's finest, however, Capone had a pronounced taste for the good life, wearing smart suits and drinking expensive Templeton Rye whisky. In Oct. 1931, Capone was arrested and sentenced to 11 years for tax evasion. He died in prison of a heart attack; the nation's most famous vice baron's health had been eroded by syphilis.

By the time Capone went down, support for Prohibition was already ebbing away. With newspapers alleging that as many as eight out of ten congressmen drank on the quiet, it was obvious that the attempt to outlaw alcohol had failed. On 5 December 1933, national Prohibition was consigned to history. Not really. 100 years later, there was no squeak or mention of Prohibition in the USA! Well, their President, D J Trump, was being impeached, so that was probably more historic than the centenary of Prohibition! A damning indictment of a country that plays Globocop and considers itself the foremost on propriety. Sad.

Many states chose to remain dry after 1933. Mississippi, the last entirely dry state, only repealed Prohibition in 1966. Even today, more than 500 municipalities across the United States are dry, often in strongly evangelical states. In a famously delicious irony, they include Moore County, Tennessee, the home of the Jack Daniel's distillery, although visitors are allowed to buy a "commemorative" bottle. Cheers, indeed!

• The cost of a 75cl bottle of standard blended Scotch on a ship anchored in international waters, 12 miles off the coast was $4.00, though bought at $1.25 in Great Britain.
• The motorboat runner sold his stock bought from the ship to a shore-based agent $6.00.
• The shore-based agent sold it to a booze-runner for $10.00.
• The booze-runner sold it to a speakeasy for $20.
• The speakeasy sold it for $40.
• Barrels of Scotch were often diluted on opening, increasing profit margin.

The Real McCoy: One man who regularly sailed between Nassau and Rum Row was Captain William McCoy, of Scots origin and living in Florida, who began running liquor in 1921 using a schooner named Arethusa. By this time suppliers and distillers were often meeting the immense consumer demand with very poor quality liquor, and McCoy decided to make his reputation by supplying high quality products, chiefly Scotch whisky. This strategy worked well, to the considerable financial benefit of McCoy, whose name entered the English language as a result of the reputation he acquired. The idiom, “The real McCoy”, means “it’s genuine.” 

TRUMP'S IMPOSITION OF 25% TARIFF ON SCOTCH WHISKY

ANOTHER ROUGH DECISION BY TRUMP LEAVES SCOTCH ON THE ROCKS

A chill wind is blowing through the Scottish glens as the Scotch whisky industry hunkers down to withstand stinging duties on sales to its most valuable export market, the United States.

Scotland’s whisky business has been an export success story. The industry sent 137 million bottles of Scotch to the United States last year, or around four bottles every second. Scotch exports to the U.S. brought in just over one billion pounds ($1.3 billion), accounting for more than a fifth of worldwide export revenues, which grew in 2019 by 8% to a record 4.70 billion pounds ($6 billion).

A 25% tariff has been implemented on US imports of Single Malt Scotch Whisky and Liqueurs wef 18 October 2019.  This is bad news for that industry. Despite the fact that this dispute is about aircraft subsidies, the Scotch Whisky sector has been hit hard, with Single Malt Scotch Whisky representing over half of the total value of UK products on the US Government tariff list (amounting to over $460 million).

 Scotch Whisky is now paying for over 60% of the UK’s tariff bill for the subsidies it provided to Airbus, eight times more than the next most valuable UK product on the tariff list. That Single Malts are being targeted is particularly damaging for smaller producers, who stand to be the hardest hit.

Scotch Whisky has been imported tariff-free to the United States for the last 25 years.This move undermines decades of hard work and investment which has seen Scotch Whisky sales boom in the US. It will impact both the industry and its supply chain.

We're campaigning for #ToastsNotTariffs from Scotch Whisky Association on Vimeo.

A 25% tariff on Single Malt Scotch Whisky will see exports to the US drop by as much as 20% in the next 12 months, as Scotch Whisky will become less competitive in the US market.  In time, consumer choice will diminish and Scotch Whisky companies will start to lose market share.  In Scotland and throughout the UK supply chain, a dropping-off in investment and productivity is expected. Ultimately, jobs could be at risk.

The US is SWA’s largest and most valuable single market, and over £1 billion of Scotch Whisky was exported there last year.
 
The tariff will put competitiveness and Scotch Whisky’s market share at risk.  It will disproportionately impact smaller producers.  SWA expects to see a negative impact on investment and job creation in Scotland, and longer term impacts on productivity and growth across the industry and our supply chain.  The tariff will also have a cumulative impact on consumer choice.  

The Scotch Whisky industry has consistently argued against the imposition of tariffs in their sector.  For the last 25 years, trade in spirits between Europe and the US has been tariff-free. In that time, exports of Scotch Whisky to the US and of American Whiskey to the UK and Europe have grown significantly, benefitting communities on both sides of the Atlantic, boosting investment, employment and prosperity for all.  For this reason, the Scotch Whisky Association - alongside American and European spirits producers - has urged the EU and the US not to draw spirits into trade disputes that have nothing to do with our sector.

It is imperative that the EU and US now take urgent action to de-escalate the trade disputes that have given rise to these tariffs, to ensure that these latest tariffs are not implemented on 18 October, and to ensure that other tariffs – including on the export of American Whiskey to the EU – are removed quickly. In particular, the UK government must now work with both sides to urge a negotiated settlement and to ensure that these damaging tariffs do not take effect.

The damage to the industry will mirror the damage caused to exports of American whiskies to Europe since the EU imposed a 25% tariff in July 2018.  That tariff has done nothing other than damage an industry very similar to, and closely linked with, our own.  Alongside American whiskey companies, SWA has called on the UK, US and EU governments for many months now to find a negotiated solution to the trade disputes that have given rise to these tit-for-tat tariffs, and to ensure that duty-free trade can resume between the UK and the US to the benefit of whisky producers, their employees, the communities they work in, and consumers everywhere.

They now need the UK and Scottish governments to work together to ensure distillers can weather the storm.  They want them to consider a range of support to the industry, including reducing the UK tax burden on Scotch Whisky in a new Budget. This will provide an important lifeline while efforts continue to remove the tariffs.

Despite multiple pressures on the UK government, including Brexit, this issue must not fade from the minds of Ministers. Scotch Whisky has long been a standout export success.  This is now at risk if government strategy does not urgently use all the powers at its disposal to remove these damaging tariffs.

Notes

• The value of Scotch Whisky exports to the US grew from £280m in 1994 to over £1bn last year 
• By value, 33% of Scotch Whisky exports to the US in 2018 were Single Malts (a value of £344 million, or $463 million).
• The US market accounted for 22% of global value, and 10.7% of global volumes of Scotch Whisky exports in 2018. 
• The Scotch Whisky industry directly employs about 11,000 people in Scotland, and many more indirectly through its supply chain. Over 7,000 of these jobs are in rural areas of Scotland.

Source: SWA, HMRC

THE EXCEPTIONAL SMALL-BATCH SCOTCH WHISKIES

THE EXCEPTIONAL PROFILE SCOTCH WHISKY

The Exceptional series by Sutcliffe & Son, a subsidiary of US producer Craft Distillers, consists of three expressions: The Exceptional Blend, The Exceptional Grain and The Exceptional Malt, of which several editions have been released over the years. The editions are designed to vary from batch to batch, with no two the same owing to the variety of whiskies and casks used. Although each is bottled without an age statement, the constituent whiskies are listed on the back of each label.

The Exceptional is produced on a limited basis, never exceeding 3,000 bottles per batch. The brand is available globally, with its core markets being the US, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Canada.

Don Sutcliffe, managing director of Craft Distillers, first discussed collaborating on a whisky project with Willie Philips – then MD Macallan – in 1987. However it took until 2010 for the duo to start seriously working on turning their dream into reality.

The first release, which finally came in 2013, was The Exceptional Grain, followed by The Exceptional Malt in June 2015 and The Exceptional Blend in 2016. It’s rather unusual to make small-batch blended Scotch with the intention of having variation per batch, as blending has long been used to keep a product adhering specifically to a house style. With three pillars—complex, rich and layered—and a general taste for oak over smoke, The Exceptional began to blend, marry and finish their whiskies.

The Exceptional Grain

The first iteration of The Exceptional Grain (43% ABV) made its debut in 2013. Inside was a six-year-old wheat whisky from Loch Lomond, a 12-year-old corn whisky from North British and a wheat whisky from Carsebridge whisky, aged 32 years. This last distillery has been closed for 25 years. Sutcliffe put the blend in first-fill sherry casks for six months. This inaugural release was highly acclaimed and tasted of honeyed-wheat and red fruits. Sutcliffe has since produced a second iteration, and while different, it also captivated many palates.

The Exceptional Malt

The inaugural blend of The Exceptional Malt (43% ABV), released in 2015, featured eight single malts—many of which were Highland and Speyside. His second edition was a blend of 11. There’s 30-year-old Macallan inside of it, and Westport (home of Glenmorangie), as well. It’s sherry married. Surprisingly, there was a bit of peat there, but most consumers responded favourably.

The Exceptional Blend

In June 2019, Sutcliffe debuted The Exceptional Blend. This was essentially 60% The Exceptional Grain, though the third generation—and 40% of The Exceptional Malt’s second generation, with some variance. They adjusted the blend to elicit a more specific profile, back in May 2015. It was also married for six or so months, and the result is the richest of the three.

Sutcliffe’s desire was not to simply make another whisky similar to everyone else’s, or even his own. Instead, he’s evolved a category and put out a series of worthy products that add value to the industry, rather than adding to the noise.