Scotch is Britain’s top export, it was revealed shortly before Christmas last year. It is the biggest single export earner and without that river of whisky flowing overseas Britain’s balance of payments would be 11% worse. Scotch is also a huge earner for the Exchequer through excise duty and VAT.
This has not come about overnight, but is the outcome of decades of spadework by the industry which has made Scotch the “aspirational drink” throughout much of this planet. Few other drinks, apart from champagne, have such a cachet and are held in such high regard. That ever more countries, including diehard vodka-swilling Russia, are moving into whisky production is a left-handed compliment to Scotch. As the cliché goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Duty-free shops at every airport, with the possible exception of Pyongyang, have ranks of Scotch brands, both blends and single malts, on display. In French supermarkets, shelf space devoted to Scotch dwarfs that for brandy and Cognac. I can recall many US liquor stores where Scotch shared top spot alongside bourbons.
Many factors have contributed. One is the spectacular climb of single malts so they now enjoy the repute once the preserve of chateau-bottled aged clarets. Another is ever-improving global marketing and distribution.
Although each big name (Diageo, Pernod-Ricard, Bacardi, Edrington) may use existing distributors, joint ventures or wholly-owned distributors in each country, they have gained shelf space in lands as different as Germany and Gabon. With such global demand. Scotch can weather downturns even in such crucial markets as China.
Smaller firms are thriving by finding niche markets for rare malts in sophisticated markets where fans will pay over the odds for cask-strength or single cask malts that are that bit different.
That said, it’s still the big-name, big-volume blends that account for 80-90% of exports—the many hues of Johnny Walker make it the biggest-selling whisky worldwide. And for some years there has been a strong push to promote Black Label, Chivas Regal and other de luxe blends based on the marketing theme of “don’t drink more, drink better”.
