For The Love of Scotch

For
example, there’s
simply been no relief in the bad news department that
continues to haunt the decline of the
flat-to-mostly-negative US-bottled standard blended brand
segment, which has not recorded a single positive growth
year since 1994, and dropped yet another couple of
percentage points in 2OO5. But, meanwhile, in complete
bipolar contrast, the surging popularity of the lucrative
foreign-bottled single malts segment has posted only one
negative sales year since 1992. And, although representing
only 1O% of total scotch sales in the US, the malt market
has been romping forward at an increasingly impressive clip
for the past five consecutive years, expanding its brand
portfolios, introducing fascinating new bottlings, exotic
wood finishes, creating genuine consumer excitement with
stylish packages and unusually hip marketing techniques, and
attracting a significant new wave of younger scotch
aficionados who are putting to rest that old perception
disclaimer about scotch being a fusty, uncool “Granddaddy
drink” of yesteryear. Now, more and more of this 25- to
35-year-old target audience, so coveted by drinks industry
advertisers, is adopting scotch as their own spirit of
choice, while tuning into the category’s unprecedented
multitude of brands, its cornucopia of singular tastes and
different whisky interpretations, and all the subtle
refinements that this most historic and discriminating of
sipping spirit categories has to offer.

As all retailers
will tell you, yes, it may be true that consumers are indeed
drinking less today, but it’s also eminently apparent that
they are now seeking out higher quality products and the
promise of new and exciting taste discoveries which has so
much to do with what’s driving the present day single malt
segment.

Another key
aspect of the single malt success story is how these
uniquely distinctive whiskies have been able to enhance
consumer interest in premium imported blends. Increasingly,
major blended brands like Johnnie Walker, Chivas Brothers,
and, now, #1 Dewar’s, have been emphasizing the pedigree of
certain core single malts as the backbone of new trade-up
12-year, 18-year, 21-year, and still-older blended
super-premium label extensions. Moreover, some leading
blenders, most recently the Bacardi-acquired House of Dewar,
have been sufficiently inspired by current popularity trends
to enter the single malt arena for the first time with a
malt label of their own (see Aberfeldy retailer roundtable
on page 18),

Back home, here
in the robust metro-Boston scotch arena, I further explored
the scotch category with two top wholesalers, who, apart
from their red-hot single malt whisky portfolios, are
leading distributors in the blended scotch market. One of
them, United Liquors, carries the largest selection of
foreign-bottled, high-end premiums; the other, M.S. Walker,
has a commanding share of the lower-end bulk business,
including two of the leading US-bottled blended brands,
which together represent an annual volume sales of more than
one million cases in the American market.

United
distributes all the big name icons in the category,
including all the Johnnie Walker’s, the Dewar’s line,
Chivas, J&B, and many other Diageo-owned brands that
populate the blend segment at lower volume levels. Indeed, a
few years ago, United created a special Century Division,
exclusively devoted to Diageo product interests. “For the
overall scotch portfolio,” says United’s Century Division
Vice President Jim Hickey, “there’s been some aggressive
price increases over the last two years. The result has been
great sales-dollar growth. For example, Johnnie Walker Black
has grown the most out of all the types, even though it’s
already a very big brand. But it’s leading the way with
case/dollar volume, despite the price increases that have
hit upon it. It’s also become just huge a item with our
Hispanic demographic. Retail on a 75Oml is now about $3O.
Two years ago it was retailing around $25. But this hasn’t
slowed it down a bit. Then, with the Johnnie Walker higher
marques – the Blue, Gold, Green, and Swing – performances
have also just been outstanding.

“In the case of
the Johnnie Walker Swing, I realize it isn’t really a new
item, but it’s new to us,” he goes on. “We’ve pipelined a
couple hundred cases into this market, and it seems to have
gained some pretty good retailer acceptance, although we’ve
still got a lot of work to do with it on awareness,
visibility and continuing distribution.”

One of Swing’s
distinctive selling points is its singular attention-getting
package, Jim points out. It’s a uniquely-shaped bottle that
literally rocks and rolls, and it was designed by the great
grandson of John Walker, Alexander. This is the guy who
created Johnnie Walker Gold Label for the company’s 1OOth
Anniversary in 192O,” says Jim.

In fact, Gold is
growing even better than Blue, Jim indicates. “It’s now out
there in the retail market at about $7O a bottle, growing
37% and just going crazy!” he exclaims. “And the relatively
new Johnnie Walker Green label, at about $5O, is also
showing some positive development.”

The Green label
is a pure malt blend of single malts vatted together, only
the whiskies in the blend are obviously considerably younger
in age. “Green’s growth potential looks promising,” says
Jim, “but it’s a little hard to be specific, right now,
because we’d pipelined over 5OO cases into the market the
year before and this can distort the actual growth
statistics. Anyway, it’s definitely another plus in the
brand line-up item, even if not yet achieving the dramatic
growth performances, levels of awareness, trial, and
take-away that the Blue and Gold have recently been
experiencing.”

Admittedly, Jim
concedes, the one Johnnie Walker that’s struggling a little
is the big volume Johnnie Walker Red Label signature staple,
which is down there in the mix of the lower-end price
promotion battlefield of the blend market. “We’ve done some
things on price that have kept it afloat, focusing on the
1.75ml bulk size. But, let’s face it, the days of your Big
Four, which, for so many years, included Red Label, Dewar’s
White, Cutty Sark, and J&B, are over. Of course, Cutty
and J&B have been really struggling over the past 12 to
15 years, so nothing has changed in there. Today, it’s
quickly becoming just the Big Two, a battle between Johnnie
Walker and Dewar’s, where Dewar’s, from a volume standpoint,
clearly is still the leader in this Massachusetts market. I
don’t have Dewar’s exact growth statistics in front of me,
but you can be sure the figures are impressive.

“Anyway, this is
the nature and direction of the premium, super-premium and
ultra-premium blend business that I’m seeing,” he adds. “In
the beverage industry, super-premiums, in general, are
presently growing 11%, which represents by far the leading
price segment growth of distilled spirits. And the Johnnie
Walker higher marques fit into this exceptionally well,
starting with Black, which is right at that super-premium
starting level, with a 1.75 bottle priced right around $7O
to $75. The Black 1.75s, in fact, are our fastest growing
size.”

About the other
foreign-bottled blends in the United portfolio – like
Scoresby, Vat 69 Gold, King George, King William, White
Horse, and many others – these are brands all playing in the
price category arena, he points out. “This is a territory
where you see consumers with no loyalty to a specific brand,
if the price is right. But it’s a declining sub-category
within the blended segment. Overall, your bulk scotches are
declining. For instance, I’ve put a lot of energy into just
having the right price for Scoresby, which, although
declining, is still doing around 35O,OOO cases a year, and
is the #2 foreign-bottled blend nationally. And my pricing
efforts helped the brand to some extent. But this type of
price brand business is mainly about just stealing another
guy’s business or another brand’s business with pricing and
coupons, etc. It’s all about investment against price, and
that’s about it. There is no point of sale, just a coupon on
it, because that’s the demographic that’s working it. So,
the real money that’s being made in blended scotches is in
the movement to premium and super-premium price point
levels.”

Can he still get
excited about opportunities in the blend market? “No
question that it’s still a very viable part of the scotch
category,” he answers. “But, in some instances, in certain
segments, you’ve got to have a very sharp pen on a price
point. However, as you get into more premium pricing, it
becomes more about imagery and brand awareness that are
driving the growth, as opposed to just marketing price
points. I mean, you take a Johnnie Walker at any premium
level. They simply have not cared about who the competitor
is. They’re just taking price to build their imagery and
investing incredibly against the Johnnie Walker icon. And
this should not be surprising. It’s a global priority brand
for Diageo. It’s an international super-star. It is the
best-selling scotch in the world. And for us, I’ll just say
that in my Century Division blended scotch portfolio,
Johnnie Walker is the news and is my lead, without a
doubt.”

M.S. Walker
isn’t involved with any of the Big Four scotch blends, but
don’t feel in the least deprived. Why? Because what they do
have is the largest portfolio of US-bottled bulk blend
brands of any distributor in New England, as well as the
venerable bottled-in-Scotland old favorite Cutty Sark. They
also carry high-profile single malts like William Grant
& Sons #2 category leader Glenfiddich, and #4 Balvenie,
as well as the Dalmore, Glenrothes, and Isle of Jura, among
several others. We took a look at the company’s perspectives
on the scotch market with M.S. Walker’s Vice President and
Sales & Marketing Director Mike Brody, who remains
steadfastly optimistic about his company’s bulk-blend
business philosophy.

The US-bottled
segment includes all the scotches brought over in tanks and
bottled here, Brody explains, and M.S. Walker carries the
two largest sellers in America. Number one is volume brand
Clan MacGregor, from Wm. Grants & Sons, which continues
to be a very stable scotch blend that does an annual volume
of about 72O,OOO 9-liter cases in the US market. It does
very well month-in and month-out with a loyal base of
consumers, and is a distinct value within the category. His
second leading US-bottled scotch is Cluny, bottled in
Kentucky by Heaven Hill. It continues to do nearly 3OO,OOO
cases annually. “So, in this US-bottled segment of blended
scotch products that is doing over 2.6 million cases
annually, you can see we’re involved in a pretty commanding
chunk of the bulk business,” Mike points out.

“We also do a
lot of business with our own Kennedy’s scotch product,” he
goes on, “and also sell smaller amounts of scotches from
other suppliers like Barton Brand’s Muirhead, Martin’s VVQ,
now bottled in this country, and a great many others such as
Duggan’s Dew, Grand Macnish, Piper’s, Lauder’s, to mention a
few. And, of course, in the bottled-in-Scotland segment, we
have Skyy Spirits’ category classic, Cutty Sark, which
continues to hang in, nationally, in the quarter million
annual case-sale range. And Cutty, like many brands, has
been very aggressive, recently, with advertising pitched at
capturing that younger consumer base. The traditional Cutty
consumer has tended to be an older individual. What they’re
trying to do now is bring some of the Skyy Spirits vodka
brand cachet into the pitch for Cutty. And the whole
campaign is built around the idea of mixing this scotch
product in a broad variety of drink ideas.”

Another
bottled-in-Scotland product he has considerable hopes for is
the Grant’s scotch blend, which is another popular seller,
doing 15O,OOO annual cases nationally, and currently holding
a #7 position among leading US brands in this segment, just
ahead of Famous Grouse. “It isn’t yet growing in our market
with quite the momentum it now has in New York and some
other places,” Mike observes, “but it’s definitely an
excellent growth brand that’s started to do very nicely for
us right now.”

Foreign-bottled
doesn’t necessarily translate into more cachet, he contends.
“What this end of the business is really all about is price
points. It’s the difference between the premium consumer and
the value consumer. You know, you get two very good scotches
like US-bottled Clan Macgregor and Cluny, but then you have
Cutty, and you’re looking at two different consumer types.
It comes down to value versus premium, and we’re talking
about two very different category segments.

“I don’t have to
tell you that the single malt scotches are by far that part
of the category that’s growing the most. Certainly, with hot
brands like Glenfiddich, Balvenie, the Dalmore, Glenrothes,
and some of the others we have, we’re well aware of the
phenomenal single malt interest that’s out there today. And
just look at the performances of brands such as the Johnnie
Walker’s and Dewar’s, the Chivas-Glenlivet products. But our
biggest scotch segment focus tends to be within the bulk
value category and a few premium blends. And let me assure
you that the bulk end of the business is still an extremely
viable and steady part of the scotch industry.

“No, there’s not
a lot of growth to it,” he concedes, “But it’s a challenging
part of the category that’s trying to learn how to attract a
younger consumer audience. I mean, it really has to. Your
blend consumer, right now, is continuing to age, and unless
there are younger consumers coming in, in some sense you’re
fighting the graveyard. These are just the facts of life.
Either you get new consumers in your corner or you’re
talking about the cemetery. And, since scotch tends to be an
acquired taste, the way to do it is what you’d do with any
whisky – you have to direct total emphasis on mixability.
Clearly, even the biggest premium blend producers like the
Johnnie Walker’s, the Dewar’s, J&B, Chivas, they’ve all
got their work cut out for them. We’re all in the same boat
on this.

“With some of
these bulk brands like Clan Macgregor and Cluny,” Mike
observes, “they represent a definite plus for us. First, we
find there’s actually a surprisingly loyal brand consumer
base sticking with the brand, and, then, there’s also a lot
of extra added-value in what these kinds of brands can offer
to consumers. I mean, when there’s a downturn in the
economy, or when consumers start to think, ‘Jeez, I’m paying
so much for a gallon of gas, today. Where can I save a few
bucks?’ suddenly spending $4O and up for a premium scotch
blend may seem both expensive and excessive. So, they come
down and start looking at some of the bulks we sell in the
$15 range at less than half the price. And, then, they find
out when they drink it that’s it’s a very good product.
That’s why this segment tends to be stable. There’s a
consistency of slight growth or it’s at least holding its
own. All I can say is, we continue to see life in this value
end of the scotch category, and it remains a very feasible
part of our company’s spirits portfolio.”

Creative
marketing has also
been an area where scotch has been making significant
advances, particularly in appealing messages that
incorporate quirky Scottish wit, native customs, history,
traditions, and national ethos, while presenting the whole
world of scotch whisky as a fun and approachable place to
be. And perhaps there is no more entertaining example of
this contagious marketing charisma and user-friendly
approach than the irrepressibly colorful, 4O-year-old,
Hollywood-handsome brand ambassador for Chivas Brothers
blends and The Glenlivet line of single malts, Sir Jeremy
Bell, the “Sir” title being bestowed upon himself, he is
quick to point out with a characteristic hearty laugh. “I
don’t want to appear too stuffy.”

Humor, it turns
out, is Sir Jeremy’s signature selling schtick, and
belly-laughs, one-liners, hilarious and insightful anecdotes
play a key role in his demanding globe-trotting schedule of
industry events, tasting presentations to private clubs and
consumer groups, and on-premise appearances, both in this
country and abroad.

Jeremy always
wears one of his 7O celebrated, full Scottish kilt outfits.
“The truth is, life doesn’t get much better than what I do,”
he says. “I’ve found that wearing a kilt presents all kinds
of opportunities. You can walk up to almost anybody, in
almost any kind of bar, say virtually almost anything, and
it’s almost invariably taken with a pinch of salt and good
humor. I mean, who’s going to resent a guy in full Scottish
dress, bursting into an establishment, playing the pipes or
a fiddle, and announcing he’s buying a few rounds of
drinks?” And who else would have an outrageously funny
website like maninaskirt.com or pose for this magazine
wearing a Marilyn Monroe-style blonde wig with air drafting
up his kilt in a spoof of the classic Marilyn Monroe “Some
Like It Hot” movie portrait? No problem for Jeremy.
Outperforming the cheekiest shameless Australian you’ve ever
met, this guy will go to any lengths to entertain his
audiences and get them rolling with enthusiasm for his amber
liquid cause.

For instance,
for openers, what are all those trappings that are part of
the official kilt regalia? One, he explains, is a tiny
little knife, stuffed in his sock, called a sgiandhu
(meaning hidden dagger in Gaelic). “It used to be a sword,
but now is more like a backup,” he quips. “And how would you
like to be a Scotsman at a spelling bee?” he adds. Another
spelling puzzler is this furry pouch-like thing he calls a
sporran, which is basically like a belt purse. “But don’t
call it a purse in Glasgow or there might be trouble,” he
cautions, “and you certainly won’t be served any more
whisky. Ah, the kilts. God love us! ‘Come on ladies, I’m a
fashion plate!’ I say. And of course the girls all want to
know what you’re wearing underneath. It’s an obsession. If
they only knew, they’d be very disappointed, but cleverly,
in a rare stroke of Scottish genius, we’ve never told
them.”

I spent an
unforgettable afternoon in Sir Jeremy’s company discussing
scotch and all things Scottish, which provided not only a
wealth of shrewd, savvy marketing insights, caveats, and
observations about the category and a changing consumer
market, but also left me with a bad case of sore ribs from
all the laughing. “My scotch tastings are always based on
lots of laughs,” he says. “It’s a technique I call a humor
sandwich. I tell a funny joke, then get a fact in about the
whisky, then follow it up with a funny line or a toast. I
think this is the best way to get some of the information
out. There’s something already both quaint and intriguing
about the way Americans think of Scotland, whether accurate
or not. Mental images of guys in skirts, parsimonious
characters, weird and physically grueling sports like
caber-tossing and deer-stalking, where you can kill yourself
crawling over rocky landscapes, the skirl of bagpipes,
windswept briary golf courses, and a world of whiskies. It’s
an easy thing to talk about, a natural subject to romance,
and an easy culture to have fun with. So I always keep the
topic light, whimsical, entertaining, and lively.

“And, oh, yes,
let’s not forget the haggis,” he adds with a loud laugh.
“That’s all the meat we couldn’t sell to the English. People
just love all this stuff. They love the pipes, the Robbie
Burns quotes, they want to see the kilts. And I think a lot
of whisky companies seem to be getting away from all that,
sadly enough. I don’t think they realize that, especially
here with young Americans, all this is a huge turn-on. The
kilt thing is getting a lot of play nowadays. You’ve got to
keep this stuff going. It’s a compelling part of what scotch
is all about.”

No doubt this
was the whole idea behind Glenlivet’s well-publicized “Be A
Man: Wear-A-Kilt-To-Work” challenge last spring on what the
Scots call Tartan Day – April 6. The date celebrates the
existing and historical links between Scotland and Scottish
descendants overseas, with over 2O million Americans
claiming Scottish descent. For every employee in the US that
faced up to the Glenlivet-sponsored kilt-wearing challenge,
a host of companies agreed to donate a fixed sum to Direct
Relief International, a charity organization that provides
aid to victims of natural disasters, and was instrumental in
making a major contribution to survivors of the tsunami in
Southeast Asia as well as victims of Hurricane Katrina.
These are some of the things that are so important, Jeremy
feels, not only for the Glenlivet brand image, but also for
the enormous receptive goodwill feelings it creates for the
entire scotch industry.

An Economics and
Accountancy graduate from the University of Edinburgh, and
once employed as a professional accountant by Arthur
Anderson, Jeremy switched careers to scotch marketing and
has been affiliated with Chivas-Glenlivet for over 2O years.
“It’s the smartest business move I could have ever made,”
Jeremy laughs. “The way I explain it is that I went from the
accountancy abyss to the beverage bliss. But so many people
have asked me about my career change, and what prompted me
to do it, and how much they’d love to get into this kind of
work, that I now have created another website –
quityourjobanddrinkforaliving.com – which explains
everything in a tongue-in-cheek light-hearted
fashion.”

Jeremy says that
his forte has always been working with entry level scotch
consumers and even with people who don’t know anything about
scotch but want to get into it. “This is where you encounter
the main problem the scotch industry is trying to overcome,”
he emphasizes. “You have people who are almost desperate to
enjoy whisky for the romance of it, the sophistication of
it, and they actually want to acquire a taste for it. So,
that’s exactly where I come in. I call my presentations
Chivas mentoring, and it’s all about keeping it simple,
explaining Scotch 1O1, how to enjoy it, the rocks, the
water, the glass they use, and I use this tasting mat which
is a map outline of Scotland, showing the basic
scotch-producing regions, some illustrations of whisky
production steps, and some essential information about
Chivas products.”

Chivas blends
and Glenlivet single malts are, of course, splendid
world-class, best-selling examples of lighter Speyside malt
whisky styles, generally regarded as the ideal type of
whisky for an entry level palate, he points out. “Basically,
I explain to my audiences that there’s a sunny side of
Scotland to the east, and there’s a rainy side on the west
coast and the isles. I also tell them a popular joke we have
about the western Scots: ‘These people in the West don’t go
to hell; they’re too wet to burn.’ It’s an environment
that’s all about lots of rain, poor soil drainage, and
that’s why you have all these smoky whiskies from the west.
Yes, many of them are enormously popular, and that’s great.
I won’t knock it for a minute. There are many truly
fantastic whiskies. But, for entry level drinkers, many just
can’t take all that peat-reek. Instead, bring them over to
Speyside in the sunny eastern region and get them introduced
to the greatest concentration of sweet, subtle, fruity,
delicate, complex, and elegant single malt whisky tastes and
distilleries that exist in Scotland. This is the way to get
them started.

“And here’s a
problem we have in America,” Jeremy continues. “A young
person will come up to a bar and say, ‘You know I’ve heard
about these single malts. What have you got?’ The bartender
laughs, thinking, ‘I’ll teach him.’ And what does he reach
for? The Ardbeg, the Laphroaig, the Lagavulin. He pours a
dram and the young person exclaims, ‘That’s whisky? Pffft!!!
No thanks! Give me a Cosmopolitan.’ So, we’ve lost him. We
have to get these people in slowly through the Speysides,
with the sweeter, aromatic delicacies of, say, a Glenlivet
18-year-old, for instance, and through the better fragrant
blends like Chivas 12 and 18, with a pronounced Speyside
bent and a long mellow aftertaste. Get them here for
openers, and once they’re up and running and enjoying the
scotch category, then, sure, that’s the time for further
exploration and starting to have a look at those hefty,
smoky peaties from the dark side of Scotland’s great
whiskies.

“Ultimately, of
course, the objective of the single malt industry is to get
drinkers to the level where they want to try everything,”
Jeremy emphasizes. “The fact is, I see more and more
American consumers getting to this level today. And I’m not
saying that there isn’t a very definite appeal about a big
heavy smoky scotch, mind you. But it’s a pronounced
masculine identity, like what you see about all the boastful
‘my whisky is nastier than yours!’ macho posturing that goes
on at many a bar. In fact, it’s almost like a rite of
passage or wearing a badge of courage for some younger
drinkers who might be into extreme sports and are looking
for ultimate challenges. But are they truly enjoying what
scotch is all about or know what they’re missing? There’s a
joke in eastern Scotland which says that doctors actually
prescribe one of these West Coast spirits on your death bed.
It may not help you feel any better, but it will certainly
help you get used to the dirt.”

Another way
Jeremy will illustrate this regional difference to the
youthful element is pointing out that human beings are all
related to apes, and it’s a well-known fact that an ape can
discern 4OO different fruits in and out of season. “Our
senses are predisposed to enjoy the fruity flavors from the
nose,” he explains. “See a flower and you instinctively want
to smell it. See a campfire and you don’t want to stick your
head in it. So, steer away from the big peaty whiskies until
you’ve started to acquire a real appreciation for the
category. But don’t try and start on the West
Coast.”

Aside from his
busy on-going schedule of individual tasting appearances,
Jeremy is a featured focal figure during the two major
annual Chivas tours, in autumn and spring, that visit 1O key
US metro-markets, including LA and San Francisco, Dallas,
Chicago, Miami, New York, and, of course, scotch-loving
Boston. “It’s a long three-nights-a-week schedule in every
locale,” he explains, “and I will see as many as 3OO
consumers a night, two sittings. I gear my presentations to
the mentoring idea I was talking about. People first have a
cocktail hour where they’re encouraged to try Chivas and
ginger or something like a Chivas martini, which is made
with Chivas and apple flavored Pucker, and it’s amazing how
many people love these drinks. But, you know, there’s a lot
of whisky snobbery out there, and when I suggest having a
mixed Chivas cocktail before we go in and do our sit-down
tasting, at first you hear a lot of gasps at the very idea
of adding anything to whisky.

“What more
people need to learn,” he goes on, “is that there’s
something in a sweet Speyside blend like Chivas that really
brings out both these apple and ginger flavors, and people
are astonished by how much they instantly like these drinks.
However, it’s got to be a genuine full-flavored gingerale
like Schweppes, nothing from the bar gun. Just remember,
when you ask for whisky and water, and some bartender tries
giving you water out of the gun, don’t ever let them do it.
Why? Because something like Coca Cola was sitting in that
gun a minute before. So, always beware of the
gun!”

Bartender and
wait staff education is another of Jeremy’s key interests.
“When I train bartenders about serving scotch, I say,
‘Listen, these are not the types of people who are going
help themselves, so leave the bottle on the bar. And put a
little bottle of Evian or a little water jug next to it. Let
them add the water themselves. That’s the whole idea.’ So
many consumers think you should drink the whisky neat, and
they are missing the effect of when water cuts the alcohol
and frees up the bouquet. So a big part of my job is
educating people about how to enjoy it.

“I’m so often
dealing with young drinkers,” Jeremy continues, “let’s say
25- to 35-year-olds. I think many of them see themselves as
John Wayne or some macho character muscling up to the bar
and slamming down some red-eye. But as soon as I teach them
how to add a splash of water or even a cube of ice, if they
insist, their whole attitude changes. The line I like to use
about this is that nothing improves water like good whisky.
So, as soon as I get them to add a little dash, the reasons
become immediately clear. I point out that professional
tasters in the trade nose and professionally analyze
whiskies at 2O% alcohol by volume. This means a dram of
5O-5O alcohol-to-water split for nosing.”

Jeremy gets lots
of people coming to tasting events, who’ve never really
tasted a whisky. “You might ask, well why do they come to
this tasting if they didn’t fancy scotch? It’s a fair
question. But these are the ones I want. These aren’t events
where I just want whisky drinkers. Not at all. I want the
people who don’t know or think they don’t like whisky,
especially a young 25- to 35-year-old woman. ‘Why are you
here?’ I’ll ask. ‘Well, my friends came.’ I introduce her to
a 5O-5O scotch water dram, telling her to sip it, nose it.
‘You know, girls put perfume behind their ears. In Scotland,
we drink it,’ I tell her. And before she’s finished this
first scotch encounter, she’s saying, ‘My God, I can’t
believe it. Not only did I like that, but I will now order
that in a bar.’ I can’t tell you how many people I’ve
converted like this.

What really
knocks him out, he exclaims, are the people who flatly
declare, ‘No, I can’t drink whisky. It’s too strong.’ ‘Well,
what do you drink?’ I ask them. ‘Vodka.’ They think whisky’s
too strong, but they’re drinking a chilled vodka straight
up? So, a vodka drinker is easy. Colorless, odorless,
tasteless, by definition. Well, mate, welcome to color,
welcome to taste, welcome to a world of extraordinary and
fascinating nosings. And this is the line we actually use
with cocktails. You’re drinking a cocktail because you want
a fruity delicious taste. Why would your building block
start off with clear, colorless, odorless liquor? Why not
start with a Chivas and ginger, an apple martini, a Chivas
sidecar with a little bit of Triple Sec and sour mix? And
they love it. This is the way we can get a younger consumer
into the category. They try it with a little ginger, then,
later, less ginger, more whisky, and before you know it,
they’re into on-the-rocks and straight-ups, and they’re
loving it.”

The type of
drinking glass is another essential part of bartender
education, he emphasizes. “How many times in America do we
go in, order a whisky, and the bartender just drags the
old-fashioned glass through the ice bucket? My line is ‘Hold
the Hail, miss! You can’t smell any of the nuances from the
old-fashioned, and if I want to add ice to my whisky, let me
be the one do it. So, I want to see a full measure first.
And don’t add the water, especially from the gun. Leave this
whole procedure up to me.’ What I’m trying to instill in
bartenders is to really make an experience out of scotch.
Someone comes up for a Jack-and-Coke or orders a vodka
tonic, that’s entirely different. They just want a drink.
But if they ask for scotch, they want to be treated
differently. I myself was a bartender in Edinburgh for 1O
years. And if anybody came up asking for whisky, ahhh, I
would just slow down. I’d be thinking, ‘You’re one of mine.
Let’s talk.’

“Same kind of
thing when I talk about waitstaff service. When you serve a
table, don’t just take out the glasses and plop them down.
Put the bottle in the middle of a tray with a neat
arrangement of surrounding glasses. Then put the tray down.
And only then serve the whisky. There should be the same
kind of passion in serving scotch as there is in consuming
scotch. It has to be a ceremony that goes along with kilts
and bagpipes.”

Encouragingly
enough, Jeremy sees considerable recent improvement in many
of these service fine points here in the states. “I really
do feel that things are getting better in this country,” he
declares. “When I recently ordered a scotch at a bar in
Manhattan, for example, this bartender guy reached for a
wine glass, rinsed it under the hot tap, then started slowly
polishing it, as he asked me what kind of whiskies I liked.
When I’d chosen one, he puts the glass down, gets the
bottle, pours me my dram, leaves the bottle on the bar, and
then asks how many ice cubes would I like or here’s a jug of
water. It was perfect.

“The whole point
is, I think there’s a mystique about even ordering a scotch,
unlike any other spirit, and we must train the bar staff to
serve it this way, and train the consumer to expect to get
it this way, and certainly not in an old-fashioned tumbler
heaped with ice. And it’s not just about mystique, you know.
It’s because there’s a reason. More than any other spirit,
scotch is a spirit that needs to be customized to an
individual’s specifications. That’s a major part of its
beauty. As I said, it’s all about creating a whisky moment,
and, by the way, for bartenders, that’s where the tip comes
from. You give someone this moment, along with some
information and helping them through it, and your service
will be appreciated and, in most cases, richly
rewarded.”

Does Sir Jeremy
see convincing evidence of a more sophisticated approach to
drinking in general in the US? Are more consumers looking
for something with real taste, higher quality, distinctive
style? “More younger people want to discover and savor
today, rather than slam it down,” he observes. “And when I
talk about it, I approach it as a maturing thing. Whatever
you did or are doing in college, I don’t want to know about.
But you’re an adult now, and alcohol is very much a part of
an adult and professional lifestyle. I actually have a lot
of consumers who come to my mentoring sessions, and I ask
them, ‘Well, why are you here?’ It turns out they’re getting
interviewed for jobs, and a lot of the interviewers are
whisky drinkers. Well, when you get interviewed by the boss
or a partner, this is not the time to ask for a cold frosty
one. You have to show a wee bit of maturity. And to say,
‘I’ll have a whisky, please,’ and know a wee bit about it,
and how to serve it, this is a defining moment in the
impression you make. So, to answer the question, yes, I
think a lot of people are first attracted to the scotch
category because of the sophistication and mature image that
goes along with drinking it. Indeed, it might make a
difference of thousands of dollars on your
paycheck.

A vivid case in
point, Jeremy remembers with a chuckle, was when he was
interviewed by Arthur Anderson right after university. “All
the other job candidates were ordering a pint of beer. But
as soon as I said ‘I’d like a whisky, sir,’ this partner
came up to me, started talking, then found out I had this
passion for scotch, and I was the guy who got the position.
It was definitely a career plus for me. Anyway, the line I
like to use is ‘Now, you are here to sip and savor. There is
nothing like a whisky moment.’ Just think about it. When you
get home, there’s the deep leather armchair, ticking clock,
open fire. That’s a perfect whisky moment. But also in a
bar, as well, to choose a whisky and know about it, and
share it with friends, these are also enjoyable whisky
moments that are endlessly fascinating. This might sound
like romancing it, but the fact is you can’t romance scotch
too much and all the things it represents.

What does Jeremy
see really changing about the scotch consumer audience?
“Well, take the recent development with Chivas, for example.
When I first started working with their consumer audiences
1O years ago, I was sitting people down, explaining the
definition of a blend versus the definition of a single
malt, how to add the water, and simplifying it with this
whisky tasting map. Now, it seems we’ve upgraded to a higher
level of consumer awareness with what’s called experiential
marketing. We want to make the whole thing more of an
experience. For example, at a recent event we had models
dressed up as cocktails – skinny little legs together were
the stem of the glass, and their arms were stretched out to
form a martini glass-like outline. And they were wearing
these beautiful expressions. Very theatrical, of course, but
people were just blown away. ‘Whaaat is happening???!!! . .
. Wow! Scotch!!!’

“Or let’s say
you want to come to one of my tastings at the Boston Harbor
Hotel,” he continues. “Today, you get a beautiful invite to
the Chivas Experience. You get greeted in an extraordinary
way, and the venue imparts an almost bizarre uniqueness. We
choose amazingly distinctive clubs and venues around the
country, like the Boston Harbor’s upper level high-domed
rotunda area. In New York, we picked a converted and
gorgeous synagogue venue with flashing red lights outside.
Two girls, with two absolutely ethereal white ostrich
feather fans, are greeting you. The fans open and there I
am, the Man-in-a-Skirt. ‘Hello! Be welcome. Help yourself to
a cocktail.’ They go to the bar and help
themselves.

“There’s a
catwalk stage. There’s a belly-dance show. There’s some kind
of meringue-samba-tango dance exhibition. I come in and give
everyone a Scotch 1O1 presentation for about three minutes,
just to squeeze their attention. Then, bang, back to the
dancing, back to the fun. We have a strolling sax player,
there are flair bartenders juggling. We give away $1OO,OOO
to someone who wants to live the Chivas life. All you have
to do is spend 1OO grand in a year. Can you do that, people?
We give away $1OO in Traveler’s checks. We give someone a
beautiful dinner for two. We give away a spa
vacation.

“What all this
is saying is that whisky is luxury,” Jeremy emphasizes.
“It’s exciting. It’s about exploring and opening your
horizons. It’s about pure opulence. There’s a Chivas Life, a
buzz, that’s evident. But never do we say go and buy our
whiskies. We don’t have to. They decide for themselves.
‘This really is cool,’ they’re already thinking. ‘This is
real. I’ve always wondered what whisky was. Now I’m drinking
it.’ It’s like the off-beat dazzle of the Cirque de Soleil,
a fantasy world. It’s whimsical, even surrealistic. You have
to come into the territory and become part of the
imaginative realm. And then you’re hooked.

“So, this is all
about bamboozling people with just a fantastic creative
night. They leave thinking ‘Scotch! This is the life!’ And
next time they go to their favorite bar, they’ll want to tap
into more of this, drinking our products, something
authentic, something hand-crafted. It was started back in
18OO, but it’s still the coolest thing in your bar today.
That’s what we’re trying to turn people onto with less
information, and more just big experience. Anyway, this is
the major change I’ve seen, and all kinds of scotch
companies are getting into this experiential marketing
approach.”

Another change
Jeremy sees is the larger number of professional women today
who are networking in bars. “A drink can say so much about
you, of course, but women are not always confident about
ordering drinks, and they’re particularly eager to learn
more about scotch,” he points out. “So several women’s
professional organizations have been asking me to come and
conduct seminars for their memberships, doing my Scotch 1O1
mentoring about how to order it and how to feel confident
about the category. I can’t tell you the number of women who
first declare they have no liking for whisky, but end up
loving it. Another line I often hear is, ‘I would have been
afraid to order something. I wouldn’t have known what to ask
for.’ Now, they’re feeling more empowered and are also able
to tell the boys a wee bit about it, too. So, this
definitely is a change.

“All this
indicates that more people today are seeking out information
so they can order our scotch products,” Jeremy contends.
“And if they want to learn how to order scotch, the desire
for our products is already there. All we have to do is make
it more accessible. And, by the way, I don’t think that a
lot of the whisky aficionado product writers and critics who
write these very winey-type descriptions of whisky are
helping. Many people get a wee bit scared and intimidated.
We’ve got to keep it simple. I mean this isn’t rocket
science.”

Jeremy also sees
some major changes taking place in advertising. “You can
advertise everywhere, and a lot of people simply won’t pay
attention. ‘Oh, that ad’s about whisky. I don’t drink it, so
forget about it.’ So, familiar normal advertising doesn’t
necessarily attract new consumers to the category. What does
work is what I’m involved with. It’s sitting someone down in
a luxurious, beautiful, relaxed, very cool atmosphere, and
helping them make the mental connection themselves. Then,
they sip it and exclaim, ‘My goodness, this really is
delicious! What a natural spirit. There’s really nothing
like it.’ And, you know, the truth is, they’re
right.”

Another cause
for excitement in the single malt segment has been a growing
appreciation for the limited, often rare special offerings
of Scotland’s independent bottlers like Signatory,
Cadenhead, Black Adder, Adelphi, Hart Brothers, and, most
prominently, the world’s oldest and leading independent malt
whisky specialist, Gordon & MacPhail. This has always
been something of an arcane connoisseur’s corner for
collectors in the popular scotch consumer marketplace, and
represents only a tiny niche in the category at-large.
However, finally, it’s beginning to get the respect and
recognition it richly deserves, as more and more scotch
drinkers discover that this is the one and only place where
they can find many of the world’s greatest single malt
whiskies, and more and more people are willing to pay the
price.

Matt Chivian is
the CFO and Scotch portfolio director for Norwood-based
Classic Imports, which became Gordon & MacPhail’s
exclusive importer in the US a couple of years ago. “This
has proved to be an excellent product fit for us,” says
Matt. “Classic has always been noted for an extensive
international selection of unusual hand-crafted artisan
wines, and these are limited-edition artisan whiskies, some
of them extraordinarily old and rare, and some of them with
all kinds of exotic wood finishes and single barrel
interpretations of distillery brands. It’s a niche market
that’s been catching on at the consumer and retail levels,
and without meaning to sound too corny, it’s really been an
honor for us to get the chance to take on this product and
try and build a distribution network around the country with
it.”

The Gordon &
MacPhail name certainly opens the door in most places, Matt
emphasizes. After all, these are the people that kind of
invented the independent bottling category. The firm was
founded back in 1895 by James Gordon and John MacPhail. The
original business combined groceries with wines and spirits,
and there was always a bit of leaning towards the whisky. Up
to this point, all of Scotland’s whisky products – like the
early Dewar’s and Johnnie Walker’s – were blends sold in the
back of grocery shops, and, in similar fashion, Gordon &
McPhail blended whisky under its own label from stocks they
got from other distilleries, selling it from barrels out in
the back of their store.

During the first
year of business, they hired John Urquhart, who specialized
in the whisky and wholesale side. “And, as John was
developing as a master blender and tasting all these
whiskies,” Matt explains, “he thought they had unbelievable
characteristics of their own. So, they started marketing
some of these as stand-alone single malt products. Thus was
born the whole single malt whisky idea. Urquhart’s son
George joined the firm in 1933 and was the guiding force who
took the whole single malt business to a new higher level.
Today, a third generation of Urquharts run the firm, and a
fourth generation of the family has also come aboard. So,
it’s a deep history of family ownership and traditions, and
with all the consolidations, buyouts and shifting of brand
ownerships going on in the present day scotch industry,
these wonderful family stories and the heritage they
represent are increasingly rare.

“But, of course,
traditions don’t necessarily make the sale,” Matt continues.
“It always comes back to what you’ve got in the bottle. And
this is where they really excel. They’re just about the only
independent bottler out there buying new-make spirit right
off the stills, then having it put into barrels of their
choosing, and then making all the decisions about the entire
aging process, and bottling when they think it’s ready, etc.
And when they do a finished whisky, like in a Tokay or Port
barrel or whatever, it’s not just an in-and-out thing as
with so many other finished scotch products. It’s been in
there from six to 24 months to really get a flavor, and not
one of those things where you do two barrels and then vat 2O
together. If theirs says Port, it means that all the whisky
has spent time in a Port barrel. So, it’s one of the very
few whisky producers that are still truly hand-crafted,
something similar to all the very small boutique wineries
that dot the countryside.”

Among the many
choice whiskies in his G&M portfolio, Matt talks about
the celebrity single malt, Mortlach, which legendary scotch
critic Michael Jackson considers one of the truly splendid
examples of a hearty Speyside style for its combination of
smokiness, maltiness, fruitiness, complexity, sherrywood
notes, and depth of character. “But it’s always been
traditionally produced mainly for blending,” Matt points
out. “However, the Urquharts have been buying selected casks
from this distillery since the early 193Os, and from our
G&M portfolio, today, we can presently offer a young
12-year-old Mortlach bottled at cask strength, a 15-year-old
at 4O%, a 21-year-old at 46%, and then, because of G&M’s
ancient stocks, a 32-year-old, a 44-year-old, a 5O- and
51-year-old, and we actually go back to pre-WWII
distillation dates of 1939 and 1936. We can go back almost
this far with rarities from Linkwood, Glen Grant and even
very old Glenlivets. We also have a 5O-year-old Macallan
special bottling that sells for $29OO a case. None of these
whiskies are inexpensive, obviously. But there are a lot of
connoisseur customers out looking for them.

Other notable
G&M rarities he points to are whiskies from long-dead
distilleries like Rosebank which closed in 1993 or Islay’s
Port Ellen which closed in 1983, also a 32-year-old bottling
of 1974 Glencadam which closed in the early 198Os. “The
independents are the only ones who can keep these names
alive,” he emphasizes. “It’s almost like being a museum
curator, except in this case, once an exhibit piece is gone,
it’s gone.”

Matt agrees that
there is still a lot of confusion about the differences
between distillery-bottled single malt whiskies and those
bottled by the independents. “By definition, a single malt
is a whisky from a single distillery,” he explains. “When
they do, let’s say a Macallan 18, they probably take
hundreds of barrels, and the mixing of those barrels is
called a vatting. And unless you’re bottling a single cask
as a single cask, all the single malts are vatted together
to get the signature house style or house profile. But even
if all the barrels have the same age, each one has slightly
different characteristics. So it gets into the remarkably
fine art of a master blender’s mixing and matching
talents.

“However, quite
a few of the whiskies bottled by G&M are just single
barrels,” Matt goes on, “and so, even though it’s the same
whisky, you’re going to have some variations in flavor in
the different bottlings which, I think, is one of the major
joys and key fascinations of what the independent bottling
industry represents. You’re not always getting the same
whisky. For instance, one year, we might bottle a very
limited 14-year-old Glentauchers at 43%. Then, we might take
a look and see what stocks they have for us, and decide to
produce a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old, and feel the best
proof is 46%, or possibly bottle it as a cask strength
whisky. It’s just a constantly fascinating creative part of
the scotch industry that’s always a work in progress. And
the important thing is that it keeps offering such
sophisticated appeal and varied whisky interpretations for
knowledgeable consumers.”

To pursue the
fine art of independent bottling a bit further, I was able
to contact Gordon & MacPhail’s third-generation family
owner, Michael Urquhart, at his company’s headquarters in
Elgin, Scotland, the heart of the Speyside region. How does
he select the whiskies, and what is he looking for looking
for, I asked? “We buy from a majority of distillers, and
have a constant ongoing yearly program of filling,” Michael
explains. “We make decisions about whether to bottle a
years-old whisky, or whether to bottle it more possibly as a
vintage. If it’s a vintage, it might mean that we’re going
to do a 199O for this year’s release. But when that offering
runs out, we look at the whiskies that we’ve got about that
age, and decide what we think is the best representation of
that whisky. For instance, this one needs another year or
two in cask, or this one is perfect right now. So, it could
be that a 199O is followed by a 1985. In other words, the
older is by no means necessarily better.”

So, this isn’t
like a vertical progression of wine vintages, then? “Not at
all,” Michael emphasizes. “There’s much more of a variation
coming through from different ages of the same distillery
scotch, because each cask has its own unique identity. Some
mature quicker than others. So we’re always working our
bottling list from very careful individual cask analysis. In
the American market, if it’s a years-old whisky we have to
put a years-old statement on the label. If it’s a vintage,
we have to declare how many years it’s been matured in
casks. Our portfolio for American export is meticulously
regulated and monitored. Presently, we have about 12O
different whisky expressions in America right now. It’s a
pity that we can’t export 7Ocl bottles to the states,
because so many of our total 36O different whiskies are only
in that European size. But we’re trying to build it up the
US inventory as we go along, and seeing what the market’s
looking for.”

Michael is
encouraged by what he sees happening in the American scotch
market in recent years. “There’s just so much more knowledge
about malt whiskies out there, today, more sophistication
about how to drink them, more consumer tastings to go to,
more product information to read about, resulting in so much
more appreciation for what quality scotches represent. We’re
seeing