The popularity of Scotch whisky has had a rocky ride these last few centuries. At different times the drink associated with Highland peasants and with stuffy aristocracy, whisky is only now breaking away from its stereotypical niche market appeal and reaching out to pretty much everybody…
The distilling business is proclaiming the drink is entering a “Golden Age”. Whisky has certainly found burgeoning fan bases everywhere from the U.S to Japan, and even to Germany, traditionally a nation of schnapps and beer drinkers.
In all its forms, over one billion bottles of whisky were sold worldwide in 2007. You don’t get such statistics simply by catering to the elite. Yet the secret to the whisky business boom seems to be the rise, against the odds, of the single malt.
The Rise of the Single Malt
When whisky production became a government-condoned, wide-scale operation in the 19th century, single malt was developed in small quantities to appeal to a local market whilst the world outside Scotland was introduced to blended Scotch.
For the next century, blends (appealing with simple tastes and low prices) would circulate the globe whilst single malts remained in obscurity. When Glenfiddich marketed the first single malt in 1965 the venture was considered preposterous. Even when Diageo, the biggest name in the whisky industry, promoted its range of “Classic Malts” in the 1980s, it was feared the single malt concept wouldn’t be appreciated beyond Scotland.
Yet blends have taken a tumble in important markets like the US. Meanwhile, demand for single malts grows. Distillery owners like Diageo have become multinational companies capable of promoting globally like never before.
The last few years have also seen growth in on-line whisky shops, where you can become a whisky connoisseur in your own home rather than making a fool of yourself in a store or in a pub. With promotion comes increased public awareness: global markets have therefore developed a taste for the eclectic.
Scotland: The Home of Whisky
More than perhaps any consumer product in any other country, whisky can claim intrinsic links with the land where it has become famous. Its history ties in with Scotland’s, right back to the first Celtic missionaries; its flavour is precisely that of the peaty hills and snowy mountains for which Scotland is renowned. Authenticity is attractive to whisky consumers: helped by pretty pictures, they feel single malts give them a real cultural chunk of Scotland. When you add the question of age to this equation, a 25 year-old malt must logically be, to even the most inexperienced whisky drinker, a very special product.
Distilleries now make millions from opening their doors to the public and finding a myriad ways to entertain prospective customers. Smiling girls are there for advice on different distillery products (if you’re more a Bailey’s person, there are snazzy whisky liqueurs). Bladnoch Distillery in southern Scotland stands in as both a gig venue and campsite. Speyside, Scotland’s main whisky-producing region, even has a festival combining the unlikely worlds of whisky and heavy metal. Quality whisky, of course, is the common denominator, and it’s engaging the masses in all shapes and forms.
The Exclusivity of the Single Malt Appeals to us all
The exclusivity factor of single malt whisky is still there. Now the message simply is: everybody can have a piece of it. In this age of often unbearable uniformity, single malt whisky is a bastion of that increasingly rare phenomenon: individuality. Branding is the key: by purchasing single malts, we believe we are getting a product not everyone gets.
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