Bagging Scotland

Not Simon Cowell’s wages but the incredible amount of dosh that Scotch Whisky generates for the UK coffers. £109-every second, that’s….a lot!!

Although whisky consumption in Scotland and the UK in general is actually nothing to write home about (it’s actually decreasing in a lot of areas) it’s a different story everywhere else on the planet.

Sales in ‘developing’ markets are absolutely soaring! Last year, Brazil saw  a 12 per cent increase to £67million,  Russia went up 61 per cent, India up 46 per cent and China increased sales by 24 per cent, to £55million. These figures sound exciting, but what’s really exciting is that we’re only scratching the blinking surface of these absolutely VAST markets, the biggest potential sales territories on Earth. The biggest ‘Whisky Live’ that takes place at the moment is in Taiwan. Least year, over 12,000 thirsty Asian, whisky-lovers turned up, ten times the amount that show up for the Glasgow event!

The late Baggin' Waggon at Caol Ila Distillery on Islay during Feis Ile (Islay Festival) which runs in the second half of May.

Scotland’s in an incredibly strong position here and when you look at distilleries like Caol Ila investing £millions, ‘new’ distilleries opening and most if not all of the others showing impressive growth, it’s a great time to be involved with Whisky. Diageo has spent over £600M over the last six years on Scotch whisky operations.

Last year, we toured round their new Diageo ‘super-distillery’ at Roseisle near Elgin. It’s an astounding place and gives really meaning to the phrase ‘state-of-the-art’ It took us a number of minutes to drive round it! For those of you who reckon whisky’s still a bit of a ‘cottage industry, you can see what we mean, click here!

The exciting thing is as well as the ‘big boys’ there are a number of ‘artisans’ and Independents who are jumping on the Internet Marketing bandwagon. They are now able to really exploit the niche of being small, which a decade or so ago was the very thing that sounded the death knell for a lot of distilleries here. In the 21st Century, small can be good. It also means (if you look at Ardbeg for example) that if you’re quite different and very unique, you can charge premium prices.

Scotch Whisky is UNIQUE and although anyone can make Whisk(e)y, only Scotland can make ‘Scotch’! It’s yet another Scottish aspect on uniqueness that we take for granted! We’re really keen to get native Scots excited, in the same way that the Brasilians, Russians and Chinese are.