The Evolving Image of Scotch

[Gifted Gourmet]

the article from the Telegraph UK

The initiatives are part of a concerted attempt to reverse the decline in Scotch whisky sales by challenging the drink's "pipe and slippers" image. Sales have dropped every year since 1997 and fell a further one per cent to 113.7 million bottles in Britain in 2003.

Even some of the most recognisable names in Scotch whisky are attempting to corner the youth market. Glenfiddich, the world's best-selling single malt whisky with about 775,000 cases sold annually, has lent its name to a series of "nu jazz" concerts. A spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association said: "Scotch whisky is a diverse product and there is a place for both the traditional and the more contemporary.

Anything goes when you have to change an image and sales are dropping ... Is this type of thing going to garner the youth market?

[Libationgoddess]

Hard to say. But I can tell you that Scotch Whisky producers are definitely doing their utmost to promote the brands through serious competitions in the UK----I am witnessing this with great frequency over there, and the brands are calling on the best in the business to compete. It was impressive. I judged a competition over there last summer, and the scotch cocktails were across-the-board phenomenal.

There were 2 legs of the competition; first round were comprised of old school classics; second round were new creations. I was completely blown away by the work. The cocktails were incredibly creative, and all had great balance. And it was a pleasure because they weren't drowning in juice, either. These barmen were working with the personality of the spirit, not attempting to mask it.

That being an excellent 'in through the out door' approach----challenging expert bartenders to step up to the plate...not only to create great, scotch-based cocktails, but then having those same drinks show up on their cocktail menus. Many of us enjoy whisky, but unfortunately, as the numbers reflect, it's not translating over to the youngest generation of drinkers. So it makes sense to at least attempt to create cocktails that will appeal to that market. We've gotta try, right?

I have yet to see whisky competitions of that caliber take place over here. It was extraordinary. Maybe one day.....

Audrey

[CtznCane]

Perhaps the times they are a changing.

I am 52, and from my teens until the past year I was only a scotch drinker when it came to whiskey. Being that I coook with whiskey and my son (my gosh he is 22 now) likes bourbon I tried to revisit it. Now I like bourbon and find scotch (at least my old fovorite Johnny Walker Red) far from satisfactory. While I was a scotch drinker I would not touch bourbon for anything. Now, after drinking bourbon I find it hard to drink and enjoy scotch. Am I alone in this type of reaction?

[evilhomer]

^^being just a hair older than your son - i definitely prefer bourbon to scotch (and moreover have gone a great distance towards swaying my dad in the same direction, his dad is another story).

As an aside, I have noticed that here in Toronto glenfiddish has been sponsoring some very cool events of late, especially a great series at our recent jazz festival.

Having said that, our poor grad student liquor cabinet always, but always, has a single malt of some sort on the go and it is a particular pleasure enjoyed by many many of my peers. In this small corner of the world, fine whiskeys of all sort are enjoyed by 'the youth market' (which i guess means something very different to a liquor company from, say, a record label)

[eje]

This seems like a good thread to revive with this article:

New Scotch, without the bagpipes, W. Blake Gray

Two innovative companies in Scotland -- one founded by an American -- are determined to break the stereotype of Scotch as a tipple worthy of spending one's Social Security check on. And they're not afraid of upsetting the Scotch establishment.

They talk pretty extensively with John Glaser of Compass Box and also with Dave "Robbo" Robertson of Jon, Mark & Robbo's Easy Drinking Whisky Co., Ltd.

Interesting to note that Glaser initially didn't even want to make a scotch in the style of his "Peat Monster". But, felt he needed to, "give the people what they want." I also didn't know his Hedonism was a 100-percent grain whiskey (no barley at all).

Interesting stuff.

[Paul Stanley]

The yoof market is very fickle. When I was at university (15 years ago!) we drank quite a lot of scotch, which was thought "sophisticated". Mostly lighter/non iodine styles of single malt: Glenfiddich, Bushmills sm (OK, Irish but ...), Highland Park when we could afford it, blends like J&B. On the other hand, we drank remarkably little vodka (and then only as an alcohol-additive to disgusting concoctions such as vodka, peach schnapps and lemonade, or vodka, oj and sparkling-white-wine).

That was probably before the "rage" for single malts, coinciding as it did with a certain fetishism of the pipe-and-slippers image. Think rugged masculinity, martinis, cigar bars, etc. Solid bourgeois virtues. Ugh.

The pendulum swings naturally enough as each generation defines itself against the last. The moisturised metrosexual naturally eschews anything suggestive of dead birds plopping into rain-soaked heather. The cry goes out for "clean" spirits (fancy vodka in fragile frosted bottles), lemony-herby drinks, fruit.

Scotch probably enjoyed a rather artificial boom-time, peaking in the mid-late 1990s. It is bound to retreat. It will bounce back again. That's the thing with drink fashions: german riesling, gives way to generic-french-white, gives way to chardonnay, gives way to pinot grigio, gives way to sauvignon and now ... the smart money's drinking German again (not that AWFUL stuff we drank in the 70s of course, O no, this is a sophisticated and under-appreciated drink of miraculous sophistication). Scotch to alcopops to vodka to bourbon to ... The young drinker chooses drinks largely because s/he likes the image the drink conjures up. But the trick inevitably stops working when observations of the many other people drinking X lead one to suspect that X is drunk not just by the chic, but by the freak. And so one must move on. That's fashion. The only real oddity about it is that with each swing of the pendulum, we find that we "really prefer" the drink-of-the-moment, just as I "really prefer" my straight-cut jeans to the flared ones I "really preferred" a few years ago.

People don't so much drink what they like as learn to like what they drink. I doubt campaigns can influence it much: they are too unsubtle, and they disregard the entirely natural rhythm of the way this works.

[freshherbs]

That being an excellent 'in through the out door' approach----challenging expert bartenders to step up to the plate...not only to create great, scotch-based cocktails, but then having those same drinks show up on their cocktail menus.  Many of us enjoy whisky, but unfortunately, as the numbers reflect, it's not translating over to the youngest generation of drinkers.  So it makes sense to at least attempt to create cocktails that will appeal to that market.  We've gotta try, right?

I have yet to see whisky competitions of that caliber take place over here.  It was extraordinary.  Maybe one day..... 

Audrey

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i think you'll be seeing a lot more of this happening over here. working for (arguably) the most well-known scotch brand in the world, i have many great nyc mixologists doing some amazing cocktails with scotch--both re-makes of classics (limited selection with scotch) and new to world cocktails. we'll have to invite you over for a tasting...

alchemist, what do you think?

Edited May 18, 2006 by freshherbs (log)

[MaxH]

... The young drinker chooses drinks largely because s/he likes the image the drink conjures up.  ... People don't so much drink what they like as learn to like what they drink.

Largely maybe, Paul Stanley: not exclusively. Some people actually drink things for flavor, because they're interested in things like flavor. Exempli gratia, younger co-worker asks my opinion on malt whiskeys, having acquired a basic Macallan 12-year (widely available in large US shops for USD $35 or so). I said one can do worse, flavorwise, for $35; and if you consider a bigger budget for something fancy, like twice as much, already you cover a big chunk of the malt-whisky world. (Also, they last longer than wines, if you cork them back up.)

Sadly the bustling malt-whisky shops formerly greeting travelers in the Heathrow airport have faded. No more barrel head covered with bottles for sampling. Instead a sharp-eyed dour Scotsman. ("We canna have the whole airport using us as a free bar, young man" -- I'm not that young -- "it woon't doooo!")