3 - The Spirits Industry Flashcards
What are the two broad types of spirit company?
Those who start with raw materials and ferment, distil and mature the spirit that goes into their brands
Those who start with distilled spirit
How many producers grow their own raw materials?
Only a very small number
How do most distilleries source their raw materials?
By buying them in
Scotch Whisky producers buy their grain from…
A number of different countries
List the three main reasons why a distiller will buy in spirit
Not economically feasible otherwise
It may be unnecessary to make their own, particularly with flavoured spirits
To simply repackage and sell to consumers i.e. own brands
What’s the common practice among large Cognac houses?
To contract independent distillers to make spirit to their recipe and then to blend it with their own spirit
T or F: Producers are required by law to be explicit about who made their product
F
This is rarely the case
Why is it often not an issue that a brand is not transparent about who made their product?
Because it’s often clear enough from the label or the context that the brand was bought in
What are the two main reasons that most of the bestselling brands are owned by global companies?
Spirits can retain very high quality in very high volume
Spirits are very profitable. Companies can invest significant amounts of money into marketing and promotion, enabling them to build strong and effective brands
How can large spirit producers add interest to their brands?
By producing similarly priced alternatives e.g. flavoured vodkas
By producing tiers of ‘premium-ness’ e.g. Johnnie Walker
How is the term ‘craft’ most commonly used/taken to mean?
To refer to those companies who are small and hands-on in production
Describe craft producers in Germany, Alsace and Switzerland
They contain hundreds of small, often very old distilleries who make outstanding spirits which are rarely exported
Describe modern ‘craft distillers’
They aim to challenge large global companies by selling innovative products with a local provenance in their domestic markets
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that claims on the packaging are accurate?
Those who are putting it on sale
Labelling information needs to be…and…
Clear
Verifiable
