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Tomorrow’s World IT’S NEVER BEEN EASY TO ACCURATELY PREDICT WHAT’S LIKELY TO HAPPEN IN THE WORLD OF WHISKY, BUT, AS DOMINIC ROSKROW REPORTS, IT ALL JUST GOT A LOT HARDER
“If one more person talks about ‘a new normal,’ I think I’m going to hit them.” Who can’t empathise with this exclamation of frustration from one anonymous social media pundit? For in our increasingly dumbed down world of sound bites and slogans (thank you, Mr Trump), ‘a new normal’ is particularly dumbed down and meaningless. There will be no ‘new normal.’ in the short and medium terms certainly, there will be no new world order. The pandemic hasn’t just cost the world hundreds of thousands of lives, it has tipped economies across the world on their heads, emptied their contents and strewn them far and wide, and left us all to try and pick up the pieces. And around the world that’s what we’re now starting to do. Trouble is, different countries are tidying up at
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different rates, and where once the world economy worked in some form of harmony, the teutonic plates more or less shifting in the same direction, now it’s shattered and scattered, and it’s every person for themselves in a market free for all. Frankly, the view from the bar in Melbourne right now is a million miles away from the view from the bar in Manchester. It may well be that never again will a global brand ambassador fly business class from Glasgow to Sydney, stay in a top hotel, and host three or four dinners/tasting events for 20 or 30 bar managers, bloggers and opinion formers. Instead local brand ambassadors will host events simultaneously in cities across Australia and New Zealand and the global brand ambassador will link through Zoom from one of his or her distilleries. In this way he or she can take his viewers in to the still rooms and warehouses,
show them the rugged shoreline of Loch Indaal or the dramatic slopes of Benrinnes, adding a truly local flavour to proceedings. There are two other areas that I think will flourish in the months going forward. Firstly, for some time now the big companies have acknowledged that whiskies from around the world are attracting new drinkers, and that such whiskies are not attempting to emulate the wonderful flavours of Scotland and Ireland. More than that, they have accepted that the people making whisky in Sweden, Denmark and Australia know more about local wood and peat, and what appeals to the domestic palate than they do. Diageo is so committed to the concept that it is funding Distill Ventures, a company set up to seek out at the best new distillery businesses and to guide and mentor them while allowing them to control their
