The Talisker 10 problem

With English whisky in the news, I explain why it’s such hard work taking on the big boys in Scotland.

It’s been a big couple of weeks for English whisky. At the end of March the English Sherry Cask whisky from the English Distillery from Norfolk won ‘single malt of the year’ at the World Whisky Awards. My mother emailed me with the news from the Daily Telegraph asking if it was some sort of joke. Well, she is Scottish. Then in more reality-troubling news, there was a story that Nyetimber, the Sussex sparkling wine producer, was going to buy the Lakes Distillery for a scarcely believable £71 million - which is about 10 times its annual revenue.

It’s definitely an exciting time for English whisky and ‘world whisky’ in general - which is defined as whisky from outside the five traditional producers: Scotland, Ireland, America, Canada and Japan. But I do wonder how many of the whisky producers in England, around 30 now, will be around in ten years time. The trouble with selling a new (ish) whisky brand is that you run up against what a former Diageo employee described to me as the Talisker 10 year old problem.