Features

Imported whiskey: From foreign shores to pubs’ doors

August 16, 2018

IT’S a case of ‘as you were’ at the top of the imported whiskey table, with all five brands retaining their positions from last year.

In fact, the category stayed reasonably static overall, with sales increasing by less than a million pounds to £44.8 million.

Jack Daniel’s, distributed in the UK by Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands, leads the category. It is also the only imported whiskey brand to appear in the top 75 brands list.

The JD range, which already included expressions such as Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, was further expanded in the past year by launches including Jack Daniel’s Red Saloon and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Rye.

The Tennessee giant wasn’t the only imported whiskey to grow its range in the past year.

Pernod Ricard, the company behind Jameson, launched a cask-strength version of the Irish whiskey in the past year as the company looked to focus on provenance.

And in Scotland, the rebranding and restructure of Maxxium UK into Edrington-Beam Suntory will have had an impact on both the Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam bourbon brands, in third and fourth places respectively.

Another bourbon, Bacardi Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve, completes the top five.

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