Podcast: Scotland Warning- A Shortage of Whisky Ahead?
Time: 6 minutes Spoiler alert: Scottish distilleries have announced a shortage of single malt whiskey is coming in 2019/2020. It remains to be seen how the distilleries will address this, but the overall concensus is that the Scots will probably not take the shortage quite so well.
Quotes:
"I don't think the Scots will take the shortage quite well, to be honest with you"
"You guys can vote on it, you're our customers, there's two options."
"They could not anticipate 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and 18 years ago, what the market would be like today. So they just, they didn't cask enough."
"The process for blended whisky is a matter of months, rather than a matter of years. And it's just to try and give people another option than to just buying the single malt whisky. "
Remember: You can read the show notes below but they are edited for readability and you can't read that Scottlish accent! It's ALWAYS better to hear the story told first person through the Scottish voice. Like what you hear? Listen to more of James' Scotland stories from the A Midlife Traveler podcast on Spreaker If you enjoy what you hear we always appreciate any reviews, downloads, comments and follows!
SHOW NOTES A Midlife Traveler Podcast; Season 1 Scotland Speaks EPISODE: Warning: A Shortage of Single Malt Scottish Whiskey Ahead Listen on Spreaker.com
Scottish Distilleries Announce Single Malt Whiskey Shortage Coming in 2019 /2020
But because of this huge market, most of the distilleries announced last year, the 2019 2010, there is going to be a shortage. Because they could not anticipate 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and 18 years ago, what the market would be like today. So they just, they didn't cask enough.
So we're not sure what we're going to do about that.
Learning from Past Experiences; a Bourbon Company Let Customers Vote
A shortage like this happened before. I believe it was either Bullet bourbon or Maker's Mark, the same thing happened to them.
Their whisky got, their bourbon got very popular, and so it should as a quality bourbon, and they announced the customers "Look guys, we're gonna have a shortage, because when we barreled the stuff eight years ago, we didn't know how popular."
So they gave their client base an option, and I thought that was quite kind of them. They said "You guys can vote on it, you're our customers. There's two options:
1) We run out. That's the first option, we run out.
2) What we have in our batch barrels, we water it down slightly and we discount the price of the whisky."
Could Scottish Distilleries offer Option #2?
So I don't know if we would be allowed to do that (watering down batch barrels), or if we would get away with that in Scotland, because that changes the ruling of single malt. Or if we'll just... you know, I don't think the Scots will take a shortage quite well, to be honest with you. So we'll just need to wait.
Scottish Distilleries Prepare for the Shortage by Increasing Blended Whiskey
And what we're starting to see, and they're already anticipating the shortage, 'cause a lot of these single malt distilleries, Tomatin, Dalwhinnie, so on and so forth, they're starting to produce a lot more blended whisky. Which, the process for blended whisky is a matter of months, rather than a matter of years. And it's just to try and give people another option than to just buying the single malt whisky.