Chinese Drink Malt Whisky Stocks Dry

[Charlie]

I was just reading in the Times online that so much whisky is being exported that warehouses are being emptied and distilling companies are having to ration supplies.

The shortage affects only the industry's most expensive brands - 12-year-old and older malts - sales of which are booming, especially in the world's fastest-growing economy, China. Production in the 1990s, when they were first distilled, hit a low. Hence the shortage and a £500million boom in building new distilleries and expanding old ones.

Emrys Inker, spokesman for the Edrington Group, makers of the Macallan, the world's third largest-selling whisky by volume, said: "It does look as though for certain ages of single malts, demand is exceeding supply. We can certainly sell everything we have got at the high end of the market."?

He said that sales of Macallan and Highland Park, another Edrington brand, had been particularly strong in the four countries believed to have the strongest potential for economic growth - Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"For this year's brands, particularly Macallan, there has been some form of rationing or allocations to these markets,"? he said.

Total whisky production in 1993, a low point in the industry's recent fortunes, when distilleries were being closed, amounted to 351million litres. Worldwide sales of all whiskies in 2007, including much younger blended varieties, totalled 495million litres.

You can read more at the times online:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5533351.ece

Charlie