Localism in whisky

no change here…

There’s a lot of talk about a new localism once the pandemic passes. Globalism adds a structural weakness to the production chain. In a future which is likely to be evermore disrupted the most robust choice for jobs and supplies will be local produce.

Nothing represents the qualities of an area better than the food and drink which comes from the land and the local environment; cheeses, wines and spirits, meats, pies and pasties come to represent the place where they are produced.

People know this instinctively and they visit these producers to seek out what makes them special, to find out what the place adds to the product.

It’s my opinion that Britain’s food and drink culture was mortally wounded by wartime rationing, then the phoenix was kept from being re-born by some kind of inferiority complex which came from visiting our European neighbours and glorifying their simple and healthy cuisine. It’s the rain that makes this a green and pleasant land, but perhaps if the sun shone more in the UK we’d stay at home and appreciate our own food and drink culture more.

The more confidence we get in our own produce the more we celebrate our places by, well, eating and drinking them. These products don’t only represent the place in which they are made, they create jobs and become a focal point for a town or village to call their own. As employers, and increasingly as visitor attractions, they give back to their people.

My focus is on whisky, which is so tied up with evocative parts of Scotland and Ireland (and increasingly England and, let’s face it, the whole of Europe) that it is impossible to separate from place. It’s a luxury product, so it provides well paid employment for the communities where it’s made.

Whisky is one of the local products with the most global reach. You can be quietly making spirit in a glen or a valley, disturbing nobody, creating a product which - years later - will be drunk anywhere in the world. And it will be chosen for its unique local character and manner of production. That’s a paradox isn’t it? International sales rely on globalism, great for the balance of payments yet by the same token these sales have an inbuilt weakness and risk.

The part of the business which distillers can focus upon and celebrate is the production which is hyper local and therefore utterly robust. Unlike overseas sales it doesn’t rely upon international shipping, or the state of the global middle class, or regulations about Chinese graft. It only takes barley - increasingly local barley - water and yeast. Power for distillation is the next piece of the jigsaw to be localised and this will be the story of the next twenty years for the whisky world. Expect some cutting-edge green energy projects to be funded by these businesses. Casks come from the States or Spain. Will we see a rise in the use of local oak? Almost certainly. There have been experiments carried out with Scottish Oak in the past. MacMyra uses local Swedish oak in their production.

Beyond the benefits of local production distilleries often have owners which are generous to their communities. They know that without the community they have no support and therefore no workers. They are businesses which have the family values of times gone by: Springbank gives back to Campbelltown by not automating things which could be automated, and by keeping people employed instead. This holding back the tide of modernity no doubt comes at a cost to the bottom line. But it makes for a robust industry, the local community and knowledgeable buyers know this to be the case. It is reassuringly old fashioned, entirely as whisky should be.

Bruichladdich employs 86 people on the small island of Islay – to think it was mothballed until 2001. It has quickly become part of the very fabric of the place, as you go around the island you’ll see their blue signs up on field gates stating that this barley is being grown for them.

And now in times of pandemic many of these distillers have switched their focus from the long-term production of spirit for maturation to the short-term production of alcohol for cleansing.

They continue to serve their local communities by producing hand sanitiser for hospitals, care homes and all. The feared excise man of old has joined with the distillers in a virtuous partnership for local towns and villages. Robust local businesses, with the goodwill of the community, make this good thing happen.