A sense of gloom hangs over much of the travel retail industry as 2025 gets underway. While total international airline traffic did increase by 1%…
A sense of gloom hangs over much of the travel retail industry as 2025 gets underway. While total international airline traffic did increase by 1%…
India drinks a lot of whisky – around half of the world’s output is sold there. It makes a lot too. According to the most recent edition of DI’s Millionaires’ Club, the top four bestselling whisky brands in the world are all Indian and the country is only prevented from a top five medal sweep by Johnnie Walker in fifth. India’s relationship with whisky is…
At the end of November Mark Reynier, owner of Renegade rum in Grenada and the man behind the revival of Islay’s Bruichladdich distillery, announced that Waterford Whisky had entered administration. Inside Irish whiskey circles there were murmurs of the brand’s struggles, but the news came as a shock to the wider industry given the brand’s strong reputation. Reynier launched Waterford Whisky (without an E) in…
This article first appeared in the Drinks International Rum Supplement which can be read in full here Cuba is synonymous with rum. Several of the industry’s biggest names have historical ties with the Caribbean island and Ron Matusalem’s 150-year-old story began in Santiago de Cuba when Spanish immigrant Pablo Nonell bought his own distillery in 1872. There he developed the Matusalem name and was one of the…
Independent bottlers are the tastemakers of the whisky world. It’s a business model that operates on the strength of a company’s ability to find amazing liquids and know when is the right moment to release them to the public. Companies like Gordon & MacPhail, Adelphi and Claxton’s have built legacy on bottling some of Scotland’s most hard-to-find and prestigious drams for an audience of the…
According to DO Cava, the yields for Catalonia have dropped from 300 million kilos in 2021 to 230 million in 2023, with 2024 expected to be even lower. That’s a loss equivalent to around five times the total production of English wine. DI caught up with Javier Pages, president of DO Cava, who says: “The lack of rainfall has created lots of problems, economic problems…
The narrative of cream liqueurs over the past few decades has been that of a stagnant category dominated by Baileys; a category which is hugely popular during the festive period and winter months and one that’s synonymous with desserts and after-dinner occasions. However, while Baileys remains the dominant force, consumers have evolved significantly in the 21st century in terms of their wellbeing, dietary decisions and…
This article first appeared in the Drinks International Rum Supplement which can be read in full here Since 1924, a total of 42 tropical cyclones have officially peaked as category five Atlantic hurricanes, the highest rating given to a storm that has top wind speeds of more than 158mph (254 km/h). These hurricanes frequently pass through some of rum’s most established and important regions, with Cuba, Jamaica,…
