It’s hilarious, but it’s no joke – and somehow knowing that doesn’t make it any more believable. The acquisition of Casamigos is one of the most surreal witnessed in the drinks industry in the past decade – it could have been the narrative of a high-end rouse in Clooney’s Ocean’s 11; Diageo the Duped High Roller. Even for a company with annual revenues of £10bn,…

The move earned the brewery considerable media coverage, much of it ridiculing brewery owner Humphrey Smith for such a draconian and Victorian-like edict. But the staff weren’t laughing. Humphrey’s not the sort of guy you mess with – it’s said he visits pubs in disguise and is uncompromising if he does not find service exactly as he wants it. There are two branches to the…

“Now I am the gin maker, who is also making whisky.” Szor is at the epicentre of a craft distilling phenomenon that has swept across the world and, in the case of gin, has taken root across England in particular. Szor will bottle his first whisky in the autumn, when it reaches three years old. And in those three years gin has undergone a major…

Fancily-packaged XO cognacs, ultra-premium blends, rare vintage single malts and premier cru Bordeaux wines have sat on any airport travel retail shelf where Chinese travellers pass by in any number. Similarly, I have lost count of the number of press releases I’ve seen breathlessly detailing yet another Chinese New Year gift pack or limited edition, suitably decorated in lucky red and gold and proudly displaying…

Get it right and the rewards – in the shape of intense brand loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz (“this is the wine from that place I told you about, the one we went to when we were on holiday”) – are potentially enormous for wine producers. Get it wrong, however, and they run the risk of tumbling into the specific circle of hell known as the…

Penned a few weeks before that nation-splitting vote, the prospect of the UK cutting its ties to the EU after more than 40 years seemed unlikely and few in the industry were seriously contemplating it. Twelve months on and Article 50 has been triggered. Two years of bitter wrangling between the UK government and Brussels about who gets to keep what and who owes what…

Do people really stop and say: “Oh look, they have fine spirits there. We really must pop in.”? Or eye a pub without such wording suspiciously and say: “Well, it looks nice, but there’s no indication that its ale is fine, so let’s give it a miss.”? I think it’s a reassurance thing and, back in the day, perhaps such words represented…