Have you heard the one about George Clooney’s four-year-old tequila brand selling to Diageo to the tune of $1bn?

Couple of months back Sam Smith’s Brewery in Yorkshire, England, issued an instruction to its 200 or so pub managers to refuse to serve customers who swore in their pubs.

When I first arrived here I was the whisky man who was making gin as a sideline,” says Daniel Szor, founder and owner of the Cotswolds Distillery, which lies close to Banbury in the no-man’s land between the west, the south and the middle of England.

For the best part of two decades the western duty free business has looked east, pandering to the whims of the emerging mainland Chinese traveller.

Tourism is an increasingly important part of the wine business.

A year ago I tentatively suggested the upcoming UK referendum on EU membership might have enormous ramifications for the European travel retail business.

I’ve always been amused by old pubs, bars and restaurants which have the words ‘fine ale, wine and spirits’ or similar painted on their wall or written across their window.

If you want to know where the spirits industry is headed, you could do worse than look at beer.

Most wineries go out of their way to tell you how natural their wines are.

It is one of the most pressing issues facing the travel retail business today.

A few years ago, just after the british government had deregulated the gas industry, I spoke to a marketing director tasked with targeting pubs and clubs.

It was rock guitarist Frank Zappa who famously said: “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.

Love the sound of hyperbole in the morning. So how about this? Ireland has the world’s most exciting and dynamic drinks market right now. I know, I know…that’s some statement. So let’s see how it stacks up.

At the beginning of the year, British supermarket Sainsbury’s quietly introduced a new Chilean wine brand.

In November 9, 2016, an historic change happened in the us that could have far-reaching ramifications for the wine industry.

By even the soberest of assessments it’s been a crazy few weeks since Donald Trump began his presidency.

Few years ago I attended a press conference hosted by the new chairman and deputy chairman of the Scotch Whisky Association.

Like the Mafia and Royalty, the wine trade sets a great deal of store by the concept of family.

It's a safe bet that a recovery of the Asian market was on the New Year’s wish list of pretty much everybody who has a stake in the duty free retail business

Don't look now but there are stirrings of rebellion on the Twittersphere as online whisky lovers rail against escalating single malt whisky prices and say ‘enough is enough’

For reasons I won't bore you with here, I spent the month leading up to Christmas visiting some of England’s finest pubs and bars

When doomed British mountaineer George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Everest, his now legendary answer was “because it’s there”

As the new year gets underway there’s a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the travel retail liquor business

I was never top of the class at maths at school. The teacher only had to mention the dreaded ‘m’ word and start writing numbers on the board and my eyes would glaze over

Dom Roskrow tries to make sense of the last twelve months 

When Erik Juul-Mortensen tells you that business conditions in travel retail are as tough today as he’s ever seen, you’d better sit up and listen

Like many people who work in what might be called the ‘non-productive’ side of the wine business (from sommeliers to merchants to writers), i’m often asked if i’d like to try my hand at making the stuff myself.

It’s like a dream. Five years ago we didn’t have a whisky. Now we’re pouring to enthusiastic drinkers at the whisky show in London. It’s hard to believe we’re here.

It's not exactly glamorous. Indeed, as tempting invitations go, it’s up there with the World Remaindered Books Conference, or the Reconstituted Meat Product Exhibition

I should really know better. It’s the same old story every four years. It’s sunny outside, the lawn needs mowing, the car needs a wash and upstairs in my office I have numerous articles and stories to be getting on with.

Considering all the different ways that wine gets to be made, the co-operative is the one that seems, at first glance, most out of step with the modern world

Every centimetre of shelf space has to pay its way in travel retail.

So here we go again – I got my first Christmas press release on July 25.

It’s all too easy to forget these days that blended scotch whisky remains top dog, accounting for more than 90% of the whisky sold worldwide.

It may go against my better nature and political persuasion, but I have to admit that I love new stuff

Do you have a recurring nightmare? Mine is very specific. I am speaking before an audience who are just staring at me in total silence. I finish my speech and everyone just stares. I ask for questions. Nothing. I start going red, and redder, and redder…

These are certainly uncertain times we are living in - 51.9% of those who voted in the UK referendum voted for us to leave the European Union

Every time I take an early morning flight from a UK airport in the peak summer travel period it’s always the same

Have you noticed just about every alcoholic drink has its own designated day?  What’s that about? Do the people who create these days think it makes a blind bit of difference in the way their target consumers treat the drink on its own special day?

What is the point of a wine trade fair? it’s a question that can take on an almost existential quality when, let’s say, you’re wrestling with the 3am demons in a hotel room with wafer-thin windows overlooking a roaring périphérique in the light-industrial banlieues of a Fench city.

It’s the elephant in the room topic for travel retail.

This time next month we will know if the UK is in or out of the EU.