on 13 October, 2016
It’s that time of year. Summer’s finished, the holiday season is over and the drinks industry can look back at the global travel retail (TFWA Cannes) and look forward to Christmas.
Comment
A brave new world of whiskies
20 October, 2016
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.
Bigging up bulk wine
28 September, 2016
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
on 20 September, 2016
This is most odd. I’m standing with two American gentlemen in the corner of a very swish steak bar staring at a surreal painting of what we’re being told is a ship exploding as it sails towards a lighthouse. I think.
The games: a Carnival for Brazil duty free?
15 September, 2016
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.
on 30 August, 2016
Jan Warren weighs up the myriad similarities between bartenders and cooks – and suggests mutual respect
Power to the co-ops
30 August, 2016
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
Can rum punch its weight in duty free?
23 August, 2016
Every centimetre of shelf space has to pay its way in travel retail.
Heading off the Christmas avalanche
18 August, 2016
So here we go again – I got my first Christmas press release on July 25.
The force is strong with single malt
01 August, 2016
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.
on 29 July, 2016
The chief executive of the world’s largest premium drinks company expressed satisfaction at the company’s progress at a briefing to journalists and city analysts yesterday (July 28) following the announcement of its end of year results.
The schlock of the new
22 July, 2016
It may go against my better nature and political persuasion, but I have to admit that I love new stuff
What a difference a year makes
22 July, 2016
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…
Uncertain times
22 July, 2016
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
At the airport it’s always five o’clock
27 June, 2016
Every time I take an early morning flight from a UK airport in the peak summer travel period it’s always the same
Spirit of Brazil has its day
27 June, 2016
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?
None of the fun of the fair
24 June, 2016
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.
on 16 June, 2016
A smattering of the great and the good of the UK wine trade turned up for a debate last Tuesday (June 14), 
titled ‘What direction should New Zealand winemaking take for the future’, sponsored by Villa Maria and arranged by its UK agent, Hatch Mansfield.
Shot down in flames
03 June, 2016
Question: Which of the following is NOT a valid style of music? Grunge, grime or grit? It is of course grit, grunge being a somewhat passé form of scuzzy rock and grime a beat-based style evolved from British garage music and jungle. We all knew that, right?
on 20 May, 2016
Before mid-April, when it was acquired by Constellation in a $285m deal, I can’t say I was all that familiar with the Prisoner Wine Company
on 12 May, 2016
THERE’S NO GETTING AWAY FROM IT – cognac has taken a pasting in duty free over the past couple of years.
on 05 May, 2016
The menu arrives. It’s what you’ve come to expect from the modern bar – banana butter fat washing, smoke-injected spirits, aromatic mists, lavender foam – except you are in Yangon.
on 04 May, 2016
The purchase of Bibendum PLB by Conviviality, operators of Bargain Booze, Wine Rack and wholesaler Matthew Clark, is another development in the continuing consolidation of the UK wine trade.
on 28 April, 2016
I know this sounds like the start of a joke, but I walked into a London pub the other day and asked for a pint of lime and soda.
India finally gets hearts racing
18 April, 2016
China has dominated the thoughts of the travel retail industry’s decision makers for much of the century.
on 06 April, 2016
There’s no doubt part of the attraction of natural wine, both for makers and consumers, is the anti-establishment image.
on 01 April, 2016
The Irish ambassador wasn’t just happy, he was positively beaming – and not just because he’d spent the previous hour sampling a range of whiskeys and other irish alcoholic drinks at the embassy in london.
on 16 March, 2016
David Williams Author and Columnist for UK National newspaper, The Observer.
on 11 March, 2016
You need deep pockets to make a buck in travel retail these days.
on 03 March, 2016
They say there are lies, damned lies... and statistics. You betcha. The other day I spent an hour helping a Canadian statistics company check its results for the UK drinks market.
on 19 February, 2016
The relationship between a writer and a public relations person is a little like that between a great white shark and a pilot fish.
on 11 February, 2016
FOR SOMEBODY WHO WRITES ABOUT travel retail for a living I have to admit my purchases on the move are often rather modest.
on 05 February, 2016
We all have our overused words. ‘Sorry’ inevitably takes this passive-aggressive Englishman’s top spot.
on 29 January, 2016
What does January have going for it? Not much in my experience – a sprinkling of quickly broken New Year’s resolutions, scrimping and saving after the Christmas festivities and, in the UK at least, grey skies and driving rain.
on 21 January, 2016
It’s a bit of a labyrinth to get in but like an Egyptologist finally breaking into a pharoah’s tomb, it’s well worth the effort. The views are stunning and if my visit is anything to go by, the drinks and service are well worth experiencing as well.
on 15 January, 2016
Light, floral, sweet and fruity aren’t the first words that spring to mind when it comes to describing the city of Glasgow.
on 07 January, 2016
When the news emerged that Taittinger had become the first champagne house to take the plunge in the English wine business, the most immediately striking thing about it was how happy the natives were with the development.
on 23 December, 2015
THE STORY OF CHAMPAGNE Jayne v the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne (CIVC) has all the makings of a film. Sadly, it wouldn’t be a fun frothy comedy like Champagne Charlie, that British wartime comedy that was named after the song inspired by the dandified founder of Charles Heidsieck.
on 17 December, 2015
So here we are again. At the back end of the year in the make or break season that will decide what sort of year our pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants are going to look back upon.
on 03 December, 2015
I would describe myself as a pretty traditional journalist, trained up to be suitably and sufficiently cynical and sceptical. Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel rather honoured to be yet again invited to a special tutored tasting with Johnnie Walker master blender Jim Beveridge.
on 03 December, 2015
Last month duty-free executives headed to the stunning Red Sea-based King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre for the annual Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) Conference. Despite the spectacular setting, the mood there was likely to have been sombre.
on 24 November, 2015
An article in The New York Times exploring where to find the best duty free bargains in the Americas caught my eye recently.
on 20 November, 2015
What possessed me? I shouldn’t have done it. We’ve all been warned about going online at night, specially after a drink. I know where it’ll lead and how grubby and ashamed I will feel afterwards.
on 09 November, 2015
Business columnist Hamish Smith discusses whether Islamic countries could be the next growth engine of the drinks industry
on 06 November, 2015
It was during my first visit to Prowein in 2000 that I first came across the idea of discounters.
on 28 October, 2015
An early Monday morning, and the BBC radio newsreader has reached the final item of the 7am bulletin. As is the convention with any news story preceded with an “and finally”, the item is meant to signal a change of pace, offering some light relief.
on 22 October, 2015
Monsieur Bates. Je suis ici!” shouts a leather-clad biker, gesticulating wildly outside the roar and bustle of the Gare du Nord on a sunny October morning.
on 15 October, 2015
A few years ago, on the day they banned cigarette smoking in the UK’s pubs, bars and restaurants, I was at a press conference with the new chairman of the Scotch Whisky Association.
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Comment
Ben Branson
Ben Branson on the future of non-alc spirits
In his inaugural column for Drinks International, Branson takes a wider look at the overall non-alcoholic spirits sector to identify which brands will thrive and which won’t survive.
