High-end, low-end, and everything in between — is at the forefront of a slow-moving revolution in the alcohol industry. Last year, for the first time ever, US drinkers preferred drinking liquor and spirits to swilling beers, according to industry group the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which measured supplier revenue across the two alcohol sub-industries.
But is it emblematic of a seismic shift in consumption habits? Or merely a flashy, status-seeking trend doomed to die out whenever urbanites grow tired of dropping $20 on a craft cocktail? The fate of a multi-billion industry depends on the answer.
But any serious whiskey drinker will claim two points of origin matter above all others: the emergence of Scotch whisky in Scotland, around 1495, and the advent of barrel-aged bourbon in present-day Kentucky, likely originating from Scottish immigrants settling the region (a brief linguistics note: the beverage distilled in the US and Ireland is known as ‘whiskey’, but if it's distilled in Scotland, Japan, or Canada it’s known as ‘whisky’; meanwhile, actual laws dictate the specification required to be labeled as Scotch or Bourbon). But flash forward a few centuries, and whiskey is a far bigger commodity than fifteenth-century Scottish monks could possibly imagine. While Scotch and Bourbon still dominate the higher end of the industry, whiskey producers and sellers are flourishing like never before. |
|
Comments
Post a Comment