There’s a good book on this called Scotland the Brand by David McCrone. Tax changes in the early 1820s, along with improved transport to London, also enabled the industrialisation and expansion of the whisky industry. Previously, the physical and fiscal landscape meant that lowland whisky was made at scale but with poor ingredients and tended to be awful and only drunk by the working classes (like C18th gin in England) and highland whisky, made in small illegal stills with better ingredients and processes, was better, but only made in tiny quantities.
As regards Tennants Super, about 20-25 years ago I spent a few nights in Naples. We ended up in a large Piazza in the city centre that was ringed by bars, with lots of young folks (including me) milling - you could go to a bar, get a pint (500mls), and then take it to the middle of the square to drink.
Anyway, I fell in with some locals, as you do, and one of them noticed I was drinking Peroni. "Peroni!" he says, with disgust, and spits. "Why do you drinka thisa shit?"
I calmly explained to him that Peroni was a Premium beer in the UK. "Premium, ahhh, I will ashow you a premium beer!", and he literally manhandles me to a different bar on the opposite side of the square that is rammed. Lots of pushing, shoving, and gesticulations later, we get to the front of the bar, and he says, grandly, whilst pointing to the giant red illuminated 'T' on the tap in front of us "This, my friend, is a PREMIUM beer".
"Much of this was driven by the romantic imagination of Edinburgh’s Walter Scott..."
I know Mr West resents 'enduring myths'. Well, the libel on Walter Scott and 'Highlandism is one of mine.
Poor old Sir Walter. His name is associated with the polar opposite of what he stood for. What Mr Jeffrey (I presume) calls 'Highlandism' here.
Only, read Walter Scott in full and in the original. Read his essays and letters and notice his early and vigorous exposure of the frauds and impostures which he is now cruelly associated with - for instance, those of the Sobieski Stuarts, the Vestiarium Scoticum, and Macpherson's Ossian.
Now ask any journalist or university lecturer what they know of Walter Scott and they'll say he 'invented Tartanry' when in actual fact Scott insisted, quite categorically, repeatedly and very much against the current of his times that the 'idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a fashion of modern date'.
Highland dress and culture, however - the Clan system, dùthchas and the distinct and ancient way of life of the Gaelic Highlands - is an undisputable historical fact.
The Belted Plaid or breacan an fhèilidh is attested at least as early as the 1590's. 'Tartanry' (if we will) or Highlandism (if we must) exists on and in every authentic record of Scottish history.
It is visible in its statutes and the history of its constitution. Read a single page of Ian Lom, the Bard of Keppoch, or any of the older Ballads. Read Blind Harry or John Barbour from the 13th Century. Read The 16th Century Complaynt of Scotland or the MacMhuirich bards of Clan Currie. These resources are all online. The work Scott did in transferring the oral and archival traditions of the Highlands to the modern printed book is absolutley extraordinary.
Now, Scott certainly laid on a pageant for the visit of George IV. It was, after all, the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland since Charles II. He also collaborated with the actor and set designer, William Henry Murray. And It was also in the context of the Highland Clearances and an ancient Gaelic aristocracy reasserting itself.
But the enduring and high handed dimissal of 'Tartanry' comes not from the work of dispassionate historians but from the nefarious mind of Eric Hobsbawm (The invention of Tradition) and his acolytes who have worked so busily to divorce this nation from her own history, and intrude the credentialled higher critic as the ultimate arbitrator of legitimate historical memory.
There is also another and even less well understood line of criticism and dismissal, that runs from the Whigs of the 18th century, through the Radicals of the 19th century and the Marxists of the 20th on into the incohate and self defeating resentment of current Scottish Nationalism.
It is fluently expressed in the words of the Scotch Belle Lettrist Kevin Williamson (who accompained the remark with an image of himself dancing on Scott's grave) "Sir Walter Scott was not a great Scottish patriot nor even a particularly good writer--his prose is stodge--but he was an arse-licking royalist, a falsifier of Scottish history and a Tory c*** of the worst order".
Tartanry and the myths around 'Red Clydeside' gang ill t'gither so one of them must be discredited. Burns, they will have in their pantheon - but not Scott, and therefore not Tartanry.
The truth about the Highlands - Loyal, Royal and Feudal - is the baby in the general historical bathwater of original Scottish Toryism (Tory being a Scottish coinage) which modern Progressives Scots-Nats are so desperate to do away with.
It was all real, it was all true. Walter Scott preserved and transmitted it, he did not invent it.
As a resident of Providence, Rhode Island (small city near Boston Stadium), I welcomed our invaders. They were a good time and it was nice drinking and chatting with them during the first round of games. By the time they had to head to Miami for their third game (or should I say fixture?), I was ready to rent a bus and drive them to the airport myself! Great fun, but it gave me a tinge of sympathy to the Barcelonans who hate the tourist hand that feeds them I did not have before!
"The Scots in Boston marched as proudly as their ancestors. Their bagpipers serenaded the opposition. Some even turned up at a wedding. They came to watch the Boston Red Sox, which one local described as ‘the best thing that’s happened in years’. They attracted many neutrals, including a duck. Folk songs were written about them. Everyone loved them, even if some struggled to understand them.
The Boston Globe published a full-page letter thanking them. One local reported how Scotland fans leaving Boston was ‘almost like a day of mourning for the Americans’."
I for one am surprised and pleased to see such Bostonian (home of a lot of elite woke universities ) outpouring of enthusiasm for a proud ethnic pride group that isn't BLM!
I wonder how well the Scots would go down abroad if the team had been a threat to anyone. They were over there to have a drink and a laugh, not to win.
Actually, it's our rubbishness at football that directly led to this amiable behaviour. There was a time when Scotland was a serious football nation and, to put it mildly, our fan base wasn't quite as charming a brand as it is now.
A few of other factors worth noting: first, in the 1980s and 1990s post-Heysel, being perceived as warm and cuddly was a differentiating factor in sharp contrast to the ills which plagued English football fans at that time. Scotland: lovely, England: not lovely was the coded message.
A second, more niche, factor worth noting is that the national football support seeks to differentiate itself from the club scene which is undoubtedly more, how do we say this, robust. As can be seen on an annual basis, Glasgow's city centre turns into a horror story when either of the Old Firm (almost invariably Celtic these days) wins the league or Scottish Cup. You simply avoid Glasgow Cross and the Merchant City on those days. Manchester can testify to the "robustness" of Rangers supporters from c.2006 or thereabouts when they played in a European trophy final.
A third factor worth emphasising is that the travelling support for Scotland, especially the contingent heading to the US, is affluent. Not too many shell-suited, bucket-hatted Glaswegian neds (chavs) standing in line after applying for their ESTAs.
Alastair Campbell's greatest idea was an Old Firm derby in Belfast to support the Good Friday Agreement, with Rangers wearing Celtic strip and Celtic in Rangers kit. Disappointing it never happened, because the Netflix documentary about it would be excellent.
And, by the way, thank you for acknowledging the beauty of Glasgow City Centre which is often overlooked. This city has more than its fair share of problems but the city centre rivals any other in the UK bar London and holds its own against Edinburgh. Next time you are up, take a trip around the West End which is simply stunning.
On the way back we also had a lovely tour guide who was also incredibly woke and wanted to talk about Glasgow's responsibility for slavery and how it was sad the city lacked London's diversity. We also stored our bags in a vape shop right by the station which I think mught not be there anymore.
Yes. The Botanical Gardens, the university, the museums, theatre land, that big music venue - The Hedgehog? Great city. It even has a “Tube”! And the music: Simple Minds for one…
I grew up on the tube line up to Wembley and after a Scottish fan knifed a tube guard in 1975 (England 5 Scotland 1, Gerry Francis in his brief, beautiful flowering, helped by Stewart Kennedy in goal), the staff refused to run trains north of Baker Street years afterwards on a match day when the Tartan Army were in town. So the Scots would camp out in the car parks. I was on the last train home on a pre-game Friday and my carriage was full of bladdered fans stocked with wooden crates of beer and even a giant pub bottle of Bell’s with the label upside down. Fantastic fun.
Yes, and God bless! Frankly (expat American) I have been surprised at the mainly welcoming and joyous spirit on display from American hosts so far - an echo of "kinder, gentler" times which I thought were long gone and which probably won't last past the end of WC. Also, the sturdy performance of the US men so far softens hearts and minds!
I wasn't surprised at all to be honest. Always find Americans very welcoming and one day they will see the light and realise football is much better than all their sports.
It's never going to happen. I am old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter tried to cram the metric system down our throats. The goverment and some corporations tried really hard for about a decade and then just gave up. I remember telling someone asking for directions that their destination was 200 meters down the road. Response - "What?"
"Much of this was driven by the romantic imagination of Edinburgh’s Walter Scott, who helped shape both Scottish national identity and the 19th century resurgence of medievalism. Perhaps more than literature, however, Highlandism was boosted by the region’s most famous export - whisky. As Jeffreys writes: ‘The growth of Scotch coincided with the birth of Highlandism.’"
Did you know that the very word "raid" was also revived by Walter Scott? It had become archaic in most of Great Britain outside Scotland before then?
Enjoyed this one, Ed. The Tartan Army stuff had me laughing, and the Jeffreys material on the whisky barons was new to me.
If you haven't read it, Arthur Herman's "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" makes a good companion to all this. His argument is that the "poverty-stricken backwater" produced Hume, Smith, Watt and much of the thinking that built the modern age, long before anyone thought to sell the romance of it. Walter Scott gave Scotland its branding, but the substance was already there.
My daughter just spent a month in Scotland and came home a convert. She reported the same thing you saw: merch shops at every castle gate doing a roaring trade, most of it to Americans. The Almighty Dollar flows on.
I wonder how they'll deal with the midges. Lovely country, but I'll never go back in the summer. On a lighter note, one of the recommended anti-midge lotions was a skin conditioner called Skin So Soft (perhaps still going - the Highland shops were full of it), so it was always amusing to meet up with groups of intrepid hikers and downhill bikers all smelling rather, er, lovely !
The role Lagavulin played in Parks and Recreation was quite a coup - the whisky of choice of ubermensch Ron Swanson. They even filmed an episode in the distillery!
I wonder why the Scottish and English football fans give off such different vibes? What started each down different roads?
My family used to visit the west coast of Scotland most summers as we grew out of seaside holidays. My parents use to rave about the glorious scenery and I'm sure I preferred it to Leicester city centre. Even so, enjoying lovely scenery seems to be more of an adult thing than for children and adolescents. I wonder why. After all, both adults and children like chips.
Regarding the Italian success of Tennent's Super: it's curious how drinks can rebrand themselves. In Ireland, Bulmer's Cider used to be the kind of drink that teenagers smuggled into music festivals. Then the company reduced the size, increased the price and put out ads showing yuppie types sipping it, with lots of ice, in sunlit beer gardens. It was seen as a much posher drink after that.
"I don’t recall a group of sports fans ever doing so much to further their country’s image abroad, a form of popular diplomacy that doesn’t have many parallels."
I think the Barmy Army, the travelling cricket fans, with their songs and their trumpeter, is a testament to England and English football and sporting culture.
Scotch whisky has made a remarkable comeback since the dark decades at the end of last century when even Sean Connery and Kenny Dalglish preferred drinking Japanese (in ads, at least). As an aside, if you have any illusions about Google AI as an unbiased guide, try searching “Kenny Dalglish Japanese Whisky” and it will bombard you with propaganda for his current Scottish patrons while swearing that he never took any Yen, only confessing on closer examination.
Malt Whisky has a current challenge from the crumbling of the industry’s recent “premiumisation” (ie price piss-taking) strategy in the face of the collapse of Chinese corporate hospitality due to recession and anti-corruption campaigns. Hopefully the impact on the consumer will be beneficial (big discount promotions to reduce stocks) and not sinister like the Cognac industry response - destroy stocks and grub up vines to keep prices high. We know the real cost of making it from blended whisky - the Famous Grouse I splashed out £9 on to look like a sophisticated geezer as a student in the 80s can still be bought for about £15.
There’s a good book on this called Scotland the Brand by David McCrone. Tax changes in the early 1820s, along with improved transport to London, also enabled the industrialisation and expansion of the whisky industry. Previously, the physical and fiscal landscape meant that lowland whisky was made at scale but with poor ingredients and tended to be awful and only drunk by the working classes (like C18th gin in England) and highland whisky, made in small illegal stills with better ingredients and processes, was better, but only made in tiny quantities.
I should look that up. Henry J describes trying some old-style whisky in the book, describing it as clear and much more basic in flavour.
As regards Tennants Super, about 20-25 years ago I spent a few nights in Naples. We ended up in a large Piazza in the city centre that was ringed by bars, with lots of young folks (including me) milling - you could go to a bar, get a pint (500mls), and then take it to the middle of the square to drink.
Anyway, I fell in with some locals, as you do, and one of them noticed I was drinking Peroni. "Peroni!" he says, with disgust, and spits. "Why do you drinka thisa shit?"
I calmly explained to him that Peroni was a Premium beer in the UK. "Premium, ahhh, I will ashow you a premium beer!", and he literally manhandles me to a different bar on the opposite side of the square that is rammed. Lots of pushing, shoving, and gesticulations later, we get to the front of the bar, and he says, grandly, whilst pointing to the giant red illuminated 'T' on the tap in front of us "This, my friend, is a PREMIUM beer".
"Much of this was driven by the romantic imagination of Edinburgh’s Walter Scott..."
I know Mr West resents 'enduring myths'. Well, the libel on Walter Scott and 'Highlandism is one of mine.
Poor old Sir Walter. His name is associated with the polar opposite of what he stood for. What Mr Jeffrey (I presume) calls 'Highlandism' here.
Only, read Walter Scott in full and in the original. Read his essays and letters and notice his early and vigorous exposure of the frauds and impostures which he is now cruelly associated with - for instance, those of the Sobieski Stuarts, the Vestiarium Scoticum, and Macpherson's Ossian.
Now ask any journalist or university lecturer what they know of Walter Scott and they'll say he 'invented Tartanry' when in actual fact Scott insisted, quite categorically, repeatedly and very much against the current of his times that the 'idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a fashion of modern date'.
Highland dress and culture, however - the Clan system, dùthchas and the distinct and ancient way of life of the Gaelic Highlands - is an undisputable historical fact.
The Belted Plaid or breacan an fhèilidh is attested at least as early as the 1590's. 'Tartanry' (if we will) or Highlandism (if we must) exists on and in every authentic record of Scottish history.
It is visible in its statutes and the history of its constitution. Read a single page of Ian Lom, the Bard of Keppoch, or any of the older Ballads. Read Blind Harry or John Barbour from the 13th Century. Read The 16th Century Complaynt of Scotland or the MacMhuirich bards of Clan Currie. These resources are all online. The work Scott did in transferring the oral and archival traditions of the Highlands to the modern printed book is absolutley extraordinary.
Now, Scott certainly laid on a pageant for the visit of George IV. It was, after all, the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland since Charles II. He also collaborated with the actor and set designer, William Henry Murray. And It was also in the context of the Highland Clearances and an ancient Gaelic aristocracy reasserting itself.
But the enduring and high handed dimissal of 'Tartanry' comes not from the work of dispassionate historians but from the nefarious mind of Eric Hobsbawm (The invention of Tradition) and his acolytes who have worked so busily to divorce this nation from her own history, and intrude the credentialled higher critic as the ultimate arbitrator of legitimate historical memory.
There is also another and even less well understood line of criticism and dismissal, that runs from the Whigs of the 18th century, through the Radicals of the 19th century and the Marxists of the 20th on into the incohate and self defeating resentment of current Scottish Nationalism.
It is fluently expressed in the words of the Scotch Belle Lettrist Kevin Williamson (who accompained the remark with an image of himself dancing on Scott's grave) "Sir Walter Scott was not a great Scottish patriot nor even a particularly good writer--his prose is stodge--but he was an arse-licking royalist, a falsifier of Scottish history and a Tory c*** of the worst order".
Tartanry and the myths around 'Red Clydeside' gang ill t'gither so one of them must be discredited. Burns, they will have in their pantheon - but not Scott, and therefore not Tartanry.
The truth about the Highlands - Loyal, Royal and Feudal - is the baby in the general historical bathwater of original Scottish Toryism (Tory being a Scottish coinage) which modern Progressives Scots-Nats are so desperate to do away with.
It was all real, it was all true. Walter Scott preserved and transmitted it, he did not invent it.
As a resident of Providence, Rhode Island (small city near Boston Stadium), I welcomed our invaders. They were a good time and it was nice drinking and chatting with them during the first round of games. By the time they had to head to Miami for their third game (or should I say fixture?), I was ready to rent a bus and drive them to the airport myself! Great fun, but it gave me a tinge of sympathy to the Barcelonans who hate the tourist hand that feeds them I did not have before!
"The Scots in Boston marched as proudly as their ancestors. Their bagpipers serenaded the opposition. Some even turned up at a wedding. They came to watch the Boston Red Sox, which one local described as ‘the best thing that’s happened in years’. They attracted many neutrals, including a duck. Folk songs were written about them. Everyone loved them, even if some struggled to understand them.
The Boston Globe published a full-page letter thanking them. One local reported how Scotland fans leaving Boston was ‘almost like a day of mourning for the Americans’."
I for one am surprised and pleased to see such Bostonian (home of a lot of elite woke universities ) outpouring of enthusiasm for a proud ethnic pride group that isn't BLM!
I wonder how well the Scots would go down abroad if the team had been a threat to anyone. They were over there to have a drink and a laugh, not to win.
that's a counterfactual none of us will ever have to ponder in our lifetimes, at least.
Actually, it's our rubbishness at football that directly led to this amiable behaviour. There was a time when Scotland was a serious football nation and, to put it mildly, our fan base wasn't quite as charming a brand as it is now.
A few of other factors worth noting: first, in the 1980s and 1990s post-Heysel, being perceived as warm and cuddly was a differentiating factor in sharp contrast to the ills which plagued English football fans at that time. Scotland: lovely, England: not lovely was the coded message.
A second, more niche, factor worth noting is that the national football support seeks to differentiate itself from the club scene which is undoubtedly more, how do we say this, robust. As can be seen on an annual basis, Glasgow's city centre turns into a horror story when either of the Old Firm (almost invariably Celtic these days) wins the league or Scottish Cup. You simply avoid Glasgow Cross and the Merchant City on those days. Manchester can testify to the "robustness" of Rangers supporters from c.2006 or thereabouts when they played in a European trophy final.
A third factor worth emphasising is that the travelling support for Scotland, especially the contingent heading to the US, is affluent. Not too many shell-suited, bucket-hatted Glaswegian neds (chavs) standing in line after applying for their ESTAs.
Instead of hosting Ireland v Scotland, maybe the Bostonians could be treated to an Old Firm match
Alastair Campbell's greatest idea was an Old Firm derby in Belfast to support the Good Friday Agreement, with Rangers wearing Celtic strip and Celtic in Rangers kit. Disappointing it never happened, because the Netflix documentary about it would be excellent.
'there are no bad ideas'
And, by the way, thank you for acknowledging the beauty of Glasgow City Centre which is often overlooked. This city has more than its fair share of problems but the city centre rivals any other in the UK bar London and holds its own against Edinburgh. Next time you are up, take a trip around the West End which is simply stunning.
we did that, it was lovely.
On the way back we also had a lovely tour guide who was also incredibly woke and wanted to talk about Glasgow's responsibility for slavery and how it was sad the city lacked London's diversity. We also stored our bags in a vape shop right by the station which I think mught not be there anymore.
Ah, the infamous vape shop on Union Street...
Boom!
One should note that the woke believe that Freedom Is Slavery!
Ed’s already spoken up for the beauty of Bradford. He’s the true champion of the underdog.
Yes. The Botanical Gardens, the university, the museums, theatre land, that big music venue - The Hedgehog? Great city. It even has a “Tube”! And the music: Simple Minds for one…
The Armadillo!
How could I forget!
I grew up on the tube line up to Wembley and after a Scottish fan knifed a tube guard in 1975 (England 5 Scotland 1, Gerry Francis in his brief, beautiful flowering, helped by Stewart Kennedy in goal), the staff refused to run trains north of Baker Street years afterwards on a match day when the Tartan Army were in town. So the Scots would camp out in the car parks. I was on the last train home on a pre-game Friday and my carriage was full of bladdered fans stocked with wooden crates of beer and even a giant pub bottle of Bell’s with the label upside down. Fantastic fun.
Old Firm, 1980. Note the bottles.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=daEMvQsWys8&ra=m
I seem to remember old footage where they were invariably tearing down the goal
Ally MacLeod’s Army in 1977. Pride before the fall. Still, at least they made the finals in 1978, unlike England.
A World Cup deeply seared into the Scottish psyche. An excellent example of how propaganda works.
Yes, and God bless! Frankly (expat American) I have been surprised at the mainly welcoming and joyous spirit on display from American hosts so far - an echo of "kinder, gentler" times which I thought were long gone and which probably won't last past the end of WC. Also, the sturdy performance of the US men so far softens hearts and minds!
I wasn't surprised at all to be honest. Always find Americans very welcoming and one day they will see the light and realise football is much better than all their sports.
It's never going to happen. I am old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter tried to cram the metric system down our throats. The goverment and some corporations tried really hard for about a decade and then just gave up. I remember telling someone asking for directions that their destination was 200 meters down the road. Response - "What?"
American "football" has their famously perky, alluring cheerleaders though!
Mass immigration, especially from Latin America, has certainly helped popularize what the rest of the world calls football I would say.
"Much of this was driven by the romantic imagination of Edinburgh’s Walter Scott, who helped shape both Scottish national identity and the 19th century resurgence of medievalism. Perhaps more than literature, however, Highlandism was boosted by the region’s most famous export - whisky. As Jeffreys writes: ‘The growth of Scotch coincided with the birth of Highlandism.’"
Did you know that the very word "raid" was also revived by Walter Scott? It had become archaic in most of Great Britain outside Scotland before then?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/raid
Weird. (Another word revived by Walter Scott.)
A direct Anglo-Saxon or Old English word nonetheless.
Och aye.
Okay!
And of course Scott was responsible for the American Civil War, according of Mark Twain.
Not a big soccer fan but this intermingling of cultures stimulated by this World Cup has been delightful.
The original “Cool Britannia” then. Really it is just Pret and Starbucks in tartan.
Enjoyed this one, Ed. The Tartan Army stuff had me laughing, and the Jeffreys material on the whisky barons was new to me.
If you haven't read it, Arthur Herman's "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" makes a good companion to all this. His argument is that the "poverty-stricken backwater" produced Hume, Smith, Watt and much of the thinking that built the modern age, long before anyone thought to sell the romance of it. Walter Scott gave Scotland its branding, but the substance was already there.
My daughter just spent a month in Scotland and came home a convert. She reported the same thing you saw: merch shops at every castle gate doing a roaring trade, most of it to Americans. The Almighty Dollar flows on.
Thank you! i shall look that up. And I'm glad she had a nice time!
I wonder how they'll deal with the midges. Lovely country, but I'll never go back in the summer. On a lighter note, one of the recommended anti-midge lotions was a skin conditioner called Skin So Soft (perhaps still going - the Highland shops were full of it), so it was always amusing to meet up with groups of intrepid hikers and downhill bikers all smelling rather, er, lovely !
The role Lagavulin played in Parks and Recreation was quite a coup - the whisky of choice of ubermensch Ron Swanson. They even filmed an episode in the distillery!
I wonder why the Scottish and English football fans give off such different vibes? What started each down different roads?
My family used to visit the west coast of Scotland most summers as we grew out of seaside holidays. My parents use to rave about the glorious scenery and I'm sure I preferred it to Leicester city centre. Even so, enjoying lovely scenery seems to be more of an adult thing than for children and adolescents. I wonder why. After all, both adults and children like chips.
Strange to note it seems to happen in other countries with a Roman Catholic/Calvinist religious split.
Holland, Belgium and Swizerland similarly have notably violent domestic leagues and a maintain a 'jolly' international following.
Regarding the Italian success of Tennent's Super: it's curious how drinks can rebrand themselves. In Ireland, Bulmer's Cider used to be the kind of drink that teenagers smuggled into music festivals. Then the company reduced the size, increased the price and put out ads showing yuppie types sipping it, with lots of ice, in sunlit beer gardens. It was seen as a much posher drink after that.
I remember that sudden rebranding and hearing that from relatives!
"I don’t recall a group of sports fans ever doing so much to further their country’s image abroad, a form of popular diplomacy that doesn’t have many parallels."
I think the Barmy Army, the travelling cricket fans, with their songs and their trumpeter, is a testament to England and English football and sporting culture.
Irish football fans, French baby.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WetlzdHglkc&ra=m
Scotch whisky has made a remarkable comeback since the dark decades at the end of last century when even Sean Connery and Kenny Dalglish preferred drinking Japanese (in ads, at least). As an aside, if you have any illusions about Google AI as an unbiased guide, try searching “Kenny Dalglish Japanese Whisky” and it will bombard you with propaganda for his current Scottish patrons while swearing that he never took any Yen, only confessing on closer examination.
Malt Whisky has a current challenge from the crumbling of the industry’s recent “premiumisation” (ie price piss-taking) strategy in the face of the collapse of Chinese corporate hospitality due to recession and anti-corruption campaigns. Hopefully the impact on the consumer will be beneficial (big discount promotions to reduce stocks) and not sinister like the Cognac industry response - destroy stocks and grub up vines to keep prices high. We know the real cost of making it from blended whisky - the Famous Grouse I splashed out £9 on to look like a sophisticated geezer as a student in the 80s can still be bought for about £15.
Yeah I seem to remember it was uncool when I was growing up, and vodka was the fashionable thing.
“Brown spirits are dead, only white spirits from now on - Vodka, Tequila, White Rum, Gin if it’s lucky” (1990). No one told the Chinese.