After the summer holidays
Commercial Spirits Intelligence No.60
As people who have worked in and around the spirits industry for many years, we found that there was a lack of good, public, research on the trends in the spirits industry. Whether it’s trends in wood, or distillery capacity, or M&A activity - many of the existing research providers speak to a specific niche when we wanted a whole-market analysis. In this newsletter we leverage our experience, contacts and market intel to provide meaningful analysis that speaks to relevant issues for you. This newsletter is a collaboration between Duncan McFadzean of Noble & Co, and Martin Purvis. If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider a paid subscription.
Back to school: A big year ahead
From the US to Scotland, children are heading back to school (very enthusiastically in rare cases). This week we wanted to build on this theme to imagine what spirits executives are facing for the year ahead. What might mark a passing grade? What might be a fail and a resit? What would see them exceed in exceptionally difficult circumstances? As Horace once said “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.”
With the prospect of ongoing cutbacks from consumers, cost pressures continuing to impact margins from spirit laid down in recent years, a struggle to secure debt finance, the prospect of tariffs in the US, as well as geopolitical tensions, it would be easy to feel a sense of despair. Our sympathies very much lie with those facing the worst of the current moment. So where might some hope lie, from what we see? Read on.