VARIETY FOR LIFE The acquisitions, mergers and manoeuvres continue in the Scotch Whisky trade as each egotist jockeys to produce another unwieldy brand-dominated monolith. Rumours and speculation make for interesting dramming but this column believes that the whisky enthusiast is going to suffer. The combined editorial might of the specialist whisky press (!) is unlikely to influence the strategies of the world’s great brand owners so perhaps we should try to educate the marketeers of the benefit of the independent bottler. There are industry elders who are happy to tolerate the apparent conflict between their trademark distillery bottling and an ‘independent’ selling with the same precious name. This tolerance has a long historical precedent but is mince as the new breed of brand manager seeks to stamp out competition, especially those ‘parasites feeding off his marketing budget!’ The smug new-breed brand manager must learn that it is the independents who have created the highly profitable niche market of malt whiskies—profits that he is in danger of destroying. Once the profits go, so does the excitement and, eventually, the interest; all branded toilet paper is the same. We accept that there have been some diabolical bottlings from independents, both respected and other and this column hopes that these guys will learn the importance of policing themselves. Only the independent bottler has the flexibility to deliver single cask bottlings for a cost that enables a novice connoisseur (yucky word but none better) to develop the all important interest in the artistic output of the distiller. Producers, of which there are increasingly few, should look upon the independent bottler as a new canvas, an alter ego, and through them grant the informed consumer exceptional and extraordinary drams for us all to enjoy rather than to see them disappear into another routine vatting.