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THE SURVIVOR
We lost track of time when in conversation with Bill Bergius; here’s a concise transcript.
Note that there is a full version of this fascinating interview here
LFW: What is your job?
I am Head of Brand Heritage for Allied Distillers—part of Allied Domeq. My main functions are Scotch Whisky training for our people; organising visits to Scotland for ‘hearts and minds’ brand experiences, and helping our distributors worldwide to add value to our brands, primarily Ballantine’s but also Teacher’s and Laphroaig.
‘Brand Heritage’ came about in the early 90s as companies became production-only operations rather than production-distribution-sales-and-marketing. When sales and marketing was moved we had to convey the imagery and knowledge of our product to those selling it. Scotch needs support from Scotland, personalities, gravitas—heritage.
Most of my time is devoted to Ballantine’s, the jewel in our crown—6.5 million cases every year, Teacher’s—1.7 million cases, mainly in the UK and Brazil, and I have a little time for our malts.
LFW: Tell us about Allied Domeq.
Allied Domeq has been formed by various consolidations; initially the businesses of George Ballantine, William Teacher and Long John.
In 1976 the Teacher family—of which I am a member—found it tough competing with the massive Distillers’ Company Ltd, despite our selling nearly 2 million cases in the UK. For both family and financial reasons Teacher’s was sold to Allied Brewers (Tetley’s and Skol).
In 1982 Allied Brewers bought Lyons (creating Allied Lyons) and after the acquisition of Hiram Walker’s drinks interests in 1988 Allied Distillers was created to look after Ballantine’s, Stewart’s Cream of the Barley and other Hiram brands such as Maker’s Mark, Kahlúa, Courvoisier and seven distilleries.
In 1991 Allied acquired Long John, the spirits interests of Whitbread Brewers including Beefeater Gin and Laphroaig. In the following year came the major acquisition of the Domeq Company, the world’s largest producers of brandy.
With Long John came our principal malt—Laphroaig, already a well-recognised, individual and well-promoted single malt and since 1991 Whitbread have laid down enough stock to grow the brand. Without Laphroaig it’s true that Allied has made no progress in the malt sector over the last ten years.
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LFW: Ballantine’s is very succesful.
Hiram’s novel perspective on selling took Ballantine’s to Europe’s number 1. Hiram Walker of Canada did all the right things from 1970 onwards. Their American market was struggling but they realised that as they didn’t have much business in Europe they could go out and make some; they were early to establish good distributors and create a solid ground-breaking whisky marketing programme that suggested ‘the good life’. Even now, Ballantine’s ‘living the game’ style is not far away from those ideas—it recognises a truth that men play in just about everything they do.
LFW: Happy accident or genius?
It was part of the strategic plan. They moved the marketing team to Switzerland to be closer to the European market, unlike the rest of the industry that was still based in Scotland sending out ‘missionaries’.
Ballantine’s is a remarkable product range. They were only in the malt business until about the 1910s but by 1930 they had developed aged blends, long before any other—it was the 60s before the release of Chivas 12yo. Since then they have always planned to sell whisky of 17 to 30 years, as a result we still fill casks suited for developing aged whisky. If you are planning a 12yo whisky you don’t put it in the same cask as a 30yo, the cask would spoil the whisky by the time it was 30.
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LFW: How long have you been in the Whisky industry?
I joined the family business of Teacher’s Scotch Whisky in 1970 after a stretch in the army. Bergius’ have been involved in distilling for the past 120 years.
My great-grandfather married the daughter of William Teacher, who founded Teacher’s in 1830. William was one of those remarkable Victorians who grew up with very little to become a man of strong principles and be known as a great reformer. Even the anti-alcohol lobby saw him as somebody who, while he may be selling drink, did it in such a way that got their admiration. His pubs had rules such as no smoking, or no treating—you couldn’t buy anybody-else a drink as this led to ‘drinking sessions’. He started in the shipbuilding areas of Glasgow and he knew that the wives would be more content if their husbands went to a Teacher’s pub.
Teacher’s Highland Cream was one of the first to be registered in the 1880s, prior to that there was little bottling or branding of Scotch. Apart from Highland Cream there have been other whiskies including ‘Australian Bonded Teacher’s’—until the Matured Spirits Act of 1916 there was no requirement for distillers to age their product, but by shipping it round the world and back in cask the consumer new it wasn’t made last week! (I think Australia was a place to store casks without having to pay rates).
Teacher’s had two distilleries, Ardmore and Glendronach, both always the heart of the Teacher’s flavour since the 1890s.
When I joined, Teacher’s was totally self-contained. They originally had bottling facilities under the railway arches at King Street in Glasgow. Very Dickensian! In 1962 they opened a big purpose-built operation at Springburn with a capacity of 4 million cases when, for the first time, they had enough whisky to meet demand and they went from 100,000 to 1 million cases by 1972. That put us into the no 1 UK spot.
Teacher’s had been No 1 in the US in the 1930s. All distillers faced a post-war shortage but Teacher’s was so badly affected that other producers were able to take business away that was never recovered. During my four years we arrested our decline but it was difficult against Johnny Walker and Dewar’s, whose method was to hold us out by keeping prices low. Even J & B and Cutty Sark had difficulties in the 1980s.
My first 4 years was in charge of selling in the US where I was probably the first to hold a single malt tasting. I wasn’t aware of anyone else doing it at the time anyway. People paid $30 to come and listen to me in New York. From that we rolled out a series of tastings to promote Teacher’s Scotch Whisky but we ended up being closed down by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms because, since prohibition, tasting of spirits was not allowed—you could taste beer and wine but spirits were thought to get your customers drunk and force them to sign orders they were not able to make in the first place.
By the time I left the US in 1976 Glendronach was the no. 3 malt—a long way behind Glenlivet and Glenfiddich but on top of the rest.
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LFW: Teacher’s has a very distinctive, bold flavour.
What I think gives Teacher’s its extraordinary flavour is the range of malts, but especially Ardmore. It is not so much that you can taste the Ardmore but it is one of those wonderful whiskies that as a single is quite exciting; buttery and oily, but it has a flavour that makes all other whisky characters change, a great aid to the blender—a bit like using vanilla in cooking. When we add Ardmore it creates the Teacher’s flavour, very difficult to describe—predominantly bitter with an overlay of sweetness that comes from sherry casks. You get a formation of ‘heavier’ sugar crystals from the sherry combining with the sugars of the wood that are extracted during maturation.
LFW: Has the flavour changed?
I think all blends have gradually changed, probably with every second generation; we don’t peat whiskies as heavily as they used to, there aren’t the same range of whiskies available to the blender and the types of wood has changed. Whisky came in dark bottles because on a cold night the Scotch would cloud or haze. It didn’t look great but it really didn’t affect the taste.
With the invention of chillfiltering in the 1920s by Teacher’s to reduce haze there was a loss of some flavours. The blender has to blend additional flavour to be able to match how the whisky had been with just barrier filtering.
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LFW: What? Teacher’s invented chillfiltering?
No, but they pioneered it for Scotch in about 1924. The rest of the industry caught up by the 1950s.
There is a strong inventive streak in the Bergius family. We’ve made Motorcars, marine engines, a method of making food from wood and there was one Bergius who won a Nobel prize for converting coal into oil. However these are all irrelevant when compared with my grandfather’s development of the modern cork in 1913! Before that, a bottle had a driven cork that required a corkscrew. He shortened the cork to reduce friction and topped it with a cap secured by a wooden dowel.
LFW: Long John is pretty fierce.
It is. It is a blend that has heritage in heavily peated Laphroaig and that gives it distinctiveness but it is not the rich, deep style or complexity of Teacher’s or the sweetness of Ballantine’s. Long John is more in-yer-face.
LFW: Do you miss Teacher’s?
I very much regret that the family sold the business. I have such a strong affinity with the brand and its quality. I am annoyed that many think ‘there’s Bill Bergius—he doesn’t have to work’ or, ‘Allied’s being nice to him’—not true. Teacher’s was sold for not very much, which was spread thinly between about 50 members so I have to work and I want to work here.
LFW: We don’t see much malts activity from Allied.
Everyone knows that Allied has done nothing with its single malts. We are up a tree with our bottoms showing.
Our core malts are the pungent Laphroaig, Scapa from Orkney and Glendronach, 100% sherry cask matured. Those three are the strategy of malts as created by Jeremy Weather-head before he moved on in 1994. Since then we have kept Laphroaig at the forefront of Islay malts. We have also had ‘The Caledonian Malts’, which included Tormore and Miltonduff, but that project faded through lack of attention and the ‘Defenders of the Malt’, was a programme brought together by the market (America) rather than us. Since Weatherhead was promoted we have had a rather appalling turnover of people in charge of marketing our malts.
Laphroaig has done well but we haven’t done anything with Glendronach except sell all we have spare and Scapa just about sells everything we have. Not much of a strategy, just to sell out. It is going to change now but somebody should have planned it 12 years ago.
Allied has been preoccupied with the nineties ethos of profit, consolidation-and focus. We took marketing closer to the consumer and made the business more profitable. In Dumbarton we have a world-class production plant running 24 hours a day with a multi-tasking workforce, the result of the drive for efficiency. Allied owns most of its distribution companies around the world giving focussed marketing of our brands. With all this we have forgotten about the single malts that are so important to whisky and Scotland.
In future we are going to focus Glendronach primarily in Germany, USA, UK and duty free. All other markets will be dried up. Glendronach Distillery is back in operation after nearly six years closure because it is needed for single malt—and for Teacher’s. When a business is being hard driven the mind-set is how to cut costs and it’s easy to make silly decisions and lose sight of the whole. Glendronach is a good example of this; one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland, with coal-fired stills and one of the more expensive to run, a simple calculation means it has to close. Now it has reopened with a plan not just to keep it open but also to introduce some heat recovery systems in order to optimise flavour and reduce costs. It is the last distillery with coal fires still operating but that will change too. Two years ago we converted Ardmore from coal to steam and I initially said ‘this is not Ardmore’ but after playing with the steam and the cut of the spirit I am happy that it is now identical to the old coal-fired Ardmore. We plan to do the same for Glendronach.
LFW: You have other distilleries.
We have 1 grain and 10 malt distilleries of which Glencadam and Imperial are mothballed and Scapa is working occasionally. Our other malts; Glenburgie, Glentauchers, Miltonduff, and Tormore are busy. Not 7 days a week but as busy as we would like. Allied was early to start closing distilleries in the 1990s —we foresaw an overproduction in the industry and mothballed some and slowed down others. But as Ballantine’s has been doing consistently well, compounding a 6 million case brand by 5% a year, an awful lot more whisky is required.
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LFW: Laphroaig is an acquired taste.
All the beauty of drinking Laphroaig is contained in the 10yo. There are some fanatics who want more ‘raw’ Laphroaig. When you open it, it is not just smoky; it’s like my granny’s peat fire—blue peat smoke, an extraordinary whisky that smells like hospitals yet when you taste it, gives a burst of incredible sweetness, then spice, smoke and eventually salt. It is nice to have 15yo, it is easier to drink because the smoke is less. (I suspect that some 15yo drinkers can’t stand the smell and taste of a peat fire—in fact they can’t stand Laphroaig!) But there is nothing like the 10yo.
LFW: Is the 10yo deliberately less pungent than the ‘Cask Strength’?
‘Cask Strength’ is only barrier filtered; the other is chillfiltered at 2ºC. At below 50% alc. you will get a haze, particularly in Glendronach and Laphroaig. Some people jump to conclusions that because it is chillfiltered it is not good. I don’t agree—it is different. In ‘cask strength’ the smoke smell is not more intense yet deeper, there are more things going on. The taste is simply explosive! If you drink it at 57%, when you put it in your mouth that little bit of reduction releases so many things. 10yo Laphroaig is a great representative product and ‘Cask Strength’ is for those who want it; I don’t believe we are depriving anyone by chillfiltering Laphroaig.
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LFW: Laphroaig has done well despite Allied’s lack of malt effort.
Allied owes the success of Laphroaig to two men, Jeremy Weatherhead and Iain Henderson, the young turk and the distillery manager. They created the Friends of Laphroaig with Iain as the ‘head of the family’—it worked exceptionally well and Iain is very adept at handling visitors. (He also has the benefit of Carol, an outstanding hostess).
I am really sorry that we couldn’t have Iain continue as a consultant. Allied’s retirement rules (somewhat cruelly) would not allow him to continue as a distillery manager. I suspect he’s happier now at Edradour, dirty hands and all that.
Robin Shields starts at Laphroaig about now and as I have worked with him for the last few months I am very comfortable that the future of Laphroaig and its public face are in excellent hands.
LFW: Your desert Island dram?
Teacher’s Highland Cream. I can drink that on an everyday basis, enough to excite the palate but as with any good blend it fades away soon leaving my palate fresh and ready for the next sip.
For a single malt; Ardmore—when it was bottled for Teacher’s Board of Directors from a sherry cask, a first fill Oloroso—a magic drink! And now Laphroaig—a reminder of granny’s peat fire!
For variety, I would hope somebody had hidden a bottle of Ballantine’s 17yo.
You can read the full version of this long and wide-ranging discussion here
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