Scotland – More Than Just a Whisky Shortage
The demand for single malt whisky over the past few years has done more than eat up mature supply and raise prices for the bottles we love. It's also causing a severe shortage of two other fundamental components of whisky maturation: wood and space.
As we know, once you distill whisky you need barrels to put the whisky in and then you need government-approved space to store those barrels. With producers running their facilities night and day to increase production and a number of new distilleries coming online this year, more barrels are needed and getting access to Kentucky's leftovers is more difficult than it has ever been.
"It's a big part of the reason we've started using wine casks," said Joe Torrance from Tullabardine distillery.
Single malt producers are looking to secure their relationships with Kentucky in anyway possible. We've seen blenders purchase distilleries to lock down their whisky supply, but now we might see more malt distilleries purchasing American whisky producers simply for the access to wood. Suntory's takeover of Beam for example helped secure cooperage for their Bowmore, Laphroaig, Ardmore, and Japanese whisky distilleries.
"I had a handshake deal with Beam after visiting last year and the guy told me to call him back in January when it got closer to the actual shipment time," Alex Bruce from Ardnamurchan distillery told us. "However, when I called back after the Suntory deal, they said he no longer worked there and they wouldn't be honoring any of his previous barrel obligations. Luckily, I had a connection at Brown-Foreman, but even there it was quite difficult to get access to empty casks."
Like many aspects of the whisky industry here in Scotland, contracts are a big deal. It's amazing how honorable the idea of an agreement is – even when it doesn't make sense during a whisky shortage. There are plenty of producers who still have filling contracts with Diageo distilleries simply because they've always had them. The same goes for barrel contracts with American whiskey distilleries. Once you're in, it seems, you're golden. It's who you know at this point, apparently. Alex and Joe weren't the only two people concerned about the difficulties in securing wood. It's been a theme at every distillery we've visited so far.
The other issue is space. We've seen it here and we've seen it in Kentucky as well: an old, decrepid distillery site with the still house falling apart and debris scattered everywhere, yet with warehouses still intact and full of whiskey. Licensed warehouse space is at a premium and we're at the point now where distilleries are investing in new buildings as a source of revenue. That was a key component of Bladnoch's income when we talked to Colin Armstrong last year (leasing barrel space) and we've met with other independent bottlers who don't own a distillery, but are considering purchasing warehouse space to capitalize on the rent.
The interesting part about the independently-owned casks sitting around Scotland is that, in the case of actual bottlers, very rarely are the barrels actually located at company headquarters. Sovereign, for example, has to pay fifty pounds every time they want to sample a cask because the barrels are actually located at the distillery or in another warehouse. They might have to call Mortlach distillery and have someone there go into the warehouse, find the cask, draw a sample, and send it to them. There's a six week backlog on all requests at the moment, plus there are instances of distilleries charging 100 pounds for the task (double what it normally is) so it's not something you do lightly anymore. It's at the point now where some distilleries are asking independents to get their casks and move them elsewhere, simply because there's not enough room for anyone else's juice.
Rather than build a distillery, it might be a good time to invest in cooperage and bonded warehouse space. Anyone got a few thousand bucks they want to throw in?
-David Driscoll