Slainte!
It's been the perfect antidote to recession.
While champagne sales fell flat - the fizz taken out by not much to celebrate and less money with which to do so - Scotch whisky continued growing its role as the status drink for the aspirational middle classes in emerging markets.
Come the recession, and whisky has the advantage of being something you can re-cork and drink more slowly, while being a tipple that accompanies misery and downturn as much as the toasting of success.
So it's had a fantastic decade, its sales even growing by volume and value through 2009.
It has also made headway in the industry's battle to break down extensive trade barriers into those emerging markets.
But being the quintessential Scottish product, the silver lining has a cloud attached.
Eyeing up
And the cloud in this case includes the harsh economic downturns in Spain and Greece, where whisky sales have been doing particularly well.
The industry is much more concerned, however, at the health concerns around alcohol - and not only in binge drinking Britain, but around the world.
It has campaigned ferociously against the Scottish government's plans for minimum pricing on alcohol, arguing that could undermine the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) battle to fight on level taxation ground in its target export markets.
And now the UK government is eyeing up alcohol tax for review.
George Osborne has to raise revenue as well as clobbering binge drinking, so the SWA's formidable lobbying power is now being turned once more on the Treasury.
While stressing its responsible drinking credentials, that helps explain the research it's commissioned, and published today, showing just how big and important whisky is for the .
And if Verso Economics is to be believed, it is an impressive tale - in spending power, boosting Scottish demand through its supply chain, and exports.
Be careful how it uses those figures, however.
Boom years
When it says it employs as many people as Scotland's universities, it looks like it's using its direct and indirect numbers to compare with direct higher education employment.
And when the SWA highlights its employment figures, and its extremely high value added-per-worker, there's another way of looking at those figures.
That's because employment has actually fallen through the boom years.
Even before the Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock was told it was closing, and other recession-rattled bottling plants shed workers in the name of efficiency, the survey shows a reduction of 1,300 direct employees of SWA members between 2000 and 2008 -a 12% fall to 9,800.
Fewer than 800 people work for non-SWA distillers.
So the fact it produces 12 times more value added per worker than the tourism industry appears to be something to be celebrated, in that it shows the productivity and success of the industry.
But it also raises the question of whether the benefit to Scotland of this highly profitable industry, with most of its ownership based elsewhere, makes for a dram as complex in its mellow magnificence as the industry has presented it.
Hullo, I'm Douglas Fraser, and I'm business and economy editor at ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Scotland. Welcome to my blog, where you can read my take on money matters, viewed from a Scottish perspective.
Comment number 1.
At 30th May 2010, Patch Bruce wrote:you make some very good points. We should be supporting The whisky export trade, which helps farmers immensely through barley sales.
We should also be looking to ensure the duty and income tax payable is spent here in Scotland and not "spirited" away to Westminster to go in to the deep hole of the treasury. Like Scottish Income Tax Scottish Oil revenue Scotish VAT Scotish road fund duty Scottish show room tax Scottish Fossil fuel levy it should all be getting spent here and not elsewhere.
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Comment number 2.
At 31st May 2010, Karl Flavell wrote:Errr...pardon me for pointing this out "patchbruce" but there are a lot more of us in England generating income tax etc yet we don't moan about it being spent in Scotland. Supposedly we are the UK ie one pot. I hadn't realised the Scots had dug a trench to seprate themselves from us...
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Comment number 3.
At 31st May 2010, Wee-Scamp wrote:What would be rather interesting is to look at how much of the Scottish Whisky industry is actually Scottish.
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Comment number 4.
At 31st May 2010, redrobb wrote:Generally the colour of money is the same whatever part of the world it’s based! More so if it’s good ole’ US $’s green backs. I like the comparison between tourism and the whisky industry; yes indeed they’ll also have a similar earnings gap within comparison made with available data for the humble league earners. However hazarding a guess, I suspect when one moves up the food chain to view the higher echelons or indeed some owners! The financial returns are simply eye-watering; I wonder if any proceeds translate e.g. into the odd private yacht (non-sail version) moored in the likes of the Cayman Islands. Go and try finding a bright spark number cruncher that can unravel the myth & folklore of this industry that is alleged to surround the earnings of some of these captains or indeed admirals of industry!
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Comment number 5.
At 31st May 2010, Wee-Scamp wrote:Whisky may be worth £4b to the economy and for a relatively low tech product that's not bad.
However, this is what we really need in Scotland and just look at the value of their exports.
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Comment number 6.
At 31st May 2010, Patch Bruce wrote:2. At 02:09am on 31 May 2010, Karl Flavell wrote:
Errr...pardon me for pointing this out "patchbruce" but there are a lot more of us in England generating income tax etc yet we don't moan about it being spent in Scotland. Supposedly we are the UK ie one pot. I hadn't realised the Scots had dug a trench to seprate themselves from us...
Karl you are obviously commenting on the basis of the misunderstanding and popular lie that England is currently supporting Scotland because you are told the spin that 7k extra is pent per head in Scotland than in england. These false figures fail to take in to account the extra tax Scotland pays in to the system for example the revenue 300 billion barrels of oil wich has been spirited awayby Westminster over the last 30 years, the duty on the 1 billion bottles of whisky that are exported each year.
What I am looking for is to rid YOU of us poor wee degenerate afflicted lazy benefit claiming Scots by gaining either independence o FULL fiscal autonomy. Go and check up on the figures before you have a go at us. I do not want, and Scotland does not need your money. Go on complain to your MP that Scotland should be fiscally independent. and not the "imagined" drain on england. Do not believe in the unionist propoganda, Scotland is a rich country. we do not need England.
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Comment number 7.
At 31st May 2010, Patch Bruce wrote:3. At 09:00am on 31 May 2010, Wee-Scamp wrote:
What would be rather interesting is to look at how much of the Scottish Whisky industry is actually Scottish.
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they can't call it Scottish unless it is distilled here.
There are Hundreds of distilleries in Scotland, unfortunately the profits go mostly to Deagio who won them but at least there is a lot of cash raised through duty. and that barley is bought here giving income to seed merchants, farmers, fertilizer companies, farm machine suppliers, & haulage firms.
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Comment number 8.
At 31st May 2010, Karl Flavell wrote:Patchbruce I have no problem whatsoever with the Scots. I did however think that your comment was quite crass towards the English. Obviously we are all governed by Westminster. I do not think for one minute that the English financially support the Scots and vice versa. If anyone asks my nationality I'm English not British as I would imagine you'd say Scottish not British. You are obviously as proud of your country as I am of mine. The thing I object to is our money being spent overseas on this,that and the other foreign aid when we have enough of our own problems in Great Britain that need addressing. As an Englishman to a Jock, I fully understand where you're coming from.
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Comment number 9.
At 1st Jun 2010, rog_rocks wrote:#2 "Supposedly we are the UK ie one pot"
Supposedly is the word,
Some of us are digging hard!
No problems with being called a sweaty sock either, just as my right to be Scottish has been removed by the imperialistic British state, so has yours to be English.
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Comment number 10.
At 1st Jun 2010, Rob Greenhalgh wrote:I have just written a blog about this - Binge-drinking is a ‘British Thing’
Please also vote on the blog poll: Do you think alcohol packaging should have health warnings like on cigarette packets?
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