Good News or Bad News

One of my idle daydreams is to take possession of and restart a silent distillery. The two news stories here and here point to good news for the Scotch industry but bad news for me and my idle daydreams.

Soaring demand for Scotch whisky around the world has prompted another major distiller to announce expansion plans, this time on Speyside.

Chivas Brothers yesterday said it was reopening its mothballed Braeval Distillery and extending its Glenlivet production plant.

Diageo is also adding capacity like crazy:

Work started recently on the £40million plant at Roseisle in Moray - part of a total £100million investment in whisky by Diageo.

as is everyone else in the industry:

International drinks giant Bacardi announced in August last year it was pouring over £120million into expanding its Scotch whisky business.

Edrington Group, meanwhile, is bringing a stillhouse at The Macallan distillery on Speyside - mothballed in the early 90s - back into service in a £5million investment.

And a consortium involving a Latvian investor is reportedly poised to buy Edrington's Glenglassaugh Distillery, near Portsoy, with a view to bringing it back into production.

It seems like every other day there's news of expanding production of whiskey everywhere. Ten to twelve years from now we'll start seeing the dividends from these investments.

I just can't shake the ambivalence of seeing a silent distillery come back on line, under someone else's control.

Then again, we could always just get started making whiskey here... Every time I look at land for the family, Mike scouts out a good place for the still and maturation cellars.

Oh to dream :)

UPDATE:
John Hansell points out the other potentially bad side of this recent expansion:

One thing you can count on (and it has already begun): expect to a lot young, new whisky expressions (possibly mixed with a smaller percentage of older whiskies) coming on the market, lacking age statements as all this new whisky becomes legal.