His marketing and idea was top notch. In another country he could be a multi millionaire.
I’d say he is still a multimillionaire. Just that he wasn’t putting any more of his money into the concept. I’d say the bottles just weren’t selling based on the chats I had with off licences.
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I think they needed a bottle in the 30-40 € bracket to build the brand. Very hard to get a brand going when the cheapest bottle is 70-80 €.
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My man in the whiskey business says the product was overpriced and that your man was a brexiteering arsehole.
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Gives me less than zero pleasure to say that I predicted exactly same scenario several years ago. The Waterford single farm bottlings were released too young and the philosophy behind the concept, in any case, was highly suspect. Anyone who knows anything about Bordeaux and Burgundy wines knows blending is not the enemy of terroir.
This unfortunate development is just the start of a major correction in the whiskey market.
The supposed €40m in Waterford stock will be available for a relative song before too long. If I had the quids, I would buy that stock. You would probably get the stock for a million or so.
Mark Reynier started a Grenada rum distillery, on same ‘terroir’ basis, in 2019.
Spot on.
I think they brought the whiskey out too young and the taste from what I gather was mostly very harsh and not good. I think they got off to a bad start in the taste department on the earliest bottles and so we’re on the back foot immediately. Then as @Fagan_ODowd said, the cheapest entry point for a bottle was €70-80 which when the stuff is piss was off putting to recreational drinkers. For collectors then he probably lost them when not only had you a proposed 60+ bottles from different farms to be released but you’d also then have to buy the subsequent variations on that bottle if you wanted to keep your collection up (example Ratheadon 1.0, Ratheadon 1.1, Ratheadon 1.2). So pretty quickly even the chaps who wanted to collect knew they couldn’t. I’d say they struggled sell much of their stuff the last two years owing to these various issues. What I would say is, I’d agree with @mac that the branding and marketing was outstanding but it wasn’t enough.
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Things must have been bad all the same to crater it just as they were in a position to release 7 year old whiskey.
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I don’t have access to the article, how much have they laid down?
Doesn’t say in the article but by all accounts there is a massive amount of stock warehousing at the airport in Waterford
They made an awful balls of things, they could have had a fine business there for the very long term
You would think that there is the bones of a decent business there to be picked up from the receiver at a bargain price if they changed tack and steered away from this terroir business and put out a whiskey at a reasonable price.
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Whiskey distilleries are popping up like mushrooms these days—everywhere you look, there’s another one. Not long ago, we only had two in the whole damn country, and now they’re crawling out of every hole in the wall. Take Waterford, their turnover’s already down from last year. Makes you wonder how many of these boutique outfits can actually make it? I was half-thinking of chucking a few quid into one for the EIIS tax break, but my gut says some of these will crash and burn. No way they’re all sticking around.
Funny I don’t notice people drinking more whiskey than before.
Whatever year silver Concorde got turned over at long odds on in Galway every swinging dick was drinking gin and tonics.
I think most of the distilleries are dependant on getting sales in the American market, which consumes over 50% of Irish whiskey. I cant see how they llall get sales traction over stateside. I believe the Irish whiskey market is small enough and unless youre exporting product you’re not going to stay in the game.
Historically we used make most of the whiskey consumed in the world. Then it all went to shit for whatever reason and the scots cornered what we used have. It’s not just the UD but huge market for it in asia as well.
Here’s how it went: back in Prohibition-era America, the Yanks weren’t about to stop drinking just because some eejit told them it was illegal. Bootleggers jumped in to fill the gap, but instead of making proper booze, they started churning out all sorts of dodgy shite—cheap, piss-poor moonshine that’d strip paint off a wall. And what did they do to flog it? Slapped an “Irish whiskey” label on it to make it look legit.
Of course, it was nothing like the real stuff. Half of it tasted like turpentine, and the other half probably left you blind. Naturally, this put the Americans off Irish whiskey altogether. They started looking elsewhere, and Scotch swooped in like a bandit. The Scots had their act together, selling their whisky as proper, high-class stuff while Irish whiskey got left in the muck.
Between this counterfeit crap ruining our reputation and Ireland shooting itself in the foot with trade wars and isolationist nonsense, Irish whiskey took a nosedive. The whole industry was nearly wiped out, and we’ve only started clawing our way back in the last few decades. Prohibition didn’t just ban booze—it shafted Irish whiskey for generations.
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What is happening with the spirits market?
I see tesco offering drumshanbo at 30, crested at 23 (yes 23), Hennessy and Hendricks at 28.
Over stocked obviously and lads need to hit a sales number
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