ALREADY Scotland's number one export, Scotch whisky cemented its advantage over its imitators yesterday, with new trade figures which show that overseas sales of the spirit reached record highs last year, earning the UK £90 a second.
The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said that both the value and the volume of exports reached historic highs in 2007.
The SWA said shipments of the spirit increased by 14 per cent to a record of £2.8 billion.
Export volume grew 8 per cent, wit
h the equivalent of 1,135 million bottles of Scotch whisky shipped overseas.
Bottled blended whisky exports rose by 15 per cent in shipment value and broke the £2 billion barrier for the first time, while bottled malt exports rose by 11 per cent in value to £454 million.
Tariff reform last year allowed exports to India to rise by 36 per cent in value, and for South Africa the rise was 9 per cent.
The SWA's chairman, Paul Walsh, said: "This record export performance – generating £90 every second for the UK balance of trade – underscores just how important Scotch whisky is to our economy.
"This is all the more impressive given the economic difficulties encountered in certain markets during the second half of 2007 and demonstrates that Scotch whisky's international appeal can militate against individual market or regional fluctuations."
In 2006, government figures showed that Scotch whisky was Scotland's number one export, excluding gas and oil, representing 12 per cent of exports.
But the figures come in the light of increasing critical acclaim for other nations' versions of our national drink.
For the past two years, two Japanese whiskies have been named the best malt in the world by a panel of experts.
But Charles MacLean, author and expert on whisky, said Scotch whisky producers had little to worry from such plaudits. "The Japanese for some reason do not make much of an effort to export it," he said. "In fact they do little to sell it in their own country.
"In comparison with Japan, Canada, American whiskies, Scotland is by far and away the biggest style of whisky in the world."
Mr MacLean said, however, that in strict sales terms, Indian whiskey represented close to 83 per cent of all whisky sold, though almost all in India, with just 2 per cent imported at exorbitant rates.
Mr MacLean said that the next big thing for Scotch whisky was the magic trio of the emerging markets in China, India and Russia, where there was a burgeoning taste, particularly for "super-deluxe" blended whiskies. However, he cautioned that they could prove tricky for single malts: "If you're a whisky maker and you are looking at the billions of barrels you have, then the older ones are going to go into the super-deluxe blends.
"The brewers like Diageo have said that they are ring-fencing supplies for single malt bottling, so that there won't be a shortage, but there are independent bottlers who having difficulty finding casks to buy."
He added, however, that the single malt market had risen from 5 per cent to 7.3 per cent, though in cash terms its value was a lot higher.
Jim Mather, the enterprise minister, said the figures underlined the importance of the industry to Scotland's economy.
But he warned that the Treasury's decision at the last Budget to raise duty on spirits threatened the ability of Scottish companies to export their product.
He said: "By increasing duty on everything from the cheapest cider to the highest-quality malt, the Chancellor did nothing in his Budget to get to the heart of the country's cultural problem with alcohol."
SINGLE MALTS HIT THE SPOTTHE export success of Scotch whisky can be traced back to the 1890s, when the likes of Dewars, Buchanan and Walkers used the most canny of marketing tools, the British Empire, to sell their blends.
"The Scots who were working around the world took their drink with them as a piece of home," said the author Charles MacLean.
Up until the Second World War, the biggest market was Australia, but this was superseded by America, he explained.
Post-war Europe embraced Scotch as a high-quality luxury item during a period of austerity, which carried it well into the 70s.
Unfortunately, at the end of the decade that style forgot, fashion swayed away from "brown" spirits towards clear ones, leaving the industry's projected sales in tatters and an unwanted "whisky loch" of single malt on their hands.
However, this expanse of spirit has proved to be one of the rocks on which the industries' current resurgence was built.
During the late 1980s, companies began to market the unwanted spirits – previously used in blends – as desirable in themselves, leading to the burgeoning luxury market for single malts that exists today.
