The Scotch Whisky Association’s latest figures show a dramatic rise in Scotch whisky consumption in France. Until now, America has been – and still is, just – the strongest export market for the dram.

This has been fairly predictable with the USA’s strong affinity with Scotland through Scottish diaspora descendants and through today’s first generation Scots residents, brought there by the oil industry. But times are changing. A nation dismissed by President George W Bush as ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ when they refused to join the war against Iraq, is into Scotch – malts and blends – at a growth rate of 22% between 2007 and 2008, the biggest rise in any extra-territorial market.

The figures show that, with the recession biting in America, sales fell to £371 million in that market last year, a drop of £48 million(11%)  from the 2007 figure of £419 million. The 22% sales rise in France in the same year took the export value to ££358 million for that country.

This takes whisky to a position of greater popularity in France than cognac and the  French preference is for malts: top is an 18 year-old Glenfiddich, with Aberlour in second place.

Sales of Scotch are resisting the recession like little else. There is a growing market in eastern Europe with, for example, trade in Poland increasing last year by 330% and South Korea spending £148 million, in spite of a 20% protective tariff barrier on its import.

The overall performance of the Scotch whisky market last year topped £3 billion for the first time.

Internally in the industry there has been the shock of the announcement from the world’s biggest drinks company, Diageo, that it is to close its plant in Kilmarnock – a loss of 700 jobs and devastating for the town indelibly associated with the Johnny Walker brand. (Diageo owns the Argyll distilleries at Oban and Lagavulin on Islay.)

The Scottish Government is said to harbour hopes of persuading Diageo to change its mind. Kilmarnock will hold its breath but, as have pointed out before, the world is seeing the emergence of Planet Business, an ethereal state inhabited by multinational corporations with no national affiliations and loyalty only to profit.

The Diageo strategy is clear from the fact that, almost simultaneously,  the giant corporation is opening a new automated mammoth distillery at Roseisle on Speyside which will need no more than 25 workers to run its production of 10 million litres per annum. The moving finger writes…

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