Star Studded: TFWA World Exhibition Review

Another interesting meeting was onboard Heineken’s yacht with global duty free & tax free manager Sean McNaughten. The big news from the Dutch brewer at the show was a new Brewlock draught system, which has the potential to drastically cut wastage and reduce logistics costs in the onboard pouring cruise ship sector, one of the company’s most important travel retail sales channels. 

McNaughten also revealed how time-consuming and costly new EU food and drink labelling requirements coming into force this month are for drinks companies. 

“We’re having to re-label just about every single product we have with the new rules on language and what has to be on the label,” he told me. 

“These regulations are an increasing cost. We’ve had one person working for six month on the labelling. We source from 27 breweries globally. It’s not just the EU. For instance, we’ve had to talk to Mexico about Tecate, Dos Equis and Sol – they’ve all had to have new labels.” 

“On [New Zealand craft beer] Monteith’s there are 20 languages [on the label]. Now with the regulations there’s no room to tell the brand story and for consumers to self discover. How do we tell the story of the brand?” 

That’s one question with no easy answer.

SHOW NEWS 

Dalmore unveils new exclusives

Whyte & Mackay launched a travel retail exclusive The Dalmore collection at Cannes last month.

The Fortuna Merita Collection (meaning ‘fortune favours the brave’ in Latin) comprises three new non-age statement expressions, which have been aged in different types of Gonzalez Byass sherry casks. 

The Dalmore Fortuna Merita Collection will go on sale in duty free stores from spring 2015.

The entry-level The Dalmore Regal (€75) is matured in amoroso sherry casks; The Dalmore Luceo (€85) is aged in Apostole casks and The Dalmore Dominum (€120) is rested in Matusalem casks.

The Dalmore master distiller Richard Paterson led a tasting of the new range in Cannes. 

He noted: “When you see this collection, some of the people will say: ‘What is the age?’ It doesn’t have an age statement. Let me assure you in my capacity over the past 45 years with Dalmore we have only put out the very best. These are three prime examples because they are connected to 12, 15 and 18 year olds. However, the quality of these whiskies comes down to one thing – the cask.”

Travel retail is the largest volume market for The Dalmore. The whisky saw its sales in the channel jump by more than 26% in 2013, according to the IWSR. 

Disaronno takes big step upmarket

First-time Cannes exhibitor Ilva Saronno unveiled a new €300 scotch whisky-based liqueur at the show.

Disaronno Riserva is a mixture of Disaronno amaretto and blended malt scotch whisky rested in Sicily in oak Marsala wine barriques for six months at the company’s Cantine Florio winery. 

The company claims the winery’s closeness to the sea, combined with the temperature and the humidity, creates optimum conditions for the ageing process.