DISTILLING
Irish spirits exports increase by 10%
development, but fell into bank ownership during the nancial crisis. The 26 acre site was acquired by the Scotts Irish Whiskey company some ve years ago. The business has taken its name from the original owner of the farm on which the site is based, Hammy Scott. “He was the original owner of the farm and a publican in the Garrison area,” said Mr Scott. “He was also a bonder of whiskey, so he would have brought it in and blended it. “He also ran a sawmill, powered by the river, which is something we want to do with our distillery, power it with a hydro-electric scheme.” The rst year will largely involve the construction phase, with the still established over the second 12 months. “The initial investment will be £5m over the next two years, with more to follow,” said the commer- cial director. The Irish News Drought-tolerant barley could help ‘future-proof’ whisky industry Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have found a gene that helps barley cope with climate change. They said it enabled barley to resist drought and thereby “future-proof” the whisky industry - and could be extended to other crops. Global heating is hitting barley crops, with 2018’s hot summer having a cata- strophic effect on yields across Europe, especially in the UK. “There was a loss of around 8%,” says Dr Ross Alexander, a lecturer in the Institute of Life and Earth Sciences at Heriot-Watt. “Which maybe doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you go from 7.9 billion tonnes down to 6.6 billion tonnes that’s a huge de cit.” The Scotch whisky industry is worth bil- lions of pounds a year and supports 10,000
jobs so the price and availability of barley is a big deal. The research to unlock the secret of the barley genome has taken ve years. A barley plant has almost 40,000 genes - that’s almost double the number each of us has. The researchers found the key gene was: HvMYB1 - Mib for short. “If you forget to water your house- plants they’ll droop,” Dr Peter Morris, who led the work. “If you look at our experimental plants, they have the ability to retain much more water than normal barley plants. “That’s because the little pores where water escapes out of the plant are more tightly closed.” HvMYB1 acts as a master switch, turning on other genes which protect the plant against heat stress and allowing it to continue growing even when water is scarce. The gene already exists in barley plants but at Heriot-Watt they have bred plants in which the genetic switch is always in the “on” position. Dr Alexander says that increases the amount of “protectants” in the plant - sugars and amino acids which help it rise above drought. “It’s like the plant has an up-regulated sense of stress - it’s on high alert,” he says. It involved breeding generations of barley plants to carry the switched-on gene. They - and unmodi ed control plants - were then subjected to heat stresses in the laboratory. A plant’s roots are where the rst signs of stress show, so hydroponic techniques were used to grow the plants in liquid instead of soil, making their roots more accessible. It was detailed, painstaking and sometimes tedious work, but Dr Alexander says that it was, at least in some respects, inexpensive. He says: “We actually picked those hydro- ponic systems up from Ikea.” Funding for the research has come from the Scotch Whisky Association and the food and drink arm of Scottish government’s knowledge exchange programme Interface. BBC
The value of spirits exports from Ireland increased by 10.2% between 2017 and 2018, from €916 million to over €1 billion, according to the annual Irish Spirits Market Report, released by Drinks Ireland | Spirts. The report, which assesses the perfor- mance of Ireland’s domestic spirits market and the spirits export industry, found that overall sales in the home market increased by 6.6 per cent, from 2.25 million 9-litre cases in 2017 to 2.40 million cases in 2018. This was driven by consumer demand for Irish whiskey and gin. This sales growth comes even though overall alcohol con- sumption has declined in Ireland from its peak in 2001*. Irish whiskey is the second most popular spirit in Ireland, with a 25.1 per cent share of the market. Sales increased by 5.4 per cent between 2017 and 2018. Gin sales soared in Ireland last year, up by 31.8 per cent during the same period. Gin maintained its position as the fastest growing spirit in the domestic market. Despite a strong performance by both gin and whiskey, vodka remains Ireland’s favourite spirits drink, accounting for 33.7 per cent of all spirits sales, up by 4.8 per cent between 2017 and 2018. Ireland’s world-renowned spirits, recognised for their quality, authenticity and taste around the world, continue to perform strongly in export markets. This is particularly true for two of Ireland’s protected ‘Geographic Indication’ (GI) spirit catego- ries with sales increasing by 7.5 per cent between 2017 and 2018. The report also found that the spirits sector makes a signi - cant contribution to the economy, providing €372.2 million in net excise receipts to the Government in 2018. Aoife Clarke, Chair of Drinks Ireland | Spirits and Senior Director of Public Affairs, International, Beam Suntory said: “This is the third industry and market report issued by
Nuremberg, Germany November 12-14 hall 9 · booth 363
How can I produce the beers demanded by the market at lowest possible costs? Who understands my challenges in terms of the raw material and water supply? How can I realize continuous production processes, which are controlled fully automatically and monitored inline? We are the partner who answers your question. BECAUSE SUCCESS IS ALSO A QUESTION OF HAVING THE RIGHT PARTNER
www.ziemann-holvrieka.com
5219_ZH_AZ_INDUSTRY_210x75_EN_Brau.indd 1
09.09.19 14:02
20 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I november 2019
i bd.org.uk
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker