July, 2012 | Booze Business: A Blog Dedicated to the Business of Spirits and Wine

Ireland

July 23, 2012 No Comments

Jameson, Diageo and Seagram…

Having just returned from a holiday in the Emerald Isle, I thought I would share some thoughts, especially about my favorite topic.

Jameson

Seagram had the distribution rights to this Irish whiskey for quite some time and, frankly, didn’t do much with it. With the exception of St. Patrick’s Day promotions and pushing the Irish Coffee drink, the brand went nowhere for years. I suppose it’s understandable, with millions of scotch sales at the heart of the portfolio, there was little room for this great brand.

New Jersey Wine

July 10, 2012 No Comments

The American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) conducted a wine tasting last month and, in case you missed the results, they may make you want to rethink your views of wines from the Garden State.

Back in 1976, a British wine merchant organized a blind wine tasting with 9 French judges called, Judgment of Paris. The tasting included wines from Bordeaux and wines from Napa. The wines from Napa were declared the winners and helped put Napa wines on the map.

Fast forward to June 8, 2012. A group spearheaded by George Taber (who had been in Paris for the original tasting and wrote a book on it) as well as a number of economists from the AAWE and others, organized a tasting called The Judgment of Princeton. The 9 judges this time were from France, Belgium and the US. The wines tasted were from France and, you guessed it, New Jersey.

Booze to Broadway to Booze Again

July 5, 2012 2 Comments

Wine and Spirits Daily and Shanken Daily News have each had stories on
Hiro Sake and its co-founder, Carlos Arana. In fact, there’s been quite a bit
of press about them lately.

Since I’ve known Carlos for most of my booze business days, I thought I would chime in.

At Seagram, Carlos and I suffered through the foibles of our Latin American boss and managed to survive the adventures of Patron in the early days. Carlos went on to run the Asia-Pacific whiskey business.

Next came an 8-year stint with the Beckmann family running the tequila business with impressive results and literally put Jose Cuervo on the global map. He managed to double sales and triple profits and increased market share by five percentage points. Not shabby.

A brief tour of duty as President of the Arnell Group was enough to convince him that doing your own thing is far more rewarding than working in a corporate setting.

So, enter Broadway and Hiro Sake.