Date:

Tue, 25 Oct 2011

Source:

Douglas Laing & Co has rounded off a fantastic year with significant growth, strong profits, new casks, and an award from one of the whisky world’s most revered critics.

At this time last year the company had anticipated growing annual turnover by 5% to around £4.7 million. However, strong performance reflected a £0.5 million increase taking turnover to £5 million.

There was a corresponding £0.268 million rise in gross profit to £2.515 million. Gross margin remained unchanged at 50% – reflecting continued strong growth in the company’s high-value malts.

The reported pre-tax profit of £1.23 million is an increase of £948,000 on last year while the Douglas Laing’s underlying profitability rose by £200,000 (25%) to £1 million.

Glasgow-based Douglas Laing’s single barrel Clan Denny Cambus 47 Years Old has also been selected by author Jim Murray as the Best Scotch Grain of the Year 2012 in his renowned Whisky Bible – the essential whisky lovers’ guide, published annually and internationally.

Murray had to undertake the “arduous” task of nosing, tasting and rating his way through just under 1500 whiskies before reaching consensus on the most excellent blends, malts and grains from around the world.

Clan Denny was described by Murray as “a mesmeric blending of classic liquorice-bourbony tones, the vivid vanilla of a great Canadian and the sharp, lively precision of a massive Scotch”.

He also stated that “if you spent a dozen years of your life trying to create a whisky with absolutely perfect weight on delivery, you’d still fail to match the natural genius of this…there will be very few whiskies I taste this year that will outgun this one in the quality stakes”.

Douglas Laing – the independent bottler and blender which have been established in the industry for over 60 years – will shortly introduce the first of a number of sister casks to this particular Cambus Grain whisky, which have now aged to 48 years.

Fred Laing, director of Douglas Laing, said: “The important United Kingdom market was static through last year when it could have been worse and new accounts are now regularly being opened to set us up well for the future.

“Enhancing all this, large sales are taking place in new markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore with stalwart markets such as the Japanese, American, Australian and Taiwanese (up 85%) markets remaining strong for us, but with no positive impact yet from BRIC countries.”

Talking about the Clan Denny award, he said: “This is a tremendous acknowledgement of how special Old Scotch Grains can be – particularly on the nose and palate.

“As blenders and bottlers with a 60-year history we have some wonderful stocks of Old Grains that really start to pick up great character once they hit 20 years and over, despite largely being reviewed as ‘neutral’ in content and being used mainly to stretch the malt content of a blend.

“It just goes to show that snobbery in the whisky world should be ignored. Beyond which – we only select the casks to bottle because we like the contents – the true laurels should go to the Cambus distillery team who were in charge 47-48 years ago.”

A number of other positive developments have resulted in an encouraging year for the company, including significant growth of flagship brands Old Malt Cask, OLD & RARE (up 166%) as well as the extension of Big Peat (up over 90%) – a maverick all-Islay blended whisky launched in 2009 – into territories such as the EU, Taiwan and Australasia.

A special “Big Peat @ Christmas” cask strength bottling of 1800 cases, launched in September, sold out in early October.

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