WHISKY IN BULK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19136, 3 October 1936, Page 4

WHISKY IN BULK

MATURING PROCESSES LENGTHY AND COSTLY DOM INION 1 IMPORTATIONS “So far as we can judge at present, the proposal of the Scottish manufacturers to suspend shipments of the lower grades of whisky to New Zealand in bulk will not affect the present position much. It is not surprising that the manfacturers in Scotland should have turned their attention to the United States as a market for their lower-grade whiskies, in view of the difference in the importation regulations in America and in New Zealand,” said Mr. D. J. Barry, well known in the New Zealand liquor trade and a pioneer in the industry in this, district, discussing to-day the" recent announcement of the Scottish ; Whisky Association’s new policy. “It will be noted that tire proposals only affect the cheaper grades imported in bulk, and not the better classes of draught whisky which are brought into New Zealand and bottled' here. These latter grades of whisky furnish the manufacturers with a larger margin of profit, and though probably they could sell at higher profits in the United States at present, the suppliers at Home are not likely to let the New Zealand market go, so far as the good lines of whisky are concerned,” added Mr. Barry. PRICE TO DISTRIBUTORS “There may be some adjustments in the price of whisky to the distributors in this country, as a result of transferring some of the present transit costs from the manufacturer to the distributor, but it is estimated—and it is of course purely an estimate—that the difference will be limited to about Is a gallon of draught spirits, and Is 6d per case on the more expensive importations.” Regulations governing the importation of whisky into New Zealand, together with the incidence of taxation in the. Dominion, have hedped to create a situation in which the manufacturers of bulk supplies are forced 1 to exploit other markets as far as possible. Mr. Barry ..referred to the high taxation on spirits as having carried the retail prices to the limit, and added that the exchange legislation had hit the trade hard, as it was impossible to increase the retail prices to recover the exchange charges. Another point was that the regulations laid it down that whisky for importation into New Zealand must be at least five years’ old. Undoubtedly this was a good measure from the point of view of people who consumed spirits, but it meant increased costs in manufacture and ageing, which again cut into the margin of profit in the business. On the grades for which the lower prices were asked by the suppliers, the margin was not sufficient in these days to hold the' interest of manufacturers, when the United States offered an unrestricted market for the same grades. LONG AGEING PROCESS On 'the subject of the sgeiug of whisky, Mr. Barry offered some highly interesting observations. “The process of ageing,” lie stated, “is mainly a process of extracting from the newly-manu-factured spirits the ingredient known as fusel oil. This oil could only be successfully expelled in manufacture on a commercial scale by keeping! the spirits in casks, the wool of which gradually absorbed the oil, allowing the whisky to mature and mellow.” The process was long and involved a considerable outlay by the manufacturers in raw material, containers, and storage space from which no return was obtainable until five years had elapsed. The longer a grade of whisky was kept in store, the higher the charges against manufacture rose, and whisky that had to age five years was naturally more expensive to supply than a grade which was only aged for, say, two or three years. Incidentally, there were many people in the old country who made a practice of. investing in whisky of recognised brands, and holding it at their own expense for sale at a suitable time, when prices offered a profit on the investment. ' Another interesting feature of the industry was the practice, previously followed in a large way and even now of frequent occurrence, of sending whisky for a voyage by sea. Herald readers would probably have noted that a shipment of spirits was aboard a liner now oound for Auckland.

In earlier years, Mr. Barry said, many jf the sailing! vessels which traded to New Zealand for wool, and to Australia for similar cargoes, carried large quantities of bulk spirit in ballast. The movement of the spirit in the casks, with the rolling of the ships, was regarded as especially beneficial in the expulsion of fusel oil, and a round-trip of a few months was believed to achieve better results than a much longer period of storage ashore.