Show Notes
Welcome to Series 2 of Cask to Glass the Whisky Podcast with John Beattie.
We're back after a break because of illness and then Christmas and New Year. And we're raring to go for 2026!
But where is the Scotch and global whisky industry headed in the next year?
Throughout 2025, John heard from various whisky insiders about their concerns for the immediate future of the industry. But there are more and more warnings about the state of the sector. Last month Jim Beam announced it would suspend production of bourbon at its main site in Kentucky for the whole of 2026. Days later the Financial Times reported that "tariffs and cost of living pressures leave undrunk whisky galore" in Scotland.
"Customers," the FT suggested, "are buying less and choosing cheaper brands, risking jobs in [the] Scotch industry."
So in this episode, John speaks to Scottish investigative journalist Ian Fraser, who's been digging around and speaking to industry insiders.
"I think the industry is in trouble," he tells John. " There was a massive boom in whisky which ended in 2022; which was exaggerated by the Covid pandemic when people were staying home and drinking more expensive bottles of Scotch and other whiskies. And I think there was a bit of a lack of realism within the industry. There was a srot of assumption that this golden period that the whisky industry went through was going to last forever. And it clearly hasn't."
Total exports of Scotch whisky, Ian says, are down from £6.2 billion in 2022 to around £5.4 billion in 2024.
"What has caused this downturn," he asks? "It's difficult to really know. But there's certainly been a lack of consumer confidence, which I think evaporated after Covid. There's inflation. There's war in Ukraine, which has closed the Russian market. There are doubts over the Chinese market, which hasn't performed quite as well as people were hoping."
"All the major Scotch whisky companies," Ian continues, "are suffering falls in sales, falls in profits. And the newer ones I think, which established themselves in the last decade or so are perhaps the most vulnerable to these factors and this downturn in the industry."
And while Ian maintains "the margins are very strong in Scotch" and he doesn't think anyone "is actually loss making yet - certainly among the established player", he cautions that the share prices of the large groups have "been in freefall".
They're down 60 and 70 percent in some cases, he says.
"We haven't seen any massive bad news in the industry in terms of companies going bust or distilleries completely closing, or administrations or whatever," Ian says; people in the industry he's spoken to say, "They're on the way."
Join John and Ian as they discuss what 2026 might hold for the Scotch whisky industry:
Was there an over-exuberance in period to to 2022? Have too many distilleries and producers chased premium prices? Is there an oversupply of whisky maturing in warehouses? Could there be "a race to the bottom" in terms of pricing? Are there still some markets holding up? What's the optimum price for a bottle of whisky? Can the industry pick itself up and move forward? And who's best placed to suceed?
Pour yourself a dram, and tune in.
Slàinte! ------- Socials: @C2GWhisky @JohnRossBeattie
Creator & producer: David Holmes Art work & design: Jess Robertson
Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home) Vocals: Andrea Cunningham Guitars: John Beattie Bass: Alasdair Vann Drums: Alan Hamilton Bagpipes: Calum McColl Accordion: Gary Innes Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland
Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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