Going around Islay you can't help but notice the amount of American, German, Swedish and other European tourists who appear to be here for the whisky. Admittedly the landscape is beautiful and the wildlife is fantastic but most of the tourists are taking distillery tours, which is great.
Here is a small island off the West coast of Scotland attracting thousand of visitors from around the world because seven distilleries sell whisky around the world (the eighth doesn't produce 'whisky' yet). So I get a little miffed when the media in the UK spends so much time promoting other aspects of our food and drink industry but hardly ever mentions whisky. Just last week a news/current affairs programme was promoting the wonders of English wine and how well they were doing.
This is reason to be cheerful and credit to anyone that produces a sparkling wine in Norfolk to compete with Champagne - although the blind tasting didn't go quite according to script! - however I don't recall the story about the latest expression of Highland Park? or the re-branding of the UK's favourite whisky, Glenmorangie?
Not to mention the tax raised through sales of whisky. Whisky is the most heavily taxed alcoholic drink. The Excise duty on a standard bottle of whisky is almost £6, add to that VAT and you can see that on a £20 bottle of whisky the best part of £9 is tax. And when you think that it has normally taken 10yrs to make...??
So let's celebrate our whisky industry, it's sold all over the world, it brings people to the UK bolstering our tourist industry and we all benefit from the taxes it raises.
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