Snooth Talk: Wild Turkey goes Italian?

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: Wild Turkey goes Italian?; Posted by fibo86, Apr 13.; Pernod Ricard has announced it is selling Wild Turkey and related businesses to Gruppo Campari for 575million US, what Icon is next?

2524 1746: Reply by Gregory Dal Piaz, Apr 13.; tacchino selvatico

It has ring to it.

And Fiat plans to buy Chrysler. Wowwowwowie!

10 1162: Reply by dmcker, Apr 13.; So Fibo, you're discriminating against Italians over French? ;-)

And Greg, too bad Yugo's not still around to catch Chrysler next. They've already rebound from Germany back to Detroit and now to Northern Italy. Can't really go any further south, so guess they have to go East...

9 233: Reply by fibo86, Apr 14.; Not at all, I was only snoothing the other day and having an interesting conversation regarding the fact that Suntory (Japanese) had purchased Bowmore and I thought that this might just stir some talk..... however I think I should have added a bit more to it looking at it now!? :-{,

Plus if they do any label changes or swap Master Distillers it just means (for me anyway) some of the bottles I have will go up significantly, especially when I decide to sell them 40yrs from now.

Plus you should hear the moaning here if General Motors goes bust, then you should be able to hear the boy's of Australia all cry at once from where you are as it means no more of the beloved Holden utes ( truck)

1532 759: Reply by RBoulanger, Apr 14.; Don't worry - they are not going to swap Master Distillers or anything.

Pernod Ricard has been selling brands for the past few years. They expanded rapidly over the last decade and, since gobbling up V&S (Absolut Vodka), they've been selling off their non-core brands to help pay for the debt service.

Wild Turkey is a relatively small player in the US straight whiskey category. Brown-Forman (Jack Daniels & Early Times) has almost 40% share, Jim Beam (along with Old Crow) has almost 30% share, and Heaven Hill (Evan Williams) has another 10%. This leaves Wild Turkey, Ten High, Maker's Mark and a mess of small players with 3 to 4% share and less.

Campari is looking to diversify - especially away from the home market. They are a very well-managed company, but they really only have Campari, Cinzano & Skyy Vodka as major international brands. This gives them a great step into the US... and gets them into the Bourbon niche - something they are equipped to fight for. It probably also means that "tacchino selvatico" will be seen more widely in Italy and Europe now.

Fibo - one of the notes in the Campari press release about this deal was "Provides Foundation for Establishing Distribution Platform in Attractive Australian Market" so expect to see more Italian products in Oz.

dmcker - they also cite the acquisition of Wild Turkey as an opportunity to break into Japan.

9 233: Reply by fibo86, Apr 14.; oh oh great point RB, that means more spirits to taste.
I really was hoping that the Master distiller had changed to put the worth of my bottles up.

1532 759: Reply by RBoulanger, Apr 14.; You don't really want the worth of your bottles to go up because you want to enjoy your spirits.
After all, you didn't buy them as investments...
Cheers!

By the way, have you ever had AppleJack i.e. American Calvados? That's another one you probably don't get in the antipodes...yet!

9 233: Reply by fibo86, Apr 15.; Yeah I'm a spirit collector, only cause I don't have a good cellar. I was just reading up on Apple jack the other day and was wondering if it had been named Apple Jack as the Brits have Scrumpy Jack.....although I don't really know the story behind either name.

10 1162: Reply by dmcker, Apr 18.; BTW Fibo, I just confirmed yesterday that Suntory only owned Macallan between 1996 and 1999...

9 233: Reply by fibo86, Apr 18.; Well there you go but that still doesn't account for Fine Oak!

10 1162: Reply by dmcker, Apr 18.; Suntory still has a close connection with the current owners, since they are the sole distributor for Japan (don't know about China), and I've been told Japan makes up nearly half of Macallan's business. When Edrington bought the Highland Group in '99 they also bought at least part of their special relationship with Suntory.

I mention elsewhere about the laxity of Japanese laws regarding whisky age, etc. (only 51% of a bottling need be of the age presented on the label--the rest can be of any age whatsoever). And since Macallan's current owners place upfront PR importance on being a major player in the international scotch marketplace while having only some five labels in their portfolio (Macallan, Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark, Highland Park and Brugal), of which one is a rum, we can assume they make many 'special' bottlings for their foreign markets...