When bottled scotch is able to sail throughout the Atlantic, it’s sometimes carried in transport containers on cargo ships. However first, feeder vessels should carry the products to a deep-sea port.
Ever puzzled how that bottle of scotch discovered its technique to your native liquor retailer shelf? Each single malts and blends take the transatlantic voyage from Scotland to the U.S., transported in a lot of completely different vessels so as to take pleasure in a dram. We break down that journey into 4 essential steps.
1. Barrel to Bottle
Scotch distillers retailer their casks in giant warehouses that stretch from the southern counties of Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire all the best way as much as the Highlands. The most important scotch whisky producer, Diageo, has its fundamental warehouse in Clackmannanshire (close to Edinburgh), which holds over 3.5 million casks. Most bottling vegetation are situated inside a 35-mile radius of Glasgow, and that’s the place the bottled scotch is stored, awaiting its abroad journey.
Scotch whisky begins its journey to the States in barrel warehouses, the place the casks are dumped and the whisky makes its technique to the bottling line.
2. Time to Journey
When it’s time to go, logistics corporations—often Malcolm Group or Russell Group, which dominate that enterprise in Scotland—drive the bottled scotch to port. The U.S.-bound whisky often sails from Greenock Ocean Terminal, west of Glasgow on Scotland’s coast, although shippers also can use Grangemouth close to Edinburgh. However neither are deep-water services, so feeder vessels should sail the whisky to the deep-sea ports of Liverpool, Southampton, London Gateway, Teesport, and Felixstowe in England—or Rotterdam and Antwerp in Europe—for the ocean voyage.
3. Crusing The Ocean Blue
One of many fundamental ocean routes for U.S.-bound scotch is from Liverpool to New York and New Jersey, although different U.S. locations embody Los Angeles, Lengthy Seashore, Houston, Oakland, Miami, and Port Everglades. The journey to New York takes about 10 to twenty days, whereas it’s 40 days to Los Angeles. Recently, nonetheless, supply-chain woes have been delaying arrivals by two weeks or extra.
4. On to the Native Liquor Retailer
As soon as the whisky arrives within the U.S., the market’s three-tier system takes over. Importers obtain and disburse it to wholesalers, who then transport it, state by state, to retailers throughout the nation. Thus the valuable liquid arrives, prepared so that you can purchase and take to its remaining vacation spot—your private home.
Sources embody the Scotch Whisky Affiliation, Diageo, Compass Field, Russell Group, Malcolm Group, and Kühne Logistics College
