Jack Daniel’s Takes Down Scotch In The UK

By Richard Thomas

When Diageo sent subsidiary George Dickel out to do battle against the 2013 Tennessee Whiskey Law that seemed very much in Dickel’s interests, speculation at the time was that it had nothing to do with Tennessee Whiskey and everything to do with safeguarding Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, the world’s top-selling whiskey, against the challenge of rival Jack Daniel’s. As the informed logic went, Diageo knocking the Lincoln County Process down would hurt the brand-building efforts of Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman.

If they were nervous a couple of years ago, the people charged with guarding Johnnie Walker’s interests must be worried anew about Lynchburg whiskey this week. British trade magazine The Grocer has reported that Jack Daniel’s has become the biggest whiskey brand in the UK, the home market for Johnnie Walker and Scotch whisky in general.

While Daniel’s surged ahead by 9.3% last year, sales of Scotch whisky in the UK slumped. The top-selling British brand, Famous Grouse, fell by more than 14%, with the top six Scotch brands falling by 4.4% in aggregate.