Return to the mix

Thanks to the ongoing cocktail revival and increasing interest from the bar trade, the good times are returning to the once flagging liqueurs sector, as Alan Lodge discovers.

Aside from varying abvs, ever-changing trends and a lack of back bar prominence, there is one major problem when one tries to piece together an overview of the global liqueurs market.

Like late-90s boy bands, reality TV shows and Justin Bieber fans, there are quite simply too many of them.

With defined minimum sugar contents, traditional liqueurs are typically thick, sweet products consisting of a spirit base combined with an infusion of flavours such as fruit, herbs, nuts or mint. Many, such as Bénédictine or Cointreau, have been produced for generations and are classified as full-strength 40% abv spirits. They were traditionally drunk as after-dinner digestifs or on special occasions, though now tend to be consumed also with mixers or as part of a cocktail.

The traditional liqueurs category also includes fruit brandies, which blend grape brandy or alcohol with a fruit flavouring. Products in this category include ranges by companies such as Bols and De Kuyper.

In a market where few consumers are really likely to notice the difference between one shot of raspberry liqueur and another, building brand recognition is perhaps more difficult in the liqueur market than in any other drinks category.

The unique challenge faced by brand owners in this most cluttered of categories is that its products are often used solely by bartenders, and out of sight of the public.

Lack of awareness

Take Wenneker or Volare, for example. While thousands of consumers may well have enjoyed a cocktail containing their products recently, the number of them who would be aware of which brand they were drinking is likely to be minimal. It’s a problem widely recognised by the companies that produce such products.

For example, Richard Ridley, export director at Wenneker, laments: “Customers will rarely, if ever, ask for a Wenneker cocktail.

“The chances are they might well have enjoyed our products in the past, but have not been aware of the Wenneker brand, so it makes marketing to them a lot more difficult.

“In certain bars and markets, the bottles will even be hidden below the counter, and as such the consumer has absolutely no idea which brand they are drinking.”

Such problems have led Wenneker and many other liqueur producers to switch their marketing focus to bartenders, rather than going direct to consumers.

Ridley adds: “It is the barmen who can take the story of the brand to the consumer, so we specifically tailor our marketing towards them and ensure they know we offer the broadest range of liqueurs out there.”

Indeed, Jeremy Hill, chairman of Volare UK distributor Hi-Spirits, is under no illusions as to who exactly the brand must target to achieve growth.

“Volare is a professional’s brand, designed to be used by bartenders who want to offer a wide range of cocktails and long drinks and to change their drinks menus regularly,” he says. “They are the focus of all efforts to grow the Volare brand.”

On-trade to the rescue

Thank heavens for the on-trade, then. Without bartenders, the liqueurs category might have stayed in the doldrums it inhabited around 10 years ago, as the liqueur-drinking world shifted away from after-dinner consumption. The loss of this key market left many brands without a recognised position in a highly populated and fragmented market.

Many of the older, more established after-dinner brands, such as Drambuie, Cointreau and Grand Marnier, struggled to adapt at first, failing to recognise where fresh opportunities could be found, while newer products seemed to fare better with their more youthful, lower-strength offerings.

Just when things started to look really bleak, however, a lifeline was thrown to the sector by the boom in cocktail consumption, giving brands an ideal platform on which to grow volumes by attracting younger drinkers and opening up fresh avenues to market. What was once an obscure and limiting category became ever more dynamic, thanks to experimentation by bartenders, and many brands and sub-sectors of the liqueurs market were catapulted into rapid and unexpected growth.

As a result, many older brands embarked on a reinvention programme to highlight their contemporary and youthful appeal, and to emphasise their potential as a cocktail ingredient. The big hitters, Baileys aside, retain their positions of strength in the market purely through their mixability.

Michel Jordens, of Fratelli Averna, says: “We still encourage people to enjoy the drink as it is, but we have been making serious inroads into the cocktail culture, which has proved fundamental for further expansion.”

Variations on a theme

Brands such as Malibu, Kahlúa, Bols, Disaronno and Grand Marnier are plastered over cocktail menus across the world, and bartenders seem to enjoy countering their overt sweetness with the bitter twang of fresh citrus or the bite of herbs and spices to create thousands of variations on a theme.

Recently we have seen the emergence on the cocktail scene of brands which were seemingly consigned to after-dinner drinking history.

Now mixologists are experimenting with brands such as Drambuie and Bénédictine, but that doesn’t mean the brands themselves have not been actively investigating ways to claw their way back to the forefront of the market.

Drambuie, the Scotch whisky-based liqueur, underwent a packaging overhaul early in 2009. The move was significant because, natural evolution aside, the packaging had been left largely untouched for decades. The redesign was a clear indication from Drambuie that it was to begin actively seeking to recruit a new generation of younger drinkers, in order to arrest what had seemed a terminal decline.

Another brand seeking to arrest recent struggles over the past couple of years is Malibu, which has just completed a two-year, £14m marketing campaign under the banner Get Your Island On, aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds.

Incorporating television, digital, press, radio, experiential and sampling activities, the campaign aimed to position Malibu as a versatile, highly sociable drink and encouraged consumers to tap into the brand’s Caribbean mindset.

The UK is the second largest market in the world for Malibu sales, with 4.4m bottles being sold every year, accounting for 12% of total global volume.
Despite these relatively stable figures, Malibu owner Pernod Ricard still felt it necessary to continue to reinvent and reinforce its message among the target market, due to the resurgence of its competitors and new sectors opening up all the time.

This included the advent of the clear cream liqueur category, heralded by the release of Triibe in 2008. Made with Irish malt whiskey, and revealing hints of chocolate, vanilla and caramel, the drink is aimed at the younger generation of drinkers.

“The problem with traditional cream liqueurs is their lack of mixability,” says David Bromige, creative director at The Reformed Spirits Company. “Not the taste – they all mainly taste great – but the colour. With Triibe, whatever you add gives colour, whether it’s blue curaçao or green chartreuse, or floating ‘petals’ of strawberry purée – the colours remain pure and vivid.”

Innovative new products, reinvigorated famous names and a market energised by the continued boom in cocktail culture: there’s clearly plenty of life yet in this resurgent drinks sector.