SB Interviews… Simon Fay, Irish Distillers

Jameson’s has long been the driving force in Irish whiskey, but has never felt constrained by the category, as Simon Fay explains to Tom Bruce-Gardyne.

Simon Fay, international brand director for Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard

”I’ve found out what causes the problem, and I’m going to stop it now,” says Simon Fay trying, but failing, to keep a straight face, as laughter ricochets off the walls of his Dublin office at Irish Distillers HQ.

The 40 year-old international brand development director has just had daughter number five in as many years, starting with triplets. One can only hope there is a generous staff discount at the parent company – Pernod Ricard. With the prospect of so many weddings, he’s going need it when the time comes.

Fay was in his final year at college when he joined Irish Distillers in 1996, almost a decade after Pernod bought it for its principal brand Jameson’s. It was the world’s number one Irish whiskey, though that was not much of a boast in 1988 when total sales were just 466,000 cases, half of them in Ireland. It is still number one, but now sells over four million cases, of which 95% are exports.

Scotch shift

Jameson’s had the luck of the Irish to be bought by the French group before it morphed into a multinational giant. In 1988 Pernod Ricard was known for its Clan Campbell Scotch, Wild Turkey Bourbon, Orangina and its eponymous pastis brands. Even as late as 2000, 38% of its spirits sales were in France. The group’s mantra was “local roots – global reach” and it needed brands like Jameson’s to achieve this before it acquired Chivas, Absolut and Ballantine’s. “It would have been one of the cornerstones of the business,” says Fay. “And still is, of course,” he adds quickly.

After a brief stint in the domestic market, he joined Jameson’s graduate programme in South Africa and became its brand ambassador there.

“Pernod Ricard South Africa reported directly to Irish Distillers which meant there was a complete focus on building Jameson’s from the bottom up. We got great share of time and mind from the marketing team.”

With whisky drinkers hooked on a few Scotch brands like Bell’s and J&B, his team was out “to disrupt the market and get people to think about and discover the taste of Jameson’s whiskey for the first time”.

Success in South Africa and later Russia proved that Jameson’s could stand on its own two feet as a thoroughly modern, international spirit. Had it simply played on its “Oirish” charm in order to supply the handful of Irish bars in Cape Town and Moscow it would have remained very niche indeed.

Meanwhile Pernod was acquiring some serious, global brands which could have side-lined the Irish whiskey, not that Fay was worried. “On the contrary it just helped Jameson’s get to a different level of potential in terms of distribution and focus.” It also helped having Richard Burrows as joint-MD of Pernod Ricard to act as a benign godfather to the brand. Burrows had previously been head of Irish Distillers.

With Jameson’s enjoying a 65% share of Irish whiskey and being virtually synonymous with it in many markets, I wonder if that bothers him at all.

Jameson takes St Patrick’s Day very seriously, with a new bottle design released every year

Still an emerging category?

“Irish whiskey is still very small in the context of global whiskey with about a 4% share. There is no doubt in the last three years the competition has been increasing with William Grant’s, Beam and Diageo,” says Fay, referring to Tullamore Dew, Kilbeggan and Bushmills. “I think that’s a good thing. We monitor the category, but we want to think beyond it.”

He sees Jameson’s competitive set as simply premium and super-premium whiskeys. Describing the essence of the brand, he says: “’Irishness’ is very important to us, but it is more about the attitude and culture than continually trying to portray it in commercial communications. In the US there is an Irish diaspora and it’s great that they support the brand, and there’s a network of Irish bars as well. So there was a great base for Jameson’s to grow in the States and we wouldn’t be where we are today, if it wasn’t there.”

Later we get on to that annual festival of Irishness held on 17 March. “We embrace St Patrick’s Day, and the spirit of what it’s all about. It’s amazing to think how many countries celebrate it.”

The Irish renaissance

In the States, St Patrick’s Day may help sell more Heineken than anything, thanks to the beer brand’s green colour, but the festival certainly puts Ireland front of mind and has way more impact than Scotch whisky’s other significant date beyond Christmas; namely Father’s Day. Talking of Scotch, it is hard to believe that it once played second fiddle to Irish whiskey.

When the Distiller’s company, a distant ancestor of Diageo, built the Phoenix Park Distillery in Dublin in 1878 it claimed that demand for Irish whiskey was five times greater than Scotch whisky. Then came Irish independence and a loss of the Commonwealth markets, followed by Prohibition and a loss of the States, at which point the country’s distillers seemed to throw in the towel. There were no real brands and Jameson’s itself was not bottled until 1969.

So are the Irish finally making up for lost time? “You mean, is the renaissance taking place?” says Fay. “I hope so. I get up every morning and think ‘yeah, that’s what it’s about’. There’s a big pot of North American and Scotch whisky out there. Why shouldn’t people have an opportunity to taste something different?”

Yellow Spot is the second release in the group’s ‘Spot’ single pot still series

Meeting demand

With the brand currently growing by 15% worldwide, the company’s Midleton distillery is at full stretch to keep up with demand. Despite this, he insists there is “no issue with supply”, adding that, “Work is well underway on the €100m expansion of the distillery and the €100m being spent on extra warehousing. It will double the capacity of output and maturation.”

The building work began last May and is expected to take two years, after which all new-make spirit will have to spend at least three years in a cask before it can be sold as Irish whiskey. This is just like Scotch, although there is less emphasis on age thereafter.

“Over the last two years we have focused on a new product called Jameson’s Select Reserve which has a heavier pot-still content. We view it as a natural trade-up from Jameson’s Original,” he explains. In addition there is Jameson’s Gold and Rarest Vintage Reserve and although 12 and 18 year-old expressions exist, you get the impression the Irish are much less hung up about age statements than their cousins across the Irish Sea.

The other area of new product development has been around pot-still whiskeys – a uniquely Irish spirit made from malted and unmalted barley that is triple-distilled.

According to the whiskey writer Peter Mulryan it was this and not Scotch that first turned the world onto whisky. “Jameson’s, Paddy’s and Tullamore Dew all began as pot-still whiskies, but one by one they turned their back on them. They embraced blending with such passion they threw the baby out with the bath water.”

Blended or single pot still?

Finally in the last 18 months, Irish Distillers have relaunched a range of pot-still whiskies including Redbreast, Green Spot and Powers. Fay denies that Irish Distillers has been slow to develop what seems an obvious riposte to Scotch single malts, but admits, “We were just focused on trying to build up Jameson’s.”

So where has the brand reached in terms of its life cycle? “We’re still in the growth phase,” says Fay, pointing to the latest figures from the States. Jameson’s biggest export market grew by a whopping 29% last year.

“I believe there are still lots of opportunities in North America. I’m also very excited about Latin America and what that could be for us over the next three or four years. We have a small base in Asia – in Japan and Korea – and probably over the longer term China will come into play. And then there’s Africa, because we have such a strong base in South Africa.”

In Pernod’s Parisian HQ, Alexandre Ricard will be looking on with keen interest just like Richard Burrows before him. The nephew of the late Patrick Ricard ran Irish Distillers for three years and was appointed deputy head of the French group last August. He is set to succeed as CEO in 2015.

“We’ve been incredibly lucky to have Alex work with us, and genuinely he’s an advocate for the brand. He’s a great supporter of Jameson’s and the rest of the Irish whiskeys we produce,” says Fay who believes that Ricard truly enjoyed his years in Dublin. “He’ll never forget Ireland. We won’t let him!”