Confessions of a spirits retail buyer: Royal Mile Whiskies

Arthur Motley, sales and purchasing director for Edinburgh-based retailer Royal Mile Whiskies, discusses the importance of helping inexperienced customers and his high hopes for Armagnac.

Arthur Motley of Royal Mile Whiskies is overwhelmed by the number of new spirits entering the market

Price, presentation and the quality of the liquid – these three things need to be strongly in play and are crucial when I consider stocking a new product. Price can go out the window at times if the liquid is truly exceptional; after all there’s only so far it can take a product.

Make sure you’ve done your groundwork if you want to be listed with us. We’re not asking for huge amounts of marketing investment, but we want the best products on the shelves and if producers have done their jobs, then it makes it easier for us to help them sell. There needs to be a balance between the work done before the product gets to us and what we can then do to take it forward.

For a while the really smoky and heavily Sherried stuff was doing really well. I’d say it’s eased up a little now and across the board all styles of whisky are performing pretty well. Customers seem to be looking more for balance rather than leaning towards one extreme or another. There’s such fantastic diversity to whisky – it’s just a case of finding the right style.

Marketing departments like to talk about products being a “good summer” whisky or an “after dinner whisky” and describe products in seasonal terms, but really it all depends on the type of customer who comes into our shops.

Essentially, you have two types of buyers: the inexperienced buyer and the experienced buyer. Inexperienced buyers tend to be people looking to get into a certain spirits category having found something appealling about it, or someone looking to buy a gift. They’ll often ask what the best whisky is, which is always followed by a lengthy discussion.

As you might guess, the experienced buyer has a more honed idea of what they like and tends to be more influenced by blogs and articles they have read, or drinks festivals they have visited. Difficulties arise when a customer is looking for something very specific and exclusive that you just can’t get for love nor money, or you can only find it for an awful lot of money on auction resale sites. People go crazy for finding those sorts of bottles.

What’s challenging me most at the moment is the sheer volume of new products emerging onto the market; it’s very difficult to ensure they’re all treated correctly and properly. A whole new wave of distilleries and craft distilleries are cropping up all over the world, and they’re not just making one type of gin, rum or whisky – they’ll bring out three or four different expressions. We are finding we have to pick and choose our stock a lot more carefully and regrettably say no to a lot of things.

Spirits drinkers are open to trying lots of different products, which is incredibly encouraging and exciting. There are so many fantastic spirits out there lacking the attention they deserve, but now we have a market willing and ready to try them.

What I would personally like to see is a growth in popularity for Armagnac – people just have no idea how great it is. If you can get people excited about mezcal, then you can absolutely do the same with Armagnac. Mezcal has become extremely fashionable, but it’s not down to the producers marketing it in a different way; it’s bartenders and retailers setting the trends and creating excitement around the product. It’s contagious.

I don’t think the French are going to change the way they behave about their spirits, and I don’t think I would want them to, because frankly I love the old fuddy-duddy labels. I like the integrity of the products they make; I just don’t think they communicate their message very well. They’re obsessed by region and provenance, but we’re far more interested in how things are made and what they’re made from, and I think consumers really are really starting to get that as well.