American whiskey now worth £190m in UK

Big brands helped push growth of American whiskey up by 19% in the UK last year, making it one of the “stand out” sub-categories in the country’s beer, wine and spirits sector.

The American whiskey category is one of the “stand out” sub categories in the UK’s BWS industry

According to Nielsen’s latest data, American whiskey is now worth £190 million in the UK, with brands such as Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam bolstering growth.

Brown-Forman-owned Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey was identified as a “key contributor” to sales, growing its brand portfolio by 17% over the last 52 weeks to sales of £154m.

While the brand’s flavoured portfolio, particularly Tennessee Honey, has pushed global sales, its core expression was the main driver of UK growth, increasing 18% by value.

Rival Jim Beam, meanwhile, has grown sales by more than 50% in the last year, and is now close to hitting sales of £20m. Both brands have offered consumers “better prices”, with prices down for 70cl bottles.

However, Nielsen notes that smaller brands are also performing well in the country.

“Growth for smaller brands such as Woodford Reserve and Buffalo Trace points to more of a consumer trend than entirely price driven performance uplift,” the company said.

Looking at consumer demographic, Nielsen said the category “strongly indexes” among young shoppers, with 17% of the category expenditure among the 18-34-year-old age group. This compares to the group’s overall 8% expenditure in the spirits category as a whole.

The group also said that “whiskey style” variants, that is, flavoured American “whiskeys”, are a “key factor” in the category’s growth, and will continue to expand.

The entire American whiskey category is set to expand even further over the next year, as a number of new distilleries prepare to open.