More People Drink Whisky Than Don’t Drink Whisky
Statista produced a dossier discussing a range of statistics and facts about the whisky industry in the United Kingdom. According to a survey, more people drink whisky in the UK than don’t drink whisky. In addition, the dossier concluded that the whisky industry had a significant economic impact on the UK.
That isn’t a shocking revelation.
According to the Scotch Whisky Association, Scotch Whisky accounted for 75% of Scottish food and drink exports, 21% of all UK food and drink exports, and 1.4% of all UK goods exports. In addition, the Scotch Whisky industry provides £5.5bn in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy.
But of interest to investors is that the survey suggests more people drink whisky than don’t drink whisky. So in this blog, we want to talk about how the changing demand for whisky impact investing.
More People Drinking Whisky
Twenty-four thousand people in the UK, above the age of 15, responded to the survey, asking how often they drank whisky. The options were:
Option 1: 10 or more glasses last week
Option 2: 5 to 9 glasses last week
Option 3: 3 or 4 glasses last week
Option 4: 1 or 2 glasses last week
Option 5: 3 or more glasses last month
Option 6: 1 or 2 glasses last month
Option 7: No glasses last month
The survey found an estimated 431,000 people drank ten glasses or more of scotch whisky during the week.
Frequency of Drinking Scotch Whisky in Great Britain 2013-2019
Kantar Media. “Number of People Using Scotch Whisky (excluding Malt) in Great Britain from 2013 to 2019, by Frequency of Use (in 1,000s).” Statista Inc., 9 Jun 2020.
This tells us that while 1.7 million people didn’t drink whisky in the month before the survey, 4.5 million people consumed at least 1 or 2 glasses of whisky.
We think it’s increasing to see that there are more people drinking scotch than not drinking it.
More People Are Drinking More Scotch
There is a shift in the number of whisky people drink scotch.
In 2013, 2.5 million people said they didn’t drink whisky last month. Not one sip.
But, by 2019, the number of people who hadn’t drunk any whisky dropped to 1.7 million. That’s a 30% decrease in non-whisky drinkers.
Look at the chart this way.
Frequency of Scotch whisky usage in Great Britain 2013-2019
Kantar Media. “Number of People Using Scotch Whisky (excluding Malt) in Great Britain from 2013 to 2019, by Frequency of Use (in 1,000s).” Statista Inc., 9 Jun 2020
All of the categories have decreased, except for two: people who drank ten or more glasses and people who drank between 5 to 9 glasses last week. These two categories increased by 38% and 30%, respectively.
This survey suggests that the number of drinking many whiskies has increased from 2013 to 2019.
Impact on Scotch Investment
Whisky has growth potential because the whisky changes and improves each year. However, when you invest in an asset like gold, market forces are the only control value factors.
Whisky increases in value year on year because it matures in the cask. The industry has invested millions in marketing and promotional campaigns. Increased customer demand for premium whisky makes owning a cask of maturing whisky a more appealing asset. The longer a cask matures in a warehouse, the more desirable it becomes. This has made whisky casks a good option for investors looking for medium or long term investments.
We can see that more people drink whisky than don’t drink whisky. And there is a growing number of people who drink more than five glasses of scotch a week.
The massive demand for scotch whisky is a fantastic investment opportunity.
If you'd like to learn more about investing in whisky, complete this form, and we'll email our Ultimate Guide to Whisky Cask Investment.
