Seeing the Light

MARKETING & SELLING

Americans drink 80% of the world's whisky, and the slightest change in their drinking tastes is anxiously watched by the $6 billion U.S. liquor industry. For some time now, the industry has been adjusting to the public shift toward something called lightness--a combination of smoother flavor, lower alcoholic strength and lighter color. The most dramatic and expensive response to this trend has just been made by Seagrams, the world's biggest distiller. Seagrams is retiring its high-selling ($50 million a year) Calvert Reserve and replacing it with a lighter blend of 50 whiskies and aged spirits called Calvert Extra.

Seagrams Vice President Edgar Miles Bronfman, 33, son of the company's Canadian founder and president, credits the switch to lightness to the influence of women, who prefer drinks without a lingering taste, and of young people, who find the "lights" easier to learn on. "Basically," argues Chairman John Martin of Heublein, which specializes in vodka (Smirnoff) and ready-mixed cocktails, "Americans don't like the taste of alcohol--it's too strong for them." Slightly more than half of the liquor Americans drink is still considered heavy by the new standards--such as bourbons and most blends--but a dozen years ago the "heavies" accounted for more than 80% of sales. Some bourbon distillers are selling more of their reduced proof (86) than of their heavier 100 proof.

Distillers get lightness primarily by using more neutral spirits (grain alcohol), which contain no flavoring congeners, then lowering the proof with distilled water. U.S. distillers are at a disadvantage because federal law limits the amount of neutral spirits they may use in blends, while distillers of Scotch and Canadian have no limits. U.S. blends usually have 65% neutral spirits; Scotch and Canadian usually have 70%. Thanks to the trend to lightness, U.S. sales of Scotch have more than doubled in a decade to 9% of the market (most popular: Cutty Sark and J & B, two of the lightest blends), and light Canadian blends now account for two of the three biggest U.S. sellers (Seagrams' imported V.O. and Hiram Walker's Canadian Club). The market share of such high-spirited "white goods" as gin and vodka has jumped from 9% to 19% since 1952.

Almost all major U.S. distillers are now following the light. Schenley has expanded its Long John Distilleries in Scotland, and National Distillers will soon start importing an extralight Scotch. Kentucky's Brown-Forman has diversified from its heavy commitment to bourbons by importing Green Stripe Scotch and acquiring the U.S. rights to Amsterdam's

Bols vodka. Several U.S. distillers have already begun to market light whisky blends of only 80 proof, and Barton Distilling Vice President Ralph Ettlinger predicts: "Most of the whisky sold in the future will be 80 proof."

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