11 THE NAVIGATOR | FEATURE A BRAVE NEW (DIGITAL) WORLD In November 1997 Thierry launched La Maison du Whisky’s website, inspired by what he’d seen during his time in America. It was the first website for spirits sales in France, and although sales were almost non-existent due to fears around Internet security, “it gave visibility to our brand. We were quite avant-garde,” says Thierry with a smile. Beyond technological changes in the marketing and sales of spirits, Thierry has also witnessed an evolution in the palates – and purchasing habits – of spirits-lovers. “For me the biggest change over the last 30 years is how the sweet taste is becoming more obvious. When I started, the likes of Laphroaig and Lagavulin were about dry, smoky flavours. Nowadays there is more sweetness in whisky.” That changing palate is also driving the growing interest in rum. “When I started the best sellers were the entry price whisky, and those were blended scotch, but even those were super-dry with 80 percent grain, 20 percent malt. The grain gave a lot of dry notes. Since then we have seen sales of blended scotch going down and today we sell almost no blended scotch, but we now sell a lot of entry-priced sweeter rum.” Over the decades Thierry has also been instrumental in establishing the cachet of exclusive releases and single-cask bottlings. “When we started we were a super-small player and we needed to differentiate ourselves. The only way to remain in this market was to grow the awareness of the customer in higher-value whisky. The single cask release was a way to premiumise the market and create more value for La Maison du Whisky.” “For me it became a model. In a way we influenced the market, especially here in France, but in the end it is the consumer who controls the market. Which is good. I think you always need to reinvent yourself, otherwise you disappear.” And La Maison du Whisky is certainly not going anywhere. Nearly 30 years after Thierry took the reins, today more than 240 people work across the company and volumes have grown to roughly seven million bottles per year with a turnover over €150-million. One hundred times the value of when he took control of the company. Thierry Bénitah
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