Diageo trading Bushmills

[DavidH]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bushmills is being traded for a tequila brand. Proximo Spirits (Jose Cuervo), ultimately owned by a Mexican family, would get Bushmills.

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

I assume Proximo will keep Jose Cuervo and sell them another brand. I remember Diageo had the rights to sell Jose Cuervo before and lost it.

I can only hope it'll be good for Bushmills. Diageo have done nothing with it in Ireland and the brand has actually lost ground to its competitors since they took over.

[Fionnán]

my primary fear is that now Diageo have no stake in Irish distilling, they'll be competing against irish whiskey rather than simply ignoring it and we all know how that once turned out in their previous incarnation as DCL...

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

my primary fear is that now Diageo have no stake in Irish distilling, they'll be competing against irish whiskey rather than simply ignoring it and we all know how that once turned out in their previous incarnation as DCL...

I think their ownership was similar to being against Irish whiskey anyway. I think a new owner will bring new ideas and hopefully Colum Egan will get freedom to develope new whiskeys. Remember all fantastic whiskeys they had around the millennium. That double distilled stuff that Tellings have is excellent too.

[Luke Gough]

I assume Proximo will keep Jose Cuervo and sell them another brand. I remember Diageo had the rights to sell Jose Cuervo before and lost it.

I can only hope it'll be good for Bushmills. Diageo have done nothing with it in Ireland and the brand has actually lost ground to its competitors since they took over.

Diageo's mission is to generate dividends.

White Spirits have a quick turnaround, Brown Spirits don't.

Have a peep at John Glaser (Ex-Diageo) in Compass Box to see what could have been in Diageo:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YyQQjMlRb4
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5iIcDIuEAU

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

I read an article saying they had reduced their market percentage in Ireland Whiskey in the last few years. It was 17% of the Irish whiskey market in 2008 and in 2013 it was 8%. That is a big drop. I wonder does any of their staff now work for Irish Water?

[IainB]

This might sound mad but I'm starting to wonder if I would like to see Bushmills going back to IDL. I've just been looking at some of the single cask bottlings and the old 12 yr old select casks release that all date from those days - all great whiskeys and at that time there was very little unusual coming from Midleton. When you look at what Midleton have done since you'd have to wonder would an IDL reacquisirion be so bad. I was excited when diageo took over as there was so little competition at the time but there's a lot more out there now. Just a thought.

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

This might sound mad but I'm starting to wonder if I would like to see Bushmills going back to IDL. I've just been looking at some of the single cask bottlings and the old 12 yr old select casks release that all date from those days - all great whiskeys and at that time there was very little unusual coming from Midleton. When you look at what Midleton have done since you'd have to wonder would an IDL reacquisirion be so bad. I was excited when diageo took over as there was so little competition at the time but there's a lot more out there now. Just a thought.

I think you could be right there IainB, lets see what Jose Cuervo do. I'm hoping they do better than the last caretakers. I know little about Jose Cuervo so I'm not going to judge them yet. Fingers crossed all the same.

[John]

I'm with the general opinion on this and think that at least the move away from Diageo has to be good for Bushmills. They certainly didn't do an awful lot to promote their releases here.