Alcohol excise ‘damaging tourism’

High levels of excise duty on alcohol in Ireland is damaging tourism and one of the country’s oldest industries Irish whiskey.

The CEO of Irish Distillers, Anna Malmhake, said that the punitive rate of excise being charged in Ireland means that tourists are not buying Irish whiskey and that it has become too expensive for the Irish.

“When I see more and more pubs go under, and when I see that we are actually punishing tourists and everyone else as well with the third highest excise duties in Europe, you sort of go a little bit desperate because that is one of our best ways of spreading the word about Irish whiskey. It doesn’t matter how many TV commercials we produce nothing beats someone having been here and having an affinity,” she said.

Ms Malmhake said that in Britain they have realised that ratcheting up excise duty was having a disastrous effect on their most successful export, scotch. She said that Irish whiskey was being disproportionately impacted by the 60% excise duty in Ireland.

“If we could just have a level playing field and be at a sort of decent midrange European level of taxation, we would at least not have a disadvantage versus other countries when we are trying to show off to tourists.

“The thing that is happening at the moment, that is really disturbing with the excise duty, is that you see a movement from Irish whiskey in general into products that are cheaper, so, imported vodka. Because Irish whiskey is a premium thing and people are suddenly shocked by the prices they go and buy something cheaper, it is hitting Irish whiskey disproportionately versus other spirits, which is a pity,” she said.

Despite the problems that Irish whiskey is battling in Ireland, it is experiencing a resurgence in popularity around the world.

Irish distillers is planning to quadruple the output of Irish whiskey in the run up to 2030 as new production facilities and bottling plants come into operation.

The success of Irish whiskey is largely been driven by Jameson and Ms Malmhake is confident it will become one of the world top 10 brands in the next five years.

“Jameson is number 17 on the list of the worlds biggest global brands, 16 years ago it wasn’t even on the list of the 100 biggest and by 2020 we want it to be firmly in the list of top 10 brands.”