Quinn's dumped as sales slump
Diageo has pulled the plug on its Quinn's RTD, launched just last year with an £8.5m marketing spend.
The company's new head of innovation, Liz Finn, said sales had not met up with the company's expectations for the brand.
Finn said: "The insight was right but what we were trying to do - category-breaking stuff rather than just another flavour - is extremely hard."
Quinn's was billed as a "fruit ferment", an RTD (ready-to-drink) made by fermenting natural fruit juice rather than adding flavours to a vodka base.
"Communicating its newness and its benefits were tough," said Finn.
"Getting consumers to change their behaviour is very hard as well. Asking people to switch from doing something that they're quite happy doing, to doing something new is very challenging. We were very excited and our customers were because it was new news, but it hasn't performed as well as we hoped."
Finn also confirmed the withdrawal of the Archers Vea and Slate 20 from the market.
J&B -6°C, the clear, premium blended Scotch, is also being discontinued in the UK, but will remain in overseas markets.
Finn said: "This was an attempt at re-invigorating the Scotch whisky market. In terms of our criteria it hasn't managed it, so rather than leave it out there we've decided to pull it.
"Ultimately it's judged on sales performance."
