Brandy: Shedding old-fashioned image

DO MANY of your customers slip on a velvet smoking jacket after dinner and retire outside to puff on a cigar, stroke their bushy military moustaches and enjoy a long, slow sip of a brandy digestif? Thought not.

This is the problem that the brandy category has. The images associated with the spirit are outdated and the major players are struggling to update them and recruit new, younger drinkers.

Brandy has also been more susceptible than other spirits to a financial downturn. Such luxurious high-priced drinks were always likely to be high on the list of pub products customers could cut back on. It has resulted in a disastrous performance by the category in the on-trade.

So what are the brands doing to reverse the situation? And what can pubs do to make brandy profitable? They are encouraging the use of brandy in simple long drinks in a bid to make the spirit more accessible. They also see an opportunity in trading up customers. There is a scale of different qualities of brandy, ranging from the entry level VS to VSOP and upwards. VSOP varieties are growing at the expense of VS.

The vast majority of Courvoisier's production has typically been VS, but its volumes of VS and higher marques are growing, it reports. Some producers, such as Remy Martin, do not push a VS at all.

Strict controls​

Similarly, producers believe consumers need to know the difference between brandy and cognac. Cognac is a more premium sub-section of brandy, its production strictly controlled by French law - just as champagne must be produced in a specific region and in a certain way.

There are many initiatives aimed at achieving this education and change of image. The goals of Martell's new advertising campaign are obvious in its title, 'Distinctly Modern', for example.

Three Barrels has appointed one of its drinkers, Maria Barrow, as brand ambassador through a competition based on entrants simplifying the language of brandy. To coincide with the appointment, it also launched a Plain English Guide.

Training in how to best use and sell brandy is offered by all the major players.

Concerns over the need for drinkers to recognise the difference between cognac and brandy is a big issue for Three Barrels - it is a brandy, not a cognac. But Three Barrels brand manager Harriett Knight believes there is still a role for brandies to play - introducing new brandy drinkers to the category who can then trade up to cognac.

All in all, it's safe to say the velvet-suited, moustachioed cigar smoker has been left out in the cold.