Since the establishment of Singleton, Talisker and Caol Ila, all three distilleries are now affiliated with the Diageo group. After acquiring several distilleries, the wealthy international spirits giant spent a lot of money and invested 185 million pounds in the tourism industry of whiskey to upgrade its production capacity and transform its tourist center.
Some friends may ask: What is this tourist center? Can you still travel to whiskey factory? Has the current epidemic affected abroad?
Today I will tell you the visitor center of the whiskey distillery to see why whiskey tourism is still so valued by manufacturers in the current situation of the epidemic.
What is a visitor center
As the name suggests, the visitor center is an area specially built by a whiskey distillery to receive tourists. It usually includes display areas, tasting rooms, retail stores, etc. The rich point will also directly build a bar inside. The visitor center is often separated from the regular production area of the distillery.
Granwitt Visitor Center reception room
Visitor Center can be said to be an important embodiment of the booming whiskey culture today. The popularity of whiskey and the widespread dissemination of related cultures are attracting more and more people to travel to their favorite wineries. Many people call this kind of trip "pilgrimage". The construction of the Visitor Center is to cater to the wave of whiskey culture that is popular all over the world.
Tescar Visitor Center Bar
Whisky Travel Business Card
In the Scottish region, which has a long history of brewing and high consumption enthusiasm, many whisky distillery have become the pillar enterprises of the local area. In addition to product retail and employment provision, distillery-related tourism projects stimulate local economic growth in terms of catering, transportation, accommodation, etc.
As a result, many whiskey distillers have gradually become local cultural totems, becoming the main selling point for local governments to attract tourists. The distillery visitor center is an important ending point for the whiskey tourism industry.
A corner of Grandona Visitor Center
With the strong return of major whiskey festivals after the epidemic, the scale of festival celebrations is gradually expanding, and the role of the Visitor Center has also been enhanced. For example, the Scotland Tourism Bureau has joined hands with 8 distillers in the Highlands to create the Highland Whiskey Festival, and cooperate with the visitor centers of each distillery, hoping to drive the further development of the tourism industry; Diageo's huge investment is also a hot spot for this whiskey tourism.
Display window of brand image
As the saying goes, wine is afraid of deep alleys. Even whiskey with excellent quality requires some marketing methods to open up the market. Nowadays, the level of storytelling has become an important criterion for measuring a winery's marketing ability .
The visitor centers of many wineries are also called brand homes. They are the winery storefronts that ordinary tourists can access. The display of brand image has naturally become an extremely important function of the tourist center. Areas with small areas are usually filled with the history and stories of the winery.
Tescar Visitor Center Display Area
Glenlivet Distillery obtained a legal distillation certificate in 1824. It is considered a veteran distillery in the Speyside production area. It has a history of more than two hundred years (starting from the illegal distillation period). The winery displays all used brewing containers in the visitor center, from clay pots to oak barrels , a living development history of whiskey brewing does not require too much extra words, and the winery's profound heritage has been fully demonstrated.
Granwitt Visitor Center showroom
Going places for tourists to receive
The word "terroir" sounds full of metaphysical agnostic meaning, but it is a real concept in the field of whiskey.Even if the wines brewed by distillers with different geographical environments will have different flavors. The flavor of whiskey is closely related to the surrounding environment of the origin, which is the concrete manifestation of terroir.
Therefore, exploring the "terroir" of the winery has become a great pleasure for the "pilgrimage" journey of gourmets. Only after arriving at the visitor center of the winery can you personally experience the local climate and environment and explore the source of your favorite flavors.
In most cases, you can spend less than £30 to follow the tour guide to visit the winery and visit the entire process of whiskey making, from baking barley to distilling to filling the barrel. If you are lucky, you will have the chance to take a few glasses of , raw wine, , and try it.
After this, you can roughly understand where the complex and mysterious smell of whiskey comes from, the peat on Irey Island, the flower and fruit fragrance of Speyer, and the warmth of Campbell Town... will definitely increase your understanding of whiskey to a higher level.
Kriniliki's warm visitor center
In addition to visiting, the ticket to the visitor center usually includes a tasting of several glasses of wine, which is generally the most representative basic wine style of the winery. Master class tasting meetings are often held in the visitor center, which are explained by professional whiskey practitioners in the distillery. This is an experience that cannot be bought even if you spend money outside.
limited products are released channels
In order to increase the attractiveness of the tourist center to customers, wineries usually choose some rare wine models and sell them in the tourist center for limited quantities.
When the visitor center was opened, wineries often launched related celebration wine products. In 2018, when Macallan's new visitor center was completed and opened, it launched a "Genesis" whiskey limited to 2,500 bottles; when the recent opening of the Sogden Brand House, Diageo released a limited edition Celebratory Bottling whiskey at the distillery.
McAllen's visitor center is quite spectacular
When celebrating various activities, the winery will also launch a series of limited wine products for visitor centers. Like the Bruichladdich distillery, every year, releases "hidden" whiskey during the Islei carnival , and tourists need to go to the distillery to buy it themselves.
In addition, for some new wineries that have been built and put into production, the original wine is still in barrel aging and the finished product has not yet been launched on the market. If it is likely to taste newmake first, or small batches of pre-bottled products.
China Liquor Tourism
In fact, the visitor center is not the patent of Scotch whiskey winery. Some liquor companies in my country also attach great importance to the construction of the tourism industry.
As a leading domestic liquor company, Moutai and Wuliangye also compete in the field of liquor tourism. Moutai has invested heavily in building the China Wine Culture City and has also established a special Moutai Distillery Cultural Tourism Company to provide a complete winery tour experience. Shili Wine City is a large-scale park built by Wuliangye for liquor tourism. It includes wine culture expo, winemaking workshop, wine holy mountain, Fortune Hotel and other locations. It integrates tourism, leisure and accommodation. It can be said to be the Chinese version of the tourist center.
It has to be said that as the boss of spirits in the absolute sense in China, liquor still has a strong appeal among many people in China. Moreover, with the support of the deep liquor culture, liquor tourism does have long-term development space and is worthy of deeper exploration by more wineries. I believe that the publicity of liquor culture and the construction of supporting tourism facilities can bring new growth points to the liquor industry.
Although the epidemic has cast a shadow on the global tourism industry, I believe that as the situation improves, it is only a matter of time before the visitor center can regain its role, and the whiskey tourism industry is bound to usher in a recovery.
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