Following concern from some in the trade about Pernod Ricard’s acquisition of the influential online spirits retailer deluxe, Whisky Exchange, Fake Booze is delighted to publish the following clarification from the drink’s giant’s Department for Saying Words.
No change
We would like to reassure both customers and other drinks producers that absolutely nothing will change following our purchase of Whisky Exchange. Nothing. Zip. Nada.
This, after all, is a noble business with a fine reputation. Built up over 20 years, with over 10,000 products on its books, it is a benchmark for fine spirit lovers everywhere.
So you can be certain that we intend to honour that by continuing to sell top quality drinks that connoisseurs love such as Glenlivet, Havana Club and Malibu.
Nothing to see here
Some have suggested that our purchase will involve a wholesale de-listing of competitor’s products from the Whisky Exchange platform. So we would like to say right up front that these rumours are almost completely false.
Things will be more or less the same as before, and we will continue to sell products from lesser companies such as Diageo and Bacardi, even if we think their brands are crap.
We will even give these products a free ‘taste and price’ test from our buying team to check that they are getting the most out of being sold on this platform.
And we will do our absolute best to maximise the potential of any brands that fail this test by lovingly removing them.
Business as usual
This cull should be completed within 12 months. But in the eventuality that any competitor products do pass, rest assured that they will be listed in a special dedicated part of the website labelled ‘Terms & Conditions’.
This is purely a safety issue, designed to head off any accidental sales of products that we believe people should be discouraged from buying.
Positive PR is important. Particularly when it means ‘positively discriminating in favour of Pernod Ricard’.
Same old, same old…
So please rest easy. We can categorically state that at least some of the company’s former ethos will remain, and it will be largely recognisable – at least at first.
We will, for instance, still stock a huge range of products.
Currently Whisky Exchange has 600 gins on its books. And you can rest assured that our NPD team are busily working on hundreds of bespoke bottlings of Monkey 47, Beefeater, Malfy, Plymouth and Kinobi so we can keep that going!
Minor alterations
Of course, as with any purchase, we can expect some swingeing improvements. We are, for instance, keen to create a more focused wine offering.
So rather than dozens of small producers from all over the world, customers will soon be able to enjoy a much simpler range, made up of wine names that they know and love. Or at least know.
It’ll be out with no-marks like Pieropan and Stephen Pannell and in with Jacob’s Creek Sauvignon and Campo. And let’s be honest, why would you want any champagne other than Mumm?
Exciting new start
So, as we said at the start, an exciting time of real change. Time to clear out the dead wood of our competitors and celebrate the vigorous new growth of our new baby by giving it a great new name!
The first chapter of Whisky Exchange may be over. But the Pernod Ricard Staff Shop Exchange is just beginning!
Click here to read about the time Pernod’s CEO was replaced with a cat; and here to read why large drinks companies have been advised to ‘buy a new gin distillery every month’
