Establishing a well-defined house style is one of the best ways to differentiate your products. That applies to all spirits, but in particular to whisky. It gives clarity to production objectives and helps guide your choices in cask procurement and maturation schedules. It also gives you a clear USP to present to drinkers!
A whisky distillery’s house style is a blend of their style of New Make spirit, the type of cask (or casks being blended), and an unwavering commitment to consistency.
It requires a secure and consistent supply chain facilitated through long-term partnerships and agreements. Moreover, it requires articulating, then establishing that vision up front so that the entire process is aligned to achieving it. It’s far easier to set your vision out and pursue it, than retrospectively figure it out once you have a warehouse full of stock.
If you are getting into the whisky game, here’s how to set your foundations and ways to frame your thinking…
Understanding when house style is imprinted on the spirit
1. Cereal
Quality grains impart distinct profiles to the whisky, influencing flavour, aroma and texture. The consistent choice of cereal not only builds your house style but facilitates long-term agreements with suppliers. This ensures a robust supply chain and easier ways to guarantee quality inputs.
For those making single malts, easy questions begin with peated or unpeated, storage availability vs steady supply from brokers, and grist composition. These affect the flavour massively. For those with mixed mash bills, questions revolve around percentages. What ratios are you going to use and why?
2. Yeast & Fermentation
Selecting the right strain of yeast is integral in building a particular flavour profile. Length of fermentation, desired abv and yield all affect house style. So too does the desire to be consistent year-round or more experimental batch on batch.
So much flavour is created at this stage and it is one of the biggest opportunities to build the foundations for want. Flavours aside, it’s a process that can be used to articulate your vision to informed drinkers at a later stage. For example, if your house style is experimental and innovative – that needs to start here to be authentic.
3. Distillation
Your distillation process further defines your whisky’s profile. The shape of still, the ABV being reached, the kind of cuts being made and the scale of each run (in both the wash and spirit runs) – can all re-enforce a style or fight against it.
Having a clear house style in mind for the New Make spirit (distillate) helps set out clear protocols. It’ll help define acceptable parameters while streamlining operations and act as the guide for decision making. It becomes your North star.
Furthermore – if you have it in place ahead of buying equipment or materials, you can optimise the infrastructure and equipment to deliver your vision.
Cask maturation
It’s obvious that the type of cask defines the spirit’s final profile. For example if you want a lively vibrant malt whisky or elegant and light grain whisky, picking first fill ex-sherry casks may not be the best match.
All distilleries have a variety of casks. But the house style typically sets out the criteria for the bulk of the selection.
Having that clear vision before you start will help the blender at the end of the process as they’ll be working with the kind of aged inventory that allows them to deliver to the brief. It offers an opportunity for sustained supplier relationships too, often direct ones.
Contract ties with Spanish Bodegas, Kentucky Bourbon producers, local wineries are all possible for those operating at decent scale. Consistent cask choice promotes a secured supply chain, and with suppliers understanding your supply chain, they can ensure consistency of supply.
Once in cask, a well-defined maturation period in line with your house style can foster consistent production timelines, enhancing the predictability of available stock.
Understanding the commercial advantages of having a clear house style
A distinctive house style enables consumers to easily recognise and relate to your products.
Over time, it forms an integral part of your brand identity, distinguishing you in a crowded marketplace. Moreover, consistency in your house style fosters customer loyalty. When consumers know exactly what to expect from your whisky, they are more likely to return to your brand time and again.
You don’t need to know the specifics of a new Maccallan, Laphroig, Ardbeg, Bruichladdich or The Balvenie to have pretty good gist of what you can expect.
Their reputation precedes them and the core range is concise in what it delivers. They sometimes subvert this when releasing limited bottlings that contrast it – but they don’t forget it. You’ll often see them return to it to reinforce it in their campaigns. Consumers know that, and bartenders know how and when to recommend those brands as a result.
Over time, it’s clear that those who have implemented a clear vision in both liquid and message form have a cultivated a dedicated following, who have become advocates for their brand and further bolstered their position in the marketplace.
House style in Marketing
It becomes far simpler when you have a clearly defined house style because it offers a compelling narrative that can be leveraged in your campaigns to tell a cohesive story. There is clarity.
It provides you with your brand truth and your USP. And because you have vertically aligned everything to deliver it from barley pod to blending room – it’ll be authentic too.
Once up and running, having clarity over your house style means that innovations can be more targeted. It allows for the introduction of new products that align with your established style (some of which will take years to mature into fruition), ensuring that they resonate well with your existing customer base while attracting new patrons.
Lastly, a well-articulated house style can facilitate strategic collaborations and cross-brand partnerships. It allows other brands to understand your vision and values clearly, opening avenues for collaborative products and combined campaigns that resonate with both brand philosophies.
Defining a clear house style is not just a creative endeavour; it holds substantial commercial merit. It’s useful at every stage of production as it promotes consistency and sets clear metrics for what success tastes like.
It acts as a beacon, guiding various facets of your business towards sustained growth and success. The first thing any new whisky producer should do is lay their vision out and establish how they are going to achieve their house style succinctly!
If you are in that planning phase of your whisky making journey, we have other articles for you. Have a look at our article on Whisky Warehouses, and Creating a Maturation Schedule.
