Ultra-exclusive Bacardi rum collection hits DFS shelves

Bacardi and DFS Group have introduced the Facundo Rum Collection, a limited release of four luxury blends sourced from fine and rare rums in the Bacardi family’s private rum reserve, to create the definitive sipping rum collection.

Available exclusively at DFS airport stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York JFK until August 31, the Facundo Rum Collection is core to the Bacardi strategy to develop a premium take on the rum category.

The Facundo Rum Collection pays tribute to Bacardi's founder

 Artistry and vision of the founder

“We believe rum is the biggest long-term opportunity in global travel retail spirits. This is a premium environment and the rum category is yet to maximise that potential,” said Mike Birch, Managing Director of Bacardi Global Travel Retail. “There is massive headroom to grow and as the rum category leader, we have the ability, insights and full range to drive transformational change.”

While celebrating the 150th anniversary of Bacardi, the family sampled some of the sipping rums from their private rum library. They decided to launch a collection of sipping rums as a tribute to the artistry and vision of Don Facundo Bacardí Massó, founder of Bacardi, in 1862 in Santiago de Cuba.

Bacardi Limited Chairman Facundo L. Bacardi explained: “There was a consensus that now was the time to share the art of rum making and launch a never-before-released collection.”

In creating the collection, Bacardi Maestro de Ron (Master Blender) Manny Oliver crafted more than 40 blends from over 200 rums and presented them to Facundo L. Bacardi, a sampling of past Bacardi family master blenders and a panel of world-renowned experts before selecting the final four.

“We were given carte blanche with the collection,” said Oliver, who has dedicated 40 years to the craft of rum blending.

To celebrate the exclusive collection launch at selected DFS stores, the world’s leading luxury travel retailer activated its Mix-it-Bar at Los Angeles Airport’s Tom Bradley International Terminal in March and April, allowing travellers to sample the rum before catching their flights.

“The collection’s fantastic sampling of some of the finest sipping rums available as well as the activation at LAX was certainly appreciated by our fans and we look forward to growing our partnership with Bacardi and delivering more of these exciting experiences to our customers,” said Brooke Supernaw, DFS Group’s Senior Vice President Spirits, Wine and Tobacco.

Aged in the Bahamas

Each rum in the collection was traditionally aged in the Bahamas, where the sun, sea and charred oak barrels all impart a distinctive character to the liquids. Tropical ageing can accelerate the creation of spirits in the barrels, and it also accelerates their evaporation to a point where just 5% of the liquid may remain after 23 years. This means that fewer than 10,000 bottles will be released.

Each of the four expressions of the collection is 40%abv and offers its own distinct flavour and style:

Neo (“new”) is an aged, light-coloured sipping rum crafted from medium younger to heavy-bodied older rums aged up to eight years in oak barrels and then blended and precision-filtered using specially selected charcoal. This creates a complex flavour profile with a smooth, delicate finish and a pale blonde hue. Neo, one of the oldest white rums available on the market, is crisp and vibrant with a clean, balanced finish, and can be enjoyed neat, on the rocks or in a new twist on the classic Old Fashioned cocktail.

Eximo is the only rum in the collection that is fully blended before ageing. The Maestro De Ron tailors the flavour and aroma balance of the blend before it is matured in fine oak barrels for over a decade. This smooth rum has deep notes of vanilla, cocoa, caramel and a hint of smoke, a round, full-bodied texture and a long, rich finish. Eximo is best savoured neat or with a block of ice. It can also be served as an elevated classic cocktail such as an Eximo Old Fashioned.

Exquisito, meaning “exquisite”, is a balanced marriage of seven to 23-year-old rums aged in oak barrels. Finished in sherry casks for a minimum of one month, the rum delivers a rich, mellow character with robust notes of raisins, apricots and baking spices, with a hint over butterscotch on a warm, lingering finish.  Exquisito is best savoured neat or over a sphere of ice.

Paraiso has the highest concentration of the oldest reserve rums in the collection. This rich rum is finished in French XO casks, some of which are more than 60 years old. Paraiso imparts sweet fruit, honey and marzipan notes with a silky finish. It is meant to be savoured neat, to bring out the full flavour.

All of the collection is hand bottled and sealed. Each bottle features one-off Art Deco motifs inspired by Cuba’s Golden Era when the magnificent Art Deco Edificio Bacardí in Havana (1929) housed one of the most exclusive bars of the time. 

The Facundo Rum Collection is available in limited release in selected hotels, restaurants and exclusive retailers. 

Absolut MIX hits the shelves in Pacific airports

Absolut Vodka has unveiled Absolut MIX, a limited-edition bottle featuring a kaleidoscopic print to celebrate worldwide freedom of expression and equality through art and love.

Absolut MIX Vodka

Stirring things up

This May 2016, the product is launching in key airports across Australia and New Zealand. To support the launch, Pernod Ricard has created branded activation zones themed to the design of the bottle to attract travellers passing through the duty free spaces.

Displaying the tagline ‘Stir things up’, the colourful spaces are open at airports including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Christchurch.

Absolut MIX Limited Edition is available for a limited time, retailing at A$34.99 per bottle.

Haig Club puts its stamp on special bottle promotions

Diageo has launched its first Haig Club Single Grain Scotch Whisky Limited Edition Design bottle in a series of large-scale airport activations for the travel retail exclusive product. 

Diageo's Haig Club promotion at Singapore Changi airport's Raffles Long Bar in Terminal 3

Body art stamping brings whisky notes to life

In London Heathrow, Haig Club took over large interactive screens to stream themed content. The new bottle was displayed in a dedicated area and brand ambassadors interacted with passengers through a body art stamping activation.

The fun body art activity was designed to bring the flavour notes of the whisky to life in a sensory way. Brand ambassadors stamped shoppers hands with scented ink, inspired by the different notes in the whisky, delivering the flavour profile of sweet toffee, floral and spice notes in a surprising way.

In addition to these activities, Singapore Changi featured an ultra-premium Long Bar presented by the Raffles luxury hotel in Terminal 3. At the bar, guests were offered cocktails including the Haig Clubman. Global brand ambassador Will Thompson made an appearance during the peak Chinese New Year weekend to meet and greet travellers.

A promotion also ran in Changi around the key gifting period of Chinese New Year: shoppers who purchased the one-litre bottle of Haig Club Limited Edition Design received a free 5cl bottle of the whisky.

Launched late last year, the striking Limited Edition Design is the first in The Decanter Series. The bottle is crowned with a blue, diamond-shaped stopper.

The striking new bottle is now available in limited quantities in travel retail, priced at £39. The one-litre size was created exclusively for travellers, and a 70cl version is available in domestic stores.

Diageo GTME Global Marketing Director Peter Fairbrother said: “We know that customers and shoppers alike want easy access to exclusive and superior gifts and they are looking for engaging experiences which go beyond the bottle. This is why we were delighted to give shoppers the opportunity to sip a delicious cocktail and pick up a bottle for themselves or a gift for others, in the luxury surrounds of the Raffles Bar in Changi airport. Our investment in this activation, plus the dedicated brand spaces we created in London Heathrow and Singapore Changi airports and activity in Manchester and London Gatwick airports, shows our commitment to innovating for the channel.” 

MCM flies into Hong Kong with airport exclusive collection

German luxury brand MCM has opened a store at Hong Kong International Airport, featuring an innovative luggage carousel-style display area and a special-edition collection exclusively for the location.

MCM's Hong Kong airport store features an innovative luggage carousel-style display area

Contemporary luxury store concept

The space, inspired by the concept of contemporary luxury, covers an area of about 243sq m in the Departure East Hall of Terminal 1, and houses a variety of the latest MCM products and merchandise.

A distinctive interior feature is a conveyor belt-style display stage, which can only be found at this MCM boutique.

To celebrate April’s opening, MCM is offering a limited-edition collection exclusively available at the Hong Kong International Airport store. 

Products include medium and small airport-themed signature backpacks, a cross-body wallet and an aviator-themed teddy bear key charm marked with the words “MCM Loves Hong Kong”. Each item is limited to a maximum of 150 pieces.

Aperol mixes world’s largest Spritz

Italian cruise line Costa Crociere has celebrated a Guinness World Record onboard the Costa Favolosa with the creation of the world’s largest glass of Aperol Spritz, Gruppo Campari has announced. The 1,000-litre version of the classic aperitif is almost twice the size of the previous record (573 litres), which was set in Italy in 2010.

Costa Crociere and Guinness World Records executives admire the record-breaking Aperol Spritz

The fastest-growing spirits aperitif brand in the world

The world’s largest Spritz was made with the traditional recipe: 3 parts Prosecco, 2 parts Aperol and a splash of soda, poured onto ice cubes and garnished with a slice of orange. Contained in a classically shaped tumbler 1.5 metres high and 1.3 metres in diameter, the super-sized Spritz contained 500 litres of Prosecco, 333 litres of Aperol, 167 litres of soda water and 15 giant ice cubes measuring 18 x 20cm each.

The record-breaking drink was the centrepiece of a cocktail party onboard the Costa Favolosa as the cruise line hosted more than 1,500 travel agents and 1,500 other guests on a four-day Mediterranean cruise, with participants enjoying the best in Italian food and drink. The main event, entitled Abbronzatissima (Tanned), carried a 1950s poolside party theme with the Aperol Spritz served as the stylish onboard aperitif.

Leigh Irvine, Global Travel Retail Director of Gruppo Campari, said: “We were delighted to share with Costa Crociere in this innovative venture that expresses the blend of vitality, style and fun that has helped make Aperol the fastest-growing spirits aperitif brand in the world. The cruise sector is an important channel for our brands and this record-breaking activity demonstrates how the strength of our partnership with leading operators such as Costa Crociere can bring engaging new elements to the passenger experience.”

Aperol Spritz is fast becoming a cult outside of Italy, sweeping onto European drinks menus.

Johnnie Walker's first-ever blended malt Scotch is set to "transform category"

Johnnie Walker, the the biggest-selling spirits brand in travel retail, will launch a new malt whisky blend as a travel retail exclusive from July 2016.

Retailing at $60 for a one-litre bottle, Johnnie Walker Island Green showcases the same blended malt craftsmanship as Johnnie Walker Green Label, but with a greater influence of smoky, maritime malt whisky, the company said. As the first blended malt, travel retail exclusive from the Scotch powerhouse, Johnnie Walker Island Green is set to transform the category, helping Scotch drinkers explore malts through a trusted and well-known brand.

Johnnie Walker Island Green blended malt Scotch whisky

Game-changing launch in travel retail

Doug Bagley, Managing Director of Diageo Global Travel & Middle East, said: “The launch of Johnnie Walker Island Green is a true game-changer for the Scotch whisky category in travel retail. For the first time ever, we are able to offer our customers an exclusive blended malt whisky from the biggest spirits brand in the channel, strongly supported with the backing of Johnnie Walker investment and marketing activation.

“Malts is the fastest-growing category in travel retail, growing at twice the rate of the overall Scotch category, but the scale of variants, ages and flavours can be overwhelming to shoppers. Research shows that seven out of 10 malt shoppers drank blended Scotch before entering into malts, so we believe the launch of Johnnie Walker Island Green will act as an incredible signpost for those shoppers who want to explore the category. As a travel retail exclusive, Johnnie Walker Island Green also offers these consumers access to something special which they cannot buy elsewhere.”

Intense flavour experience

Johnnie Walker Island Green is said to capture the distinctive style of individual mature malts from the four main whisky regions of Scotland with added prominence given to island malts. As with Johnnie Walker Green Label, it seeks to offer the character of single malt but with a wider flavour experience.

Jim Beveridge, Johnnie Walker Master Blender, said: “We wanted to preserve the character of each of the malts in this whisky but at the same time create a different, more intense flavour experience for travellers.”

Stuart Morrison, one of the Johnnie Walker blending team, said this had been achieved by giving Caol Ila from the island of Islay a greater influence in the blend. He said: “The added prominence of the smoky, maritime nature of Caol Ila has been very carefully balanced with robust fruity Highland malts including Clynelish, lighter Lowland malts represented by Glenkinchie and the characteristically sweet and fragrant Speyside style of Cardhu.”

The full-bodied blend has flavours of peat-smoke combined with a rich, fruity sweetness and the warmth of pepper and spice. It is best explored either neat or on the rocks.

Davidoff boosts international market position

Oettinger Davidoff AG, the world leading premium cigar business, expanded its strong global market position in 2015 in an environment that continues to be “very challenging”. 

Total sales in the 2015 financial year declined by 8.2% to CHF1.126bn due to falling demand in Europe and China, the effects of the strong Swiss franc and the slightly lower sales in the cigarette and general agency business. But the company again succeeded in gaining market share worldwide thanks to the growing North American and Asian markets and some significant improvements in core brand sales.

Confident: Oettinger Davidoff CEO Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard

Double-digit growth for core brands

Against the backdrop of a declining market, both core brands, Davidoff and Camacho, reported double-digit growth of 10.5% and 34.4%, respectively. In addition, Oettinger Davidoff achieved a production record for the third consecutive time: it produced a grand total of 45.8m cigars, up 4.1%.

Commenting on the business performance last year, CEO Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard said: “In the financial year gone by, Oettinger Davidoff has made great progress, both strategically and with regard to the development of the core brands and market shares. This is all the more gratifying since we were obliged to campaign simultaneously on a number of fronts, such as the exchange rate situation, the anti-corruption law in China and the economic trend in Russia, as well as further international tightening of anti-tobacco regulations.”

The most important contributors to this positive development were innovations and new product launches in the Davidoff and Camacho core brands as well as the relaunched AVO line. The new Davidoff lines Winston Churchill, Escurio and Nicaragua now account for around a third of all Davidoff cigar sales. This development reflects not only a trend towards somewhat more intense flavours, but also the preferences of a younger generation of cigar smokers. Whereas demand fell in the European cigar market, it increased in Asia and the US. In the US, Oettinger Davidoff outperformed the market growth of 2% many times over with an increase of 15%.

Expansion of the Davidoff Art Initiative

With the Davidoff Art Initiative, established four years ago, the company is supporting contemporary art and artists in the Caribbean. At the heart of the initiative is the endeavour to promote and support the development of the cultural community of the Dominican Republic, where a large part of the production is located and many of the company’s employees live. The Art Residency Programme forms the cornerstone of the initiative, which aims to foster the creative exchange between artists in the Caribbean, in particular the Dominican Republic, and the rest of the world and to help develop their talents and experiences by enabling them to spend time in other cultural areas.

After the opening of a dedicated residency in the Dominican Republic, the first Caribbean artist was welcomed to Switzerland as part of the new collaboration with the Atelier Mondial Art Residency in Basel in October 2015. The fifth and, for the time being, final cooperation will enable a fifth Caribbean artist to take up a three-month residency this year in Bogota, Colombia. Three cooperations are already under way with residencies in New York, Beijing and Berlin. The company has also commissioned the French-Jamaican video artist Olivia McGilchrist to create the second Davidoff Limited Art Edition within this initiative. Part of the proceeds are being poured back into this funding project.

Facing the future with confidence

“Thanks to our strongly anchored core brands and the many product innovations that we will also be launching this year, we are confident of winning further market shares,” said Hoejsgaard. In order to secure future growth, further investment is also planned in building and developing the Davidoff flagship stores in city centres as well as duty-free locations.