Chinese market

For Yang Chen, the appeal is simple: "The smell of charcoal, smoke and fruit and strong flavour are enough to attract any man. Life goes very fast nowadays, and it is a great pleasure to sit down and enjoy a whisky slowly," he observes.

The 45-year-old executive is exactly the kind of customer the Scotch Whisky Association is wooing: he usually drinks Chivas Regal or Johnny Walker, but says he is always willing to try something new.

The Chinese market for Scotch is worth £80m a year - around 2.5% of global sales - but the association predicts it will double in the next five years. Ministers recently signed a deal to improve legal protections for the brand.

Jim Boyce, whose Beijing Boyce blog covers the capital's drinks and bar scene, says that for many Chinese customers the appeal is "the cachet of spending big, trying something rare and showing your status. But I've been to tastings where people are really interested. You have people who appreciate baijiu [Chinese liquor]; it's not a huge leap to learning about malts from different parts of Scotland."

Not everyone back home in the Highlands is happy about this growing thirst, however. "I've been in touch with aficionados in Scotland who are afraid China will get into it in a big way and buy everything up. Production is not that big," Boyce says.

Tania Branigan

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