Roll Out The Barrel: bespoke whisky making

The bespoke service allows people to choose the type of barley and yeast, as well as the wood used for the barrel and its shape. Once these components have been chosen, customers can shadow the company’s distillers for a day and make decisions on how to run the stills.

The process takes three years. During that time the distillers send the customer samples from their barrel so they can taste and see how their whisky is progressing. 

‘There are more enlightened men and women drinking whisky these days. I tend to find that the younger people have more questions about where it came from, and how it was made,’ says Darren Rook, founder and CEO of The London Distillery Company. ‘This is why we focus on education.’ 

This is a well-executed example of how companies are providing consumers with information about the provenance of their products. Customers are favouring items that have history and which have been created for them, making them unique. For more on how consumers are changing, order a copy of our Consumer Futures Report.