hello malty mountains out of a mole hill and thank you to robert rogers for that mo
mention i'm ralphie this is the bothy and you have arrived to watch ralphie review 921 extras
in which i focus in on the packaging that came with a bottle of whiskey i bought
late last year and it's all very pretty and it's all very nice but i find that it's pissing me off
and i want to tell you why now i've just reviewed in my last review 921 this really very pleasant
nicely made i mean there's no question about it this is a well-made whiskey
you can't deny it this is glenn going 18 year old bottled at 43 and bottled it
natural color so they haven't added e150a into the bottling for the very simple reason there's
absolutely no need and if they did it would do more harm than good but when i bought this whiskey
this is the box that it came in and this is really what i'm going to talk about this is how it works
you see that close it over and then you put the lid on top it's made of recycled cardboard
and what you've got to do is you've got to be careful because if you lift it at the top
there's a risk the lid will just pop off because it fits snugly but not tightly
so you've got this large box which i'm now going to compare side by side with something
much more realistic and practical and this is the packaging for arden american single malt
and with ardna merkin they're an environmentally conscious distillery they are using biomass
as fuel and i would imagine that at the moment arden american are absolutely
delighted they're not relying on gas so you have this cheap and it is it comes across as cheap
cardboard box in which the bottle very nice too is placed you know that with this kind of
blowing cardboard it's the way they manufacture it they blow it through jets into sheets
that once you've opened the lid about half a dozen times it's just going to fall off
because it is simple environmentally friendly packaging that's what it is
that's what simple environmental friendly packaging looks like standard
functional and it suits the size of the bottle so when you put it into cases for delivery
to the retailers or to the distributors you have less volume to be transmitted transported
and it reduces your costs with the glen going the cardboard box is twice the size it needs to be
but that's only just the start of it so i'm going to remove the marking out the way because as far
as i'm concerned this is environmental packaging done right where the emphasis is not on theater
it's on showing a little bit of the map giving a little bit of information
and that's it to the point no particular what i call flannel with the glenn going lots of flannel
you see you've got to split the box open then you lift out your bottle and i'll put the bottle
aside because i won't be needing that now and i'll put my glasses six i don't want to knock it over
and what you have is when you rip it open they've stuck
a box outside the box and the inside box as you can see
is clearly bigger than it needs to be you could bring that in at least what two centimeters
and then you've got this outside cover box
that kind of folds in and out and we're advised by the writing
that this box is made of recycled paper which i don't know for one minute
and we're advised in the box the packaging for this glen going 18 year old is easily recycled
and made from 79 recycled materials so far so good
but i want to ask you more mates what would you recycle this empty box as
would you put it empty on your multstash somewhere
would you continue to keep the bottle in it until you'd finish the bottle
would you store something else in it i mean it's not airtight it's not like a tin whiskey
container that you could use for spaghetti what would you actually use it for and i would suggest
being realistic that 99.9 of people who buy this whiskey are going to take the box and either burn
it in the garden fire burn it in the coal fire or stamp jump up and down it on it to flatten it
and put it into the recycle bin this isn't the side container you want to keep now if it was a gl
if it was like an hard bag warehouse tin it says our bag and it shows the warehouse with the green
roof you want to keep that because it's something special it looks good in your whiskey shelf
but this i mean are you going to put it with all the rest of the packaging that you keep
absolutely not and i i find myself asking the question
how much for this unnecessarily extravagant wasteful yeah wasteful recycled container how much
is it actually costing me in the purchase price and if this hadn't been created in the first place
could the distillery have spent the money in putting an extra three percent into this bottle
and marking an unshallow filtered 40x 46 volume natural color and integrity bottling
thereby enhancing improving and further delivering the quality of the whiskey they're producing
it gets worse because they're proudly explaining and i'll need my steampunk in this because it's
metallic writing which is always difficult to read
while we respect the past we also care about the future our liquid waste
is clean clean cleansed in carbon dioxide capturing red beds and our solid waste
is harvested for enough energy to power 354 homes each year all very commendable
admirable and it's a it's a very it's a very good thing to be investing in in greening your brand
so far so good just like the geese who visit our glen each winter we harness the power of the wind
okay then right to help us reach our destination by sourcing all our electricity from turbines
so with every sip of glenn going we raise our glass to a greener future right well glenn
going i'd like to help you raise your glass to a greener future by suggesting that you
downsize this completely impractical over-the-top unnecessary totally unwanted packaging which
is flying completely in the face of what you're stating in the outside of the box this
this decision has been made by a senior decision maker and i want to kind of add to that that
this is a great distillery but honestly the senior decision makers the owners of the distillery the
owners need to have a serious overview about where their single malt distillery is at and
look to spring bank for references glenn going could be the next spring bank it really could
it's got the quality it's got the caliber it's got the identity it's got the signature
of taste it could be much more popular than it is if you didn't have this disruptive
marketing pretentiousness sending very mixed messages to the customers
am i wrong it's just an opinion
i'm on record of stating that i've got a lot of time for glenn going it's one of my favorite
distilleries i used to visit it when i was over living in glasgow fairly regularly just to smell
just to smell the mash tuns and hear the stills hissing because i've always been
obsessed about such things simple as that i was even invited in by glenn going for which
i'm very grateful to interview duncan an authentic genuine time-served proper distillery character
and he opened the doors to me and and gave me a freely of his time and i really appreciate that
and i'd i was more than happy for glenn going to use my videos as part of their official website
but we're 15 years 20 years down the line now and what i'm looking at here is
it's a completely disjointed marketing message after spending the money and installing read beds
and recycling waste products from the distillation process which is always commendable and frankly to
be admired and encouraged but then to put out your product in this sort of presentation which
immediately to any experienced whiskey drinker now says an extra five pounds in the price
and nobody's going to keep this i'm not going to keep it i'm going to burn it
what else am i going to do with it so many bottles of whiskey come in packaging and it's simply
unnecessary it's taking is adding additional unnecessary cost which should be in the product
and not in blinging it up in the shelf as people walk by in some high-end tourist trap
or travel retail store where they don't care how pretty the whiskey looks in this packaging
because they all look pretty all of them but which one's got a 20
discount on it that's what the consumers bothered about they just want something that looks pretty
at the cheapest price because frankly they don't particularly care about the taste
because they've never bothered to slow down spend the time and develop the palate
being snobby yeah and i don't care because it's true and you know it's true so glenn going
i would love to see you discontinue using this sort of presentation because your product does
not need it have more self-confidence have more self-belief and cut your costs and stop
contradicting the message that you're putting on the box by creating a box which undermines it
excuse me
there we are there we go i'm recycling this
i'm being responsible and recycling this in the local recycling bin
i will keep this i will have pride of place on my whiskey shelf for a few years to come
i'm rafi hope you've enjoyed this extras and if you have please subscribe i also have a patreon
channel if you'd like to subscribe to that you can join just for the price of a wee dram per month
um it's very inexpensive and you'll get additional videos and content in the meantime i look forward
to seeing you again when i will be making a revisit to cleanlish 14 year old from diageo
it's a good whiskey but i'm telling you now
in ralph review 922 i want to tell you how it's changed see you then bye