Lingo bingo

Ever played press release bingo? As you can imagine, we get a lot of electronic missives here at scotchwhisky.com from companies eager to secure their moment in the limelight. And some are, er, more imaginative than others.

Certain phrases and words have a tendency to crop up with alarming frequency. A recent press release on The Macallan Residence at Two Temple Place in London provides the perfect example: I ticked off ‘luxury’, ‘prestigious’ and consumers being ‘taken on a journey’ of ‘carefully curated’ experiences (whatever they may be). All in the first few lines.

Photo credit: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

The event provided ‘strong consumer engagement’, various things were ‘bespoke’, the whisky was ‘award-winning’ (with the number of gongs handed out these days, aren’t they all?), and the whole shebang showed The Macallan’s ‘unwavering dedication to quality and craft’. A surprising omission for that mot du jour, ‘artisanal’, but otherwise a full house.

Yes, it’s easy to scoff – and Scotch has moved on hugely from the days of heather and weather, when you couldn’t swing a caber (don’t you mean ‘toss’? – Ed) without hitting a grizzled, tartan-clad Caledonian in front of a brooding mountain-and-loch scene.

But, by fully embracing the ‘luxury lifestyle’ zeitgeist, Scotch is simply swapping one dead language for another. When the same adjectives, nouns and verbs are being shared by distillers, fashion houses, watchmakers and jewellers, Scotch’s individuality is subsumed in a monochrome porridge of communication targeting ‘aspirational’ consumers.

Oh hang on, aspirational. Bingo!