From left, Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union Ambassador to the United States; Ulrich Adam, Director General of spiritsEUROPE; Chris Swonger, President & CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, and Allan Latts, COO of Heaven Hill who was representing the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, talk about the export and import of spirits.
Last week, European Union Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidis hosted a reception at his residence to celebrate EU-Kentucky ties, together with the Kentucky Society of Washington and our partner organization in the US, the Distilled Spirits Council. Together with our colleagues from Ireland, Scotland and Cognac, spiritsEUROPE was there to represent the European spirits sector.
The historical, cultural and economic ties between the EU and Kentucky are rich and date back a long time. Looking at spirits, blending European traditions with new world experiences has worked as a real recipe for success: think, for instance, of the fact that one of the earliest whisky distillers in Kentucky was a German chap called Johannes Jacob Boehm (later anglified into Beam) who happened to live in an area that had been named after the French royal family (Bourbon)... And this tradition has lived on until today: as Mr Lambrinidis proudly noted, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. and EU signing a historic agreement to officially recognize each other’s distinctive spirits such as bourbon, cognac, Tennessee and Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky.
Adding to this, Chris Swonger, President & CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, noted that in 1997, the U.S. and EU eliminated tariffs on the majority of spirits. This landmark “zero-for-zero” agreement has resulted in a 450% increase in bilateral trade in spirits, reaching over $6.7 billion in 2018.
Echoing Chris’s remarks, Ulrich Adam, Director General, underlined the common commitment of spirits associations across the Atlantic to maintain and build up this flourishing and mutually beneficial trading relationship between the US and Europe. In the current political environment, this will be a challenging task, but the success so far and the close ties between both regions encouraged all participants that it’s a worthwhile goal to commit to and work for!
