Export Variety

[kickert]

As many of you know, I live in Southern Africa where the bourbon selection is pretty dismal. In Swaziland where I live, the only bourbons you can get are Jim Beam, Jack Daniels* and an odd export label called Slate which says it was bottled in Chicago.

However, if I go 4 hours north to a decent city in South Africa (Nelspruit), then the selection improves. There you can get those listed above and some other basic offerings (Makers, JDSB, Gentleman's Jack). But, by far the dominate brands are Heaven Hill. I can get EC12, EC18, EW, EWSB, and a whole lot of HH bottlings with generic labels (Mark Twain Bourbon for instance). As far as I have seen, there is nothing from BT, WT or BF (besides Jack). Even Beam is limited to their two mass market ours (MM and JB)

So here's my questions... are other (smaller) export markets similar? Are they dominated by a single exporter? Is HH the big mover on the international scene?

For what its worth, the scotch selections are actually pretty decent, even in Swaziland. I can get Lagavulin, Glennlivet, Laphroig, Balvenie, Tallisker, Johnny (in all colors) and quite a bit more. Too bad my paycheck it too small to really be able to enjoy it.

[squire]

You can get Mark Twain? Man I've been looking for that brand for years. Seriously, I don't have a clue, I am surprised you didn't mention four Roses as I understand more than 90% of their sales are abroad.