杜松子酒复兴浪潮横扫欧洲(1)

The people of Harris, a rugged, windswept island in the Outer Hebrides, held a huge ceilidh, a party with traditional Scottish music and dance, last September, to celebrate the opening of their new distillery.

外赫布里底群岛（Outer Hebrides）中有一个崎岖而多风的小岛，名叫哈里斯岛(Harris)。去年9月，那里的人们举行了一场规模盛大的传统聚会(ceilidh)，在苏格兰传统歌舞的伴奏下，庆祝新的酿酒厂开张。

The whisky business will bring in 25 new jobs — a considerable number given Harris’s population of 1,916. Over the past 50 years, the population has halved, and also aged, as young people have quit the island to find work.

这家威士忌公司将创造25个新的就业岗位——对于人口只有1,916人的哈里斯岛来说，这是个不小的数字。过去50年，由于年轻人纷纷外出寻找工作，岛上的人口已经减半，平均年龄也越来越大。

It'll be around four years until the new distillery starts selling its single malt whisky, The Hearach, but in the meantime, cash flow is being eased by their first product — seaweed-infused gin.

这家新的酿酒厂大概还要再等4年才能开始销售他们的 The Hearach 单一纯麦威士忌。但与此同时，作为厂里的首款产品，加入海藻的杜松子酒（gin）已经开始减轻他们的现金流压力。

“It will be close to a decade before we start making money. Gin helps the situation. It takes days rather than years to produce,” said managing director Simon Erlanger. Under UK and EU law, whisky must be aged at least three years before it can be sold as such. Meanwhile, the distillery’s first product is Isle of Harris premium gin, flavoured with nine botanical plants such as angelica root, orris root and cassia bark. The defining ingredient, however, is sugar kelp seaweed, harvested by a local diver from the Atlantic.

“我们大概要等10年才能开始赚钱，杜松子酒给我们带来了帮助。这种酒只要几天就能生产出来，不必等待数年之久。”总经理西蒙•厄兰格(Simon Erlanger)说。根据英国和欧洲的法律，威士忌至少要经过3年陈酿才能对外出售。在此期间，这个酿酒厂的首款产品则是哈里斯岛的优质杜松子酒，其中加入了当归、鸢尾根和桂皮等9种植物进行调味。不过，最关键的还是加入当地人潜入大西洋收获的糖味海带。

As the UK’s first "social distillery", funded by private investors and by public money from the Scottish government and the local enterprise agency, it is hoped that the Isle of Harris distillery will stop young people leaving the island for jobs elsewhere and spur business creation, particularly in tourism. By producing premium gin to help get the business off the ground, it is also part of a new economic trend seen elsewhere in Europe.

作为英国首家“社会酿酒厂”，哈里斯岛酿酒厂由私人投资者、英格兰政府的公共资金以及当地企业共同资助。他们希望这家酿酒厂可以阻止年轻人外出寻找工作，并刺激当地的商业发展，尤其是旅游业的发展。生产优质杜松子酒不仅可以帮助这家酿酒厂起步，也是整个欧洲的新兴经济趋势的一部分。

Cheering numbers

销量增长

Mother's ruin, better known as gin, has undergone something of a renaissance in Europe and has been reinvented as a premium product over the last eight years. The so-called "gin-aissance" is not only winning over style-conscious younger drinkers but bringing jobs and increased tourism, particularly to remoter areas in, for instance, Finland, Portugal and Spain.

杜松子酒又名金酒或琴酒，它正在欧洲迎来复兴，过去8年已经摇身一变成了一种高档商品。所谓的“杜松子酒复兴”不仅颇受注重时尚的年轻饮酒者欢迎，还创造了就业，而且提升了旅游业的收入，尤其是芬兰、葡萄牙和西班牙等国的偏远地区。

According to IWSR, a wine and spirits market researcher, total sales of premium gins in 2013-2014 increased in value by 15.5% worldwide, but by an even more substantial 29.8% in Europe, where the market was worth $935m. Between 2015-20 sales of premium gins are expected to grow in volume at a compound annual growth rate of 5.6% worldwide and 6.8% in Europe.

据红酒和烈酒市场研究公司IWSR测算，全球优质杜松子酒销量在2013至2014年间增长15.5%，欧洲增幅更是达到29.8%，市场规模为9.35亿美元。2015至2020年间，全球和欧洲的高端杜松子酒销量有望分别保持5.6%和6.8%的复合年增长率。

In the UK, the world’s biggest gin exporter, the number of brands has more than doubled since 2010 from 31 to 73 driven by demand for locally-sourced ingredients and natural botanicals which create different flavours, according to a government report.

政府出具的官方报告显示，作为全球最大的杜松子酒出口国，英国的杜松子酒品牌自2010年以来已经翻了一番多，从31个增长到73个。这一增长源自对当地原料和天然植物的需求，这些都可以创造出不同的口味。