The depth of the marketing hole brandy has fallen into is confirmed when you buy a bottle of Cognac from Aficionados, Paul laCock’s sexy internet liquor retailer. They send you the brandy plus a miniature bottle of whisky along with a questionnaire with a full bottle of product up for grabs in a monthly competition.

The questionnaire is a masterclassTM in spin. There is propaganda aplenty: “in which of Dave Broom’s flavour camps does it fall”, “where on the Whisky Magazine (the local or foreign publication, I wonder?) colour chart does it fall” etc. but the real gem comes when you’re asked to rate it out of 5. This is a proper blind tasting which will drive Platter “tasters” and their camp followers totally round the bend. Heck, you don’t even know if it’s Bourbon, iced tea, Scotch, Irish or perhaps the best blended whisky in the world made in Wellington. Groan!

With WOSA looking around for a new leaderene, Paul should toss his caber into the kring as this is the best marketing wheeze I’ve seen all year. Pity it’s for whisky and not brandy.