Whisky
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains are used for different varieties, including barley, corn and wheat. Whisky is aged in wooden casks made of charred white oak. Whisky is a regulated spirit worldwide with many classes and types; the typical unifying characteristics of the different classes and types are the fermentation of grains and aging in wooden barrels. The word whisky is an anglicisation of the Classical Gaelic word uisce meaning "water". Distilled alcohol was known in Latin as aqua vitae; this was translated into Old Irish as uisce beatha, which became uisce beatha in Irish and uisge beatha in Scottish Gaelic. Early forms of the word in English included uskebeaghe, usquebaugh and usquebae. Much is made of the word's two spellings: whiskey. There are two schools of thought on the issue. One is that the spelling difference is a matter of regional language convention for the spelling of a word, indicating that the spelling varies depending on the intended audience or the background or personal preferences of the writer, the other is that the spelling should depend on the style or origin of the spirit being described.
There is general agreement that when quoting the proper name printed on a label, the spelling on the label should not be altered. The spelling whiskey is common in Ireland and the United States, while whisky is used in all other whisky producing countries. In the US, the usage has not always been consistent. From the late eighteenth century to the mid twentieth century, American writers used both spellings interchangeably until the introduction of newspaper style guides. Since the 1960s, American writers have used whiskey as the accepted spelling for aged grain spirits made in the US and whisky for aged grain spirits made outside the US. However, some prominent American brands, such as George Dickel, Maker's Mark, Old Forester, use the whisky spelling on their labels, the Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits, the legal regulations for spirit in the US use the whisky spelling throughout. Whisky made in Scotland is known as Scotch whisky, or as "Scotch", it is possible that distillation was practised by the Babylonians in Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC, with perfumes and aromatics being distilled, but this is subject to uncertain and disputed interpretations of evidence.
The earliest certain chemical distillations were by Greeks in Alexandria in the 1st century AD, but these were not distillations of alcohol. The medieval Arabs adopted the distillation technique of the Alexandrian Greeks, written records in Arabic begin in the 9th century, but again these were not distillations of alcohol. Distilling technology passed from the medieval Arabs to the medieval Latins, with the earliest records in Latin in the early 12th century; the earliest records of the distillation of alcohol are in Italy in the 13th century, where alcohol was distilled from wine. An early description of the technique was given by Ramon Llull, its use spread through medieval monasteries for medicinal purposes, such as the treatment of colic and smallpox. The art of distillation spread to Ireland and Scotland no than the 15th century, as did the common European practice of distilling "aqua vitae", spirit alcohol for medicinal purposes; the practice of medicinal distillation passed from a monastic setting to the secular via professional medical practitioners of the time, The Guild of Barber Surgeons.
The earliest mention of whisky in Ireland comes from the seventeenth-century Annals of Clonmacnoise, which attributes the death of a chieftain in 1405 to "taking a surfeit of aqua vitae" at Christmas. In Scotland, the first evidence of whisky production comes from an entry in the Exchequer Rolls for 1494 where malt is sent "To Friar John Cor, by order of the king, to make aquavitae", enough to make about 500 bottles. James IV of Scotland had a great liking for Scotch whisky, in 1506 the town of Dundee purchased a large amount of whisky from the Guild of Barber Surgeons, which held the monopoly on production at the time. Between 1536 and 1541, King Henry VIII of England dissolved the monasteries, sending their monks out into the general public. Whisky production moved out of a monastic setting and into personal homes and farms as newly independent monks needed to find a way to earn money for themselves; the distillation process was still in its infancy. Renaissance-era whisky was very potent and not diluted.
Over time whisky evolved into a much smoother drink. With a license to distill Irish whiskey from 1608, the Old Bushmills Distillery in Northern Ireland is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world. In 1707, the Acts of Union merged England and Scotland, thereafter taxes on it rose dramatically. After the English Malt Tax of 1725, most of Scotland's distillation was either shut down or forced underground. Scotch whisky was hidden under altars, in coffins, in any available space to avoid the governmental excisemen or revenuers. Scottish distillers, operating out of homemade stills, took to distilling whisky at night when the darkness hid the smoke from the stills. For this reason, the drink became known as moonshine. At one point, it was estimated that over half of Scotland'
Guinness
Guinness is a dark Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Ireland, in 1759, it is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in 50 countries, available in over 120. Sales in 2011 amounted to 850 million litres, it is popular with the Irish, both in Ireland and abroad. In spite of declining consumption since 2001, it is still the best-selling alcoholic drink in Ireland. Where Guinness & Co. Brewery makes €2 billion worth annually. Guinness' flavour derives from malted barley and roasted unmalted barley, a modern development, not becoming part of the grist until the mid-20th century. For many years, a portion of aged brew was blended with freshly brewed beer to give a sharp lactic acid flavour. Although Guinness's palate still features a characteristic "tang", the company has refused to confirm whether this type of blending still occurs; the draught beer's thick, creamy head comes from mixing the beer with carbon dioxide. The company moved its headquarters to London at the beginning of the Anglo-Irish Trade War in 1932.
In 1997, Guinness Plc merged with Grand Metropolitan to form the multinational alcoholic-drinks producer Diageo plc, based out of London. Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at Dublin. On 31 December 1759, he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery. Ten years on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain. Arthur Guinness started selling the dark beer porter in 1778; the first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s. Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. "Stout" referred to a beer's strength, but shifted meaning toward body and colour. Porter was referred to as "plain", as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O'Brien's poem "The Workman's Friend": "A pint of plain is your only man."Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness's sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.
In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery's refusal to either offer its beer at a discount. Though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading; the breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym "Student" for techniques developed for Guinness Student's t-distribution and the more known Student's t-test. By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, one-fifth of the total wages bill; the improvements were supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market.
In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world. Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, "It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s."Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more "drinkable"; the gravity was subsequently reduced, the brand was relaunched in 1981. Pale malt was used for the first time, isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: Dublin Porter. Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986; this led to a scandal and criminal trial concerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid.
In the 1980s, as the IRA's bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the harp as its logo. The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness; the Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. Guinness has been referred to as "that black stuff". Guinness had a fleet of ships and yachts; the Irish Sunday Independent newspaper reported on 17 June 2007 that Diageo intended to close the historic St James's Gate plant in Dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city. This news caused some controversy; the following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759.
Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a "significant review of its operations"
Guinness Black Lager
Guinness Black Lager is a black lager being tried in Northern Ireland and the United States by Diageo, in Malaysia by Guinness Anchor Berhad, under its Guinness brand name. Test marketing began in March 2010; the new product is aimed at young men who prefer bottled lagers to pints of beer. Guinness believes there are lager drinkers that may be interested in a dark beer but not their famous stout, it is being sold in 330 millilitre bottles for six to nine months in Northern Ireland, as a test market for Europe, in Malaysia to see whether there are opportunities for the product elsewhere. In Malaysia, the beer will be known as Guinness Premium Beer, it will be offered at a comparable price to other premium lagers. The move follows previous attempts by Diageo to boost sales by introducing variations of Guinness stout. In 2005, the company sold Brew 39 in bars in Dublin and before that it introduced Guinness XXX Extra Strong, Guinness Gold. If the beer sells well during its trial, it will be introduced to other markets in Ireland and the U.
S. Guinness Black Lager is available in Australia and Canada. In July 2012, Black Lager was launched into the Republic of Ireland market, available in packs of 4 X 330 ml bottles. Diageo had decided not to launch the new beer in the Republic of Ireland because of the massive decrease in alcohol sales in that country. Alcohol consumption has dropped two per cent from its all-time peak in 2001; the lager is being offered at off-sales outlets in Northern Ireland. The launch will be accompanied by an marketing campaign with promotions in bars; as of February 2013, the product is still being advertised in North America. It is a 4.5% a.b.v. Strength brew and gets its black colour from the roasted barley added into it. Guinness has made several attempts to vary its brand in the past; these include Guinness Light. Official website
Bell's whisky
Bell's is a brand of blended Scotch whisky produced by Arthur Bell & Sons Ltd and now owned by Diageo. It is the best selling whisky in the UK; the Bells distillery was founded in 1798. In 1851, Arthur Bell began to blend various single malts together to create a more consistent blended whisky. Arthur Bell was the first known whisky manufacturer to appoint a London agent, by at least 1863. Bell's two sons joined the business in partnership in 1895. Arthur Kinmond was appointed to manage the domestic market and Robert was appointed as head of the brand overseas. By the 1880s the company was focused on blended whisky. Arthur Bell died in 1900. In 1921 the partnership became a private company run by Arthur Kinmond after Robert retired to live as a country gentleman; the end of Prohibition in America created a surge in demand, which led Arthur Bell & Sons to acquire two distilleries in 1933: Blair Athol and Dufftown. In 1936 the Inchgower distillery was acquired; the Bell brothers died in 1942 and the company accountant, William Govan Farquharson, became chairman of the company.
He focused on advertising the brand more heavily. Bell's became a public company in 1949. In 1954, Arthur Bell exported to 130 different countries. By 1970, Bell's was the highest selling whisky in Scotland. In the early 1970s, Bell's could not afford the advertising budget of the larger whisky distillers. Instead, it focused on the use of mixers with its product; this increased the product's popularity with women, Bell's revenues rose by 800% between 1970 and 1979. In 1978 Bell's became the UK's highest selling whisky. Much of the credit for this expansion is given to the managing director Raymond Miquel. By 1980 the company had around 35 percent market share in the UK. Arthur Bell & Sons acquired Gleneagles Hotels in 1984. In 1985 the company was acquired by Guinness for $518 million, subsequently absorbed into Diageo. Blair Athol is the main component of the blend. Dufftown and Inchgower still figure, but Glenkinchie and Caol Ila are components; the Pittyvaich distillery was used in the blend between 1974 and 1993.
Bell's is bottled at Diageo's Shieldhall, Glasgow plant. The product is 40% ABV in the UK, 43% ABV in South Africa; the brand's top markets are the UK, South Africa, the Nordic countries and Brazil. A religious man, modesty prevented Arthur Bell from using his name on his whisky; the Arthur Bell name was not attached to the product until 1904. A yellow floribunda rose. Bell's has used the "Afore ye go" slogan since 1925. Official website
Scotland
Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland enacted a political union to create a United Kingdom.
The majority of Ireland subsequently seceded from the UK in 1922. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland; the legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England; the Scottish Parliament, a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, was established in 1999 and has authority over those areas of domestic policy which have been devolved by the United Kingdom Parliament. The head of the Scottish Government, the executive of the devolved legislature, is the First Minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the UK House of Commons by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs.
Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. From the ninth century, the meaning of Scotia shifted to designate Gaelic Scotland and by the eleventh century the name was being used to refer to the core territory of the Kingdom of Alba in what is now east-central Scotland; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass most of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages, as the Kingdom of Alba expanded and came to encompass various peoples of diverse origins. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.
At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.
The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept slaves through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth ce
Smirnoff
Smirnoff is a brand of vodka owned and produced by the British company Diageo. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov, it is now distributed in 130 countries and produced in several countries including Albania, Honduras, Ireland, Latvia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States. Smirnoff products include vodka, flavoured vodka, malt beverages. In March 2006, Diageo North America claimed that Smirnoff vodka was the best-selling distilled spirit brand in the world. In 2015 India's Officer's Choice overtook Smirnoff vodka to become the world's largest selling spirit brand. In 2014, Smirnoff was chosen as the best selling vodka across the world; the vodka is made using a traditional charcoal filtration method developed by P. A. Smirnoff. Recipe No. 21, created by P. A.'s son Vladimir after escaping Russia during the October Revolution. Pyotr Arsenjevitch Smirnov founded his vodka distillery in Moscow in 1864 under the trading name of PA Smirnoff, pioneering charcoal filtration in the 1870s, becoming the first to utilize newspaper ads along with charitable contributions to the clergy to stifle anti-vodka sermons, capturing two-thirds of the Moscow market by 1886.
His brand was a Tsar favorite. When Pyotr died, he was succeeded by his third son Vladimir Smirnov; the company produced more than 4 million cases of vodka per year. In 1904, the Tsar nationalized the Russian vodka industry and Vladimir Smirnov was forced to sell his factory and brand. During the October Revolution of 1917, the Smirnov family had to flee the country. Vladimir Smirnov re-established a factory in 1920 in Constantinople. Four years he moved to Lwów and started to sell the vodka under the contemporary French spelling of the name, "Smirnoff"; the new product sold marginally well but not nearly as it had in Russia prior to 1904. An additional distillery was founded in Paris in 1925. In the 1930s, Vladimir met Rudolph Kunett, a Russian who had emigrated to America in the 1920s and became a successful businessman in New York City; the Kunett family had been a supplier of grains to Smirnoff in Moscow before the Revolution. In 1933, Vladimir sold Kunett the right to begin producing Smirnoff vodka in North America.
He returned to the United States, quit his sales job, established his first North American distillery in Bethel, Connecticut, USA in 1933. However, the business in America was not as successful. In 1938 Kunett could not afford to pay for the necessary sales licences, contacted John Martin, president of Heublein. Heublein was a company that specialized in the export of liquors and foreign foods. Using the $14,000 that the Heublein company made from a new product that ended up saving them from bankruptcy, Martin bought the rights to Smirnoff in 1939, his board thought. Americans were traditionally whiskey drinkers unfamiliar with vodka and so sales were slow. In a marketing move they changed the product to use whiskey corks instead and branded it as a "white whiskey" with "no taste, no smell". Sales picked up after that. In 1982, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company acquired Heublein Inc. for $1.4 billion. RJR Nabisco sold the division to Grand Metropolitan in 1987. In 1985 Heublein Corporate Audit Manager Hanson J Kan had recommended to Heublein that they buy out the Grand Metropolitan IDV Smirnoff licensee with its global licensee locations.
Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form Diageo in 1997. In 1990, after the Berlin Wall was demolished, Helmut Kohl made a deal with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev allowing the reunification of Germany provided that the Soviet army could remain in East Germany, due to a pre-existing security agreement between the German Democratic Republic and the USSR. 500,000 Soviet soldiers were paid in hard currency and had nothing to do except drink. They proceeded to spend their currency on Marlboro cigarettes, Levi jeans and Smirnoff vodka; the US-made variety of Smirnoff vodka was popular. The London office of Heublein was inundated with orders and the Vice President, Jeremy Collis, set about exploiting this "gusher" to the fullest extent possible. Huge in-store Smirnoff displays were set up in the Russian army stores and the officers' messes were renamed Smirnoff Clubs. Individual messes started serving in excess of 200 litres a night of Smirnoff; the Soviet forces became the biggest market in Europe for Smirnoff outside the UK.
Smirnoff was shipped to Germany at the rate of 20,000 bottles a day. Moskovskaya and Stolichnaya's market share in Germany dropped from 100% to nothing. Seeing the popularity of Smirnoff amongst the Russian troops, Collis set about trying to sell Smirnoff vodka directly into the USSR; the entire vodka market in the Western world at that stage was 60 million cases but the USSR market was believed to be over 200 million cases. The first containers were shipped into Leningrad in 1991 where Collis had appointed a distributor, Empire Brands Inc. In 1985, Heublein Corporate Audit Manager Hanson J Kan recommended to Heublein that they buy out the Grand Metropolitan IDV Smirnoff licensee with its global licensee locations, but in 1987, Grand Met bought out Heublein including the global Smirnoff operations from RJR Nabisco. Empire Brands was established by Sergey Titov, a former interpreter with no prior commercial experience. In Soviet Russia no one had'commercial experience' so Titov became a m
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a stout produced by the Guinness Brewery, an Irish brewing company owned by Diageo, a drinks multinational. First brewed by Guinness in 1801, FES was designed for export, is more hopped than Guinness Draught and Extra Stout, has a higher alcohol content, which gives it a more bitter taste; the extra hops were intended as a natural preservative for the long journeys the beer would take by ship. FES is the Guinness variant, most found in Asia and the Caribbean, it accounts for half of Guinness sales worldwide. Over four million hectolitres of the beer were sold in Africa in 2011, where Diageo intend to grow the product into the continent's highest selling beer. Guinness Flavour Extract, a dehydrated, hopped wort extract made from barley malt and roasted barley, is used for overseas production of the stout; the syrup is shipped from Ireland, where it is added at the ratio of 1:49 to locally brewed pale beer. In most overseas markets, Guinness Flavour Extract is blended with locally brewed beer to produce FES.
FES was marketed in Nigeria. This was updated for 1999 -- 2006 with the Michael Power campaign; the beer is ranked on beer rating websites, while beer critics have varying opinions. Guinness West India Porter, the direct predecessor of Foreign Extra Stout, was first exported from the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin in 1801; the product was formulated for Irish immigrant workers in the Caribbean. The beer was only brewed between October and April, which reduced acidification, was matured in large wooden vats for up to two years, which gave the finished product greater stability. To survive the long journey overseas, taken by ship, it was brewed with extra hops and a higher alcohol content, which acted as natural preservatives for the beer. Exported in barrels, the product was bottled locally, which helped to reduce costs; the first recorded shipment of the beer to the United States was in 1817. In 1827, the first official shipment of Guinness on the African continent arrived in Sierra Leone; the beer was renamed Foreign Extra Stout from around 1849 onwards.
The first recorded exports to South East Asia began in the 1860s. FES accounted for around five per cent of all Guinness production at the turn of the twentieth century, with two thirds destined for Australia and the United States, where it was used as a medicinal product. Australia remained the single largest export market for the product until 1910, when it was eclipsed by the United States. Due to the expense of importation, FES was a premium product, retailing for double the price of domestic stouts. Total production had reached 105,000 hogsheads by 1912; the American trade was disrupted by the onset of World War I and discontinued with the introduction of Prohibition. The product was not popular when it returned in the 1930s, as drinkers now preferred the lighter and cheaper Guinness Extra Stout. Following discontinuation of export during World War II, FES did not return to the United States until 1956, but this was to prove unsuccessful, the beer was withdrawn shortly afterwards. Guinness export sales were to ethnic Anglo Saxons and Celts prior to 1920.
This changed from the 1920s onwards, among the first natives to develop a taste for the drink were the ethnic Chinese of the Malay Peninsula. A global Guinness salesman was appointed by the company in 1924, sales began to be pursued among native populations. In 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, the British War Office purchased 500,000 half-pint bottles of FES for distribution to hospitals. In 1951, exports by 1964 had grown to 300,000 barrels. By 1959, sales in Ghana had grown large enough for Guinness to establish a joint venture in the country with the United Africa Company. By 1962, Nigeria had become the largest export market for Guinness, with around 100,000 barrels exported to the country every year; this led the company to build a brewery in Ikeja in western Nigeria to supply the demand. The brewery cost over £2 million, had a 150,000 barrel capacity, was 60 per cent owned by Guinness Nigeria, 25 per cent by the United Africa Company with the remaining shares held by local Nigerian interests.
Breweries followed in Malaysia and Ghana, whilst licences were granted to other companies to brew Guinness under contract in other African countries and the West Indies. A small proportion of Guinness production, it was this success in Africa but in Asia, that allowed FES to grow into a 4.5 million hectolitre brand. A new bottle design was debuted in Malaysia in 2005, rolled out worldwide. In 2013, FES received a packaging redesign in Africa and other selected markets, with a gold foil top and a new label; the Irish version of FES is brewed with pale malt, 25 per cent flaked barley and 10 per cent roasted barley, the latter being what gives the beer its dark hue. It uses the bitter Galena and Target hop varieties which have undergone an isomerized kettle extract process; the beer contains about a third more hops, nearly double the amount of roasted barley than Guinness Draught. The beer is force carbonated; the beer has 47 Bitterness Units. Guinness Flavour Extract, a dehydrated, hopped wort extract made from barley malt and roasted barley, is used for overseas production of the stout.
The syrup is shipped from Ireland, where it is added at the ratio of 1:49 to locally brewed pale beer. Each year, six million litres of GFE are made using 9,000 tonnes of barley. Guinness Flavour Extract was first created by scientists working
