The Scotch whisky industry is like the Titanic. It's big, famous, awash in money and sees a lot of action in the North Atlantic. The Scotch whisky industry and the Titanic also share a marked difficulty responding quickly to adversity.

In the case of the Titanic, this was a product of the ship's huge size and consequent momentum; any James Cameron fan can tell you that this momentum made it difficult to avoid icebergs. The whisky industry's lassitude, on the other hand, is a function of its product's long aging times. The Glenfidditch or Johnnie Walker Blue you buy at your local liquor store was originally produced over a decade ago, and then laboriously aged in oak casks. This lengthy maturation process means that a spike in demand for whisky can't immediately be offset by a commensurate increase in supply.