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Atsuko Ichijo, “Defending the Scottishness of Scotch Whisky,” chapter 6 of Place-Branding Experiences: Perspectives from Intellectual Property Owners, Users and Lawyers, edited by Catherine W. Ng, Titilayo Adebola and Abbe E. L. Brown (Edward Elgar, 2024), published chapter pp.57–74. Publisher metadata/contents checked: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/place-branding-experiences-9781035311064.html
The supplied author DOCX is a different layout: all main text, abstract, keywords, conclusion and all 60 substantive footnotes read. Twelve-page derivative; layout inspected at pages1,7,12. No embedded images, tables, figures or substantive endnotes. The map discussed in the text belongs to the cited Technical File and is not a missing figure in this chapter. DOCX created/modified January12,2025; this is not the publication date. Final publisher typesetting has not been collated line by line. Coverage is complete for the supplied manuscript, not the entire edited volume or its linked bibliography.
Author argument and section map
Introduction and “The Scottishness of Scotch whisky”: origin protection depends on institutions, narratives and social meanings as well as physical location. Ichijo contrasts production rules with a Technical File invoking climate, geology, ingredients and reputation; she links the landscape story to Scottish Romanticism, empire, the Clearances and class power.
“The protection of the Scottishness of Scotch whisky”: the SWA acts collectively for sometimes competing producers, using lobbying, international trade arguments and litigation. The 2014 independence referendum and 2016 EU referendum demonstrate political adaptation. Glen Buchenbach illustrates conceptual evocation as a protection issue.
“Scotch whisky and the projection of Scotland”: tourism strategies value whisky’s landscape and heritage associations, yet a strong romantic image may compete with portrayals of Scotland as innovative, equitable and socially inclusive. Visitor surveys and social-listening reports are used as indicators of interest; national-brand rankings motivate questions about the breadth of the exported image.
Conclusion: branding is commercially useful but selective. The author argues it can obscure inequality and historic land relations; she does not claim branding alone can solve them.
Critical assessment
This is an interpretive sociological chapter, not a sensory-terroir experiment, consumer experiment, systematic marketing-content census or causal evaluation of tourism. Its distinction between production place, collective reputation and cultural imagery is valuable. Its stronger claim that GI enforcement entrenches one Romantic image is an interpretation, not a judicial holding. Multiple styles, urban production, technological innovation and alternative Scottish identities limit any universal characterization of Scotch marketing.
Historical landownership and the Clearances are substantive interpretive context, but the chapter does not measure how much whisky imagery causes people to overlook inequality. Nor do Scotland’s science/export rankings establish that whisky branding caused those rankings. “Could obscure” is defensible as a hypothesis; “proved to reduce innovation perceptions” is not.
The underlying policy and tourism sources are dated: 2015–16 visitor data,2019 social listening reported2022,2022 trade statistics,2018 GVA,2023 political leadership. Humza Yousaf is described as recently appointed in the manuscript’s time, not as a verified current officeholder.
Corrections and numerical boundaries
- Manuscript p.7 gives UK EU withdrawal as January31,2021. Correct chronology: January31,2020 withdrawal; December31,2020 transition end; UK GI schemes began January1,2021. Footnote4 itself names December31,2020 registration, exposing internal inconsistency. See official historical notice and GI guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/intellectual-property-and-the-transition-period and https://www.gov.uk/guidance/protected-geographical-food-and-drink-names-uk-gi-schemes
- The Glen Buchenbach discussion first correctly assigns factual determination to the national court, then says the CJEU itself found “glen” sufficiently close. The official court explanation leaves that assessment to the national court; general association is insufficient. It distinguishes indirect commercial use, evocation and false/misleading indications. The chapter’s sociological “authentication” language must not become an assertion that the CJEU certified Romantic Scotland or categorically banned every use of “Glen.” Official explanation, all two pages read: https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2018-06/cp180083en.pdf (press summary, not binding judgment). Original judgment opening examined separately; full judgment was not independently reviewed.
- £6.2bn exports(2022) and £5.5bn GVA(2018) differ in year and measure. They must not be combined as a same-year economic-impact total. Direct employment in Scotland, supported jobs throughout the UK and rural employment overlap; do not add them.
- £30bn turnover by2030 and £1bn tourism opportunity are strategic ambitions, not achieved outcomes. Anholt-Ipsos rank21/60 and science26/60 are perceptions/rank positions, not actual export-volume or research-output rankings.
- Calling Scotland’s ingredients “pure/authentic” describes the framing, not an analytical purity test or a requirement that every grain/yeast input originate locally. GI protection does not prove superior sensory quality.
- Preserve rhetorical and historical claims as attributed: “biggest export,” universal recognition of Scotch, pristine nature and natural superiority need defined denominators or independent evidence.
Proposed USWA use
Use a three-part profile exercise: where the whisky is actually made; what its origin designation protects; what its landscape/heritage imagery suggests. Add people, labor, industrial change and ownership alongside atmospheric scenery. Romantic description remains useful when readers can distinguish evocative language from production-origin claims.
A comparison lesson could pair Scotch and American regional whiskey stories, without importing EU legal tests as US law. A discussion can ask whether a modern stillhouse, scientific lab or urban workforce expands rather than destroys a heritage story.
Cross-source synthesis and linked idea
With Scripps’s Black whiskey-history reporting, ask what a founder or landscape narrative leaves out; the histories differ and should not be equated. With the Cabrach report, distinguish physical/archival evidence from a scenic reconstruction. With Canadian whisky reporting, separate legal identity from sensory reputation and current from historical claims.
Proposed reusable idea: protected origin and inherited imagery are related but different kinds of evidence. A designation can establish an origin standard while a marketing image selectively interprets the people and history of that place.
Preservation and open checks
Original72,398-byte DOCX internally uploaded; originals unmodified. Exact Proton/mirror hash comparison remains open; same name/size is provisional. No public course edits. Browser rendering is separate from native Notion read-back. Remaining research leads concern causal audience effects, current law/policy and final-edition collation, not unread supplied pages.
