• by Karl Greenberg , March 8, 2011

  Single-malt Scotch brand The Balvenie wants Americans to know a few things about its operations in the Scottish highlands: the family-owned distiller is the last one in Scotland that still grows its own barley, uses traditional floor maltings, has both coppersmith and cooperage, and has its own malt master.

The company is getting its message about being a handcrafted brand to U.S. consumers with a media and grassroots effort that's all about finding and promoting Americans who have established their own cottage industries selling things they have made by hand.

The program, called "Balvenie Rare Craft Roadshow," launched on Monday evening in Manhattan, with the handmade Morgan car on display that brand ambassadors Andrew Weir and Nicholas Pollacchi will drive around the country, visiting brewers, vintners, cheese makers, apothecaries, tailors, bicycle makers, and other people suggested via Balvenie's social media platform and Web site. The effort is paired with a print campaign, Web videos, a Web site, and a media partnership with Harper's and Garden and Gun.

"We are looking for unsung heroes -- people who make things like knives, boots, hats; we're even visiting a guy in Key West who makes long boards," says Caspar MacRae, director of Scotch whiskey at William Grant & Sons, U.S.A., which markets five brands including Glenfiddich and Hendrick's gin.

MacRae points out that Balvenie is a rarer, more premium brand than sibling brand Glenfiddich. "We have concentrated on the artisanal craft. For example, most distilleries use an industrial, mechanized process to turn barley into malt. Balvenie is one of the last that uses a team of guys who soak it and lay it down on a stone floor."

The company only sells 50,000 cases of Balvenie in the U.S., says MacRae. "That doesn't sustain a huge ad budget," he says, explaining that the brand wanted to partner with a limited number of media properties. "Harpers is a publication that shares our values," he says, adding that the publication helped design the advertising, helped find some of the craftspeople -- there is also a Balvenie Web site where people can recommend craftspeople -- and devise the itinerary.

Balvenie is running gatefold ads in Harpers touting the brand, road show, and some of the people that the tour visits. One ad features the long board maker. The ads are also running in Garden and Gun, which also helped develop the tour, as did events agency Momentum.

MacRae says that once the program has been completed, "we will put [the craftspeople] online; we will blow them out with social media, and incorporate the best people into a documentary that will run online."