Diageo Under Fire For Importing Swedish Malt

"Manufactured in Scotland using the finest natural ingredients, like natural Highland spring water, oak distilled using traditional methods handed down for generations etc, etc." Or something like that.

You know where you are with a Scotch don't you? You can almost smell the fresh crisp Highland air, bagpipes wailing in the background, wee lasses in short kilts doing that funny dancing and Geoff Capes lookalikes tossing their cabers, knives tucked neatly into their socks.

"Take a wee dram with me bonny laddie, so you will, the noo." Auld Lang Syne, Robbie Burns, haggis, deep fried Mars bars and Hogmanay. Traditions that go back thousands of years. OK the Mars bars are a bit more recent than that, but you get my drift.

I've personally never seen "made using Swedish malt imported via Dundee docks" on the side of a bottle of the stuff, and if you did it would hardly put you in the mood to buy it now would it? But that's exactly what you could be drinking.

The firm, quite rightly, came under severe fire from the NFU Scotland for bringing in a 3,000 MT cargo of Swedish malt into Dundee this week, despite there still being plenty of old crop grain in Scottish stores from the 2008 harvest.

Buying local and improving your carbon footprint clearly goes out of the window when the world's biggest whisky producer can save a few bob.

Maybe they should advertise Johnny Walker with the two birds from Abba dancing around in short kilts whilst Benny and Bjorn toss each other's cabers?