A Durham company is shipping Scotch whisky to the Taiwanese. Sarah French speaks to John McDonough, who has a whisky heritage of his own.

FOR businessman John McDonough, making good Scotch available to other parts of the world is the continuation of a family tradition. In 1770, an ancestor, Alec Harvie, started a private collection of single malt Speyside whiskies. Each cask and bottle was given a unique reference number, with availability limited to friends and family.

Centuries later and John's grandfather, Alec Harvey, "a fairly good consumer of alcohol" and local entrepreneur, was doing his bit for the drinkers of America.

Family legend says he illegally shipped Spey whisky from Seaham, in east Durham, to New York during Prohibition, where it became the favourite drink in the outlawed speakeasies. These included the Country Club, owned by ex-Broadway showgirl Belle Livingstone, who apparently instructed her dancers to use a touch of Spey private malt as perfume on the backs of their legs.

Now Mr McDonough has started the whisky-exporting tradition again with Harvies of Edinburgh, in deference to his Scotch-loving ancestors - and the dancing legs form part of the brand.

With a product made in Scotland, a business based in County Durham and a market in Taiwan, when it came to setting up his business Mr McDonough didn't make it easy for himself.

He had never run his own company and he was importing into a country on the other side of the world that had strict government controls.

"It was very difficult in the beginning," he said.

"From a buying point of view, we had to find the right whisky produced by the right people and get everything here on time."

He admits that with his Taiwanese business partner, Hung Ho, they started the company - then learned how it would work.

Having lived in Taiwan since 1993, Mr McDonough knew that the potential market for high quality Spey malt was huge.

Born in Sunderland and educated at St Bede's School, in Lanchester, and Durham College of Technology, he also studied at the London Institute of Exports.

Initially, he worked for Joshua Wilson, a large VG wholesaler in Durham. Later Mr McDonough joined Grand Met, still based in the North-East, and after two years moved to London as a national sales manager looking after customers such as Marks & Spencer, Littlewoods and Tesco and responsible for brands such as Ski yoghurts and Eden Vale dairy products.

Later he moved on to the drinks division with responsibility for Bailey's Irish cream, Smirnoff vodka and Gilbeys gin, handling accounts in Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Malta and the Middle and Far East.

He had always enjoyed working with the Taiwanese and, when offered the chance, was happy to move there to focus on the Asian market.

"I loved it there. The Taiwanese work really hard and they have a very strong family ethic. They want to work with their families as opposed to working for big companies and will include their relatives in their businesses whenever they can.

"There have always been threats hanging over them so their philosophy is to work as hard as they can for their children so they can protect them. It's not that long ago that 40 per cent of the population had to flee China with nothing.

"The country doesn't have many raw materials, just the ingenuity of the people. One day a factory might be making sports shoes and the next week the same people in the same place might be manufacturing computer parts. They are very versatile."

At the time, the import market was tightly controlled by the government, but things were getting better.

"The government was the organisation that imported goods, wholesaled and retailed. Then they began to liberalise things. The French did really well with cognac and dominated that market, but with the relaxing of the rules other opportunities were opening up," said Mr McDonough.

While the government decided to cut the tax on imported American whisky, there were no such concessions for Scotch whisky. This had the effect of raising its profile, its higher cost making it less easy to acquire and therefore even more desirable.

"As consumers began to understand a little bit more about Scotch whisky, we saw an opportunity to introduce single malt," said Mr McDonough. "The British are very highly regarded in Taiwan. The people love and respect high quality products from Europe, especially things with some history and heritage."

First he had to find his whisky, a single malt from the Speyside region. North of Aviemore and east of Inverness is reputed to be the best. Mr McDonough found three distilleries to produce the best ten, 12, 15, 20, 25 and 35-year-old Speys.

Bottling was relatively straightforward too. An old schoolfriend, Tony Cleary, founder of Lanchester Wine Cellars, was able to take care of that in County Durham.

His first foray into the Taiwanese market was via banks. A number of their VIP customers have bought casks of Spey whose $60,000 price tag includes first class British Airways tickets to the UK to visit Scotland and the North-East.

Harvies makes presentation boxes twice a year for the Taiwanese to give at New Year and at their autumn festival.

Now the company employs eight people in Taipei, has a turnover of £1.6m and is profitable. Up to 20,000 cases of 12 bottles are imported each year.

Mr McDonough said that while he was interested in trying to sell to the Scots, the next targets were Shanghai and Hong Kong and possibly Japan after that.

This year, the first Spey whiskies will go on sale in the UK, through selected hotels and restaurants in the North-East and Fenwick.

He is also the newest member of the Entrepreneurs Forum, which has proved vital as he renews and builds fresh business relationships in the region.

* For more information about the Entrepreneurs Forum, call 0870 850 2233 or visit www.entre preneursforum.net