The recent Whisky Magazine (a spin off from Whisky Live) published a fortune-telling glimpse into the future by sage Dave Broom.

"Yes I know it is a damned foolhardy thing to do, but what the hell, I'm here to be shot at", he bravely declares with a welcome, new found, devil-may-care, (new year's) resolution.

He forecasts development on a number of whisky issues such as minimum pricing, multi-vintages, take-overs and mergers, wood quality, non chill-filtering at 46%, creeping homogenisation, craft distilling, and the rise of specialists.

Readers of this blog didn't need his crystal ball.