A batch of 1,200 bottles of dark rum from Lithuania was fully sold out in less than an hour after hitting the shelves of state-run Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp. (TTL) on Tuesday morning, TTL Chairman Ting Yen-che (???) said.
Speaking to CNA on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Ting revealed that lines began to form early Tuesday morning at 12 of the company’s showrooms around Taiwan.
Ting said numbers had to be issued to those in line, with a limitation of one bottle per person.
He then revealed that once opening hours started at 9:30 a.m., the 1,200 bottles that were made available at TTL showrooms were sold out within an hour.
In January, TTL had announced that 6,000 bottles of Lithuanian rum would be ready for the market before Lunar New Year. The bottles came from a shipment of 20,400 bottles purchased by the company to prevent the shipment from potentially being blocked by Chinese customs from entering China as part of economic sanctions imposed on the Baltic state from Beijing.
However, with the help of cooperating partners, Ting said over 9,000 bottles became available.
The batch that went on sale Tuesday followed a January pre-order launch event with FamilyMart, one of the leading convenience store chains in Taiwan, where all 1,800 bottles of available stocks were reserved within 15 minutes after they became available.
To enable the general public to get their hands on the bottles, Ting said that a request had been made to bulk buyers for their orders to be delayed until after the Lunar New Year.
The remaining bottles, totaling almost 10,000, would be shipped out after the Lunar New Year to all TTL sales channels to be sold to the general public.
Ting went on to say that considering the popularity of the rum and the support shown by the Taiwanese public, TTL is considering entering into a long-term partnership with the rum’s makers, MV Group Production, with an exchange in product catalogs between the two companies having already taken place.
The exchange served as a first step for both parties to access a choice of products for sale in each other’s market.
In previous statements made by Ting and TTL representatives, the company was notified on Dec. 18, 2021, by the Ministry of Finance and Eric Huang (???), head of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania, that a batch of Lithuanian dark rum scheduled to arrive in China on Dec. 29 could face potential hurdles with customs there.
According to TTL, this was because China reportedly removed Lithuania from its list of origin countries in early December, virtually blocking any cargo from that country from entering China.
It said the decision to purchase the Lithuanian rum was to show support for the Baltic nation, which has faced increasing political and economic pressure from Beijing to punish the Baltic nation for allowing Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in November with “Taiwanese” in its official name.
Ting had said before that the purchase of Lithuanian rum was the latest effort to enhance bilateral ties between the two nations, who have forged a strong friendship through recent exchanges including face mask and vaccine donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel