IS nothing sacred? Having recoiled in horror at the continental practice of polluting good whiskey, or indeed whisky, with lemon and blackcurrant mixers, this column has learned of a further barbarity to be perpetrated upon this most nobel of liquids in an attempt to woo younger drinkers.

After the slick contemporary imagery which gave Guinness street cred, the marketing men at United Distillers, a subsidiary of Guinness plc, are now hyping up the amber liquid as a drink with poseur appeal for today's youth.

This week Distillers announced the test marketing of black-coloured whisky and whisky flavoured with chilli peppers, concoctions bound to induce trauma among whisky-drinking purists. The black whisky, called Loch Dhu - Gaelic for black lake - gets its colour through the use of charred oak casks and is targeted at 25 to 35 year olds who don't like the strong taste of straight whisky.

According to industry figures, the British are imbibing 25 million fewer bottles of Scotch per year than they did a decade ago. Some 90 per cent of production goes overseas to be mutilated in cola, lemon, blackcurrant and other preposterous mixers. The Scotch industry may be on the financial rocks but must the bottom line balance sheet usher in a new age of hedonism?