Barfly: Matisse puts Taiwan spirits in the picture

EXPECT a new entry to the whisky market when Taiwan-based Matisse Spirits begins selling its brand in the UK.

The company marked its arrival by offering First Minister Alex Salmond a bottle to auction for charity.

And not any old bottle. The Matisse Caperdonich 1972 sells for 800 which Scotch expert Jim Murray branded as "liquid gold" in the latest edition of his Whisky Bible.

Instead of owning its own distillery, Matisse buys casks from other producers and sells them as single malts or mixes them to create its own blended whiskies.

The company is the biggest player in the convenience store market in its home market and also exports to other countries, including Australia and the US. . UK shoppers should see the brand in shops in the spring.

Matisse chairman Yang Teng-Kuei has used celebrities to advertise whisky in Taiwan, breaking the mould in the country for advertising Scotch with pictures of distilleries or the bottles.

Product suits royal event to letter

Who says a royal wedding isn't good for business? Last month an enterprising young man, Joshua Blackburn, a director of an ethical communications firm, Provokateur, set up a new business. It's lead product? Crown Jewels condoms, emblazoned with pictures of Kate and Wills and which promise to combine "the strength of a prince with the yielding sensitivity of a princess-to-be". All of that plus an exclusive, collectible portrait of the happy young couple as they might appear on their wedding day (with or without condoms?) for 5 a pop, so to speak. By the time Barfly went to press, the firm's commercial transaction-enabled website link was all over Twitter and Facebook. Of course, there is an essential caveat: The Royal wedding souvenir "boite de capotes" are most certainly not "supplied to, or approved by, Prince William of Wales, Catherine Middleton or any member of the Royal Family".

Top execs rise above recession

LET the good times roll. Fresh stats from the private jet arm of Airbus would suggest that plenty of top execs are still enjoying the high life.

The plane-maker informs us that it delivered 15 corporate jets in 2010, worth a heady $1.5 billion, setting a new record for this facet of its business.

And we're not talking crop-sprayers here. These are the sort of beasts one normally sees bearing BA or EasyJet logos. Two of the planes were "VIP widebody A330/A340s" - normal capacity 300 passengers-plus.

"Corporate jets are a largely unseen enabler of company success and growth," Airbus proclaims.

For many a small firm fretting over whether to replace the company van or not, it must all look rather pie in the sky.