The only ship in the Royal Naval fleet to be christened with whisky seemed like an appropriate place to host an event to promote Scottish exports.
In 1996 HMS Sutherland had a bottle of Macallan 16 smashed across its bow, rather than the customary champagne at its launch event.
And after 19 years proud service, it seemed a fitting thing to do to host a whisky tasting aboard the Duke Class Frigate on its last stop prior to a major refit.
Resplendent in tartan trousers, (Scottish) captain Al Wilson and I hosted a dozen leading German business men and women for an exclusive evening aboard the latest Naval vessel to dock in Hamburg.
The evening was partly about promoting the UK as a destination for investment – our guests all ran companies who either have, or were considering, UK subsidiaries.
And partly about promoting whisky, an export that is worth more than £4bn to the UK economy and employs more than 35,000 people.
The Germans rather do like their whisky. They consume £160m of the stuff every year – up 28% since 2012. And based on their reaction when offered a chance to try Singleton, Cardhu and Lagevulin, our guests clearly have been playing their part in helping those statistics.
The mood was set for the evening with a private tour of the ship, going very much behind the scenes into the bowels of Sutherland. The crew are rightly proud of their machine, itself an example of UK manufacturing excellence, and were delighted to play their part in ensuring our guests were treated to the best of British.
Ship diplomacy, as at least I have started to call it, is an important part of our work in Germany.
The night before the whisky tasting, we had part of the Jaguar Land Rover fleet parked alongside the ship – yet more British manufacturing excellence on display for the high-profile German guests attending an event.
The year before we hosted both a private dinner for other potential German investors in the UK with the captain of HMS Argyll and a reception with Business Minister Michael Fallon for British and German exhibitors at a major maritime trade show.
The Royal Navy, alongside their operational duties, provide a platform for trade and investment that is an excellent way of promoting the UK. They are a key part of our armoury, as it were, in demonstrating British excellence and telling a positive economy story.
For our guests, under the watchful eye of a Whisky Ambassador from drinks giant Diageo, this was a chance to drink Scottish export product while being impressed by the Navy in all its finery.
We did talk about why the UK is such a great place to business – our flexible labour force, our favourable tax environment and our increasingly strong manufacturing base – but we also talked about whisky.
And the guests – and crew – were particularly pleased to be able to sample Clynelish - a light and flowery whisky from, rather appropriately, the county of Sutherland itself.