Last year, Diageo also made a play for Shui Jing Fang of China, a maker of white spirits like baiju, a popular Chinese liquor.
He is a maker of dreams who spirits the heroine Sophie (named after his granddaughter - the book is dedicated to her, too) away when she spies him at his nightly work and together they save the world's children from "human bean -eating giants.
THERE was much self-congratulation among Diageo's bosses in July last year when the British firm, the world's biggest maker of spirits, completed its acquisition of Shui Jing Fang, a maker of baijiu, a liquor generally made of rice.
Let us remember him as he would have wanted to be remembered: an open heart, a maker of electric and gorgeous music, a free spirit and a lover of beauty.
Halting the deal would also be a major setback for Pernod Ricard, a French company that would have risen from No. 5 to become the third-largest maker of spirits in the world.
Van Rompuy described his onetime right-hand man as "the right man on the right job", "a maker of compromises with a true European spirit".
Wood bats can also break the spirit of younger players, said Rick Redman, a spokesman for Louisville Slugger, a maker of wood bats.
Seagram is a major maker of distilled spirits and wines, and it has a large stake in DuPont de Nemours & Co., the chemicals manufacturer, and in Time Warner Inc., the media, publishing and entertainment giant.
