Bill Smith Grant wasn’t meant to inherit The Glenlivet. But as Iain Russell reports, his bold business decisions once he did revolutionised the whisky and made it famous
Bill Smith Grant didn’t intend to become a distiller. His father, George, had stipulated in his will that Bill’s elder brother John should inherit The Glenlivet Distillery on his 25th birthday, in March 1914. Bill was destined to farm a few hundred acres, or perhaps become ‘something in the city.’ T...
By Iain Russell
from Issue 54 published on 03/03/2006
Johnnie Wallker is 200 years old. Ian Buxton looks at the history of a whisky icon
I doubt if John Walker would recognise the firm he first founded. Yet his name lives on in the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky.
With more than four bottles consumed every single second, more than 10 million cases of Johnnie Walker are sold every year in more than 200 countries. Not bad for a 15 ...
By Ian Buxton
from Issue 48 published on 10/06/2005
