THE EARLY DAYS OF JOHNNIE WALKER WHISKY
John Walker (1805-1857) was a semi-educated village lad thrust into maturity too early in life. His father died when he was just 14 and the family relocated from their village to the township of Kilmarnock in the Scottish Lowlands, investing the proceeds of the sale of their farm in a grocery cum winery. As the new Head of the family, he had to ensure their investment would succeed.
Parsimonious by nature-a common Scottish villager's trait-he worked 16-hour days, six days a week. Of those 16 hours, two were spent learning how to manage ledgers and balance books. He had no foresight-his only focus was to establish and then grow his business, having started from scratch. He was scrupulously honest, an endearing quality, which helped him with his plans. He was fortunate to have the services of an ex-East India Company retired tea blender from Ceylon and Assam as an employee and his initial gains were in the lucrative blended tea business. He had to wait till the company was well settled before he wed, in 1833. His intense lifestyle caught up with him and he died early, in 1857. His children were town-bred and better educated and it was his ambitious son Alexander ‘Alec’ Walker and grandsons who actually created the Johnnie Walker legend.
Although a teetotaller, he shifted his focus specifically onto the Whisky business after his wedding, content till then to peddle spirits, including Rum, Brandy, Gin, and Whisky manufactured by others. These included whiskies from Campbeltown, Islay with its pungent smoky flavour; Glenlivet, Cardhu and other Highland whiskies. Once the Coffey Still became legal apparatus circa 1830, Grain whiskies became very easy to distill in rather short timeframes. He used these whiskies, but as an entirely separate category as demanded by law. As spirit, these were undrinkable and had to be blended with softening syrups, juices, honey and botanicals and also watered down to ~50% ABV. He, however, guaranteed quality, retaining and expanding his customer base. Of the spirits he dealt with, malt whisky was the most popular, sold at a staggering 65-68% ABV, to be cut half and half with Scheppes soda or water. By then, he had picked up the nuances of blending and started selling blended malts-but only made to order. His whiskies were much smoother than the ‘fiery’ Lowland, Islay and other whiskies also in the market.
16 and 8 oz Bottles
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He did not use high-volume glass bottles for his whisky; they were far too expensive. His regulars used their own glass bottles, then available in 8oz (230ml) and 16 oz (460ml) on an as-required basis. The largest size in the days when glass-blowers created bottles was 28oz (800ml) but these were extremely flimsy. He used ceramic containers instead for his well to do patrons, with volumes in gallons and quarts thereof (1.12L). He also used small casks known as ankers (~8 gallons) to transport whisky to and from local dealers and traders, but not to mature or even store it. The arrival of the railway in 1843 would help him in the years ahead to expand, while the proximity of the sea and seaports would help his future generations to attain yet unforeseeable global popularity and leadership.
The railway connected him with Glasgow, London, and beyond, taking his whisky to the many that developed a taste for it, but, equally importantly, bringing in oak casks of all pedigrees he so desperately required to increase transaction volumes and consequent storage, apart from routine victuals.
When he became wealthy and could afford glass bottles, he decided to blend his own whisky, circa 1850, with a rather plebian name-Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky. By then, his name had spread to nearby cities and he started to sell his brand of whisky on a reducing reciprocal basis with other prominent grocers in those cities. He also became a member of an informal Grocer’s association in Scotland. They felt lucky to be associated with an Edinburgh Blender and Wine Merchant, Andrew Usher, the principal sales agent of George Smith’s Glenlivet whisky, who would soon become a distiller of grain whisky and a blender. Usher had an outreach into the corridors of power through George Smith’s landowner and financer, the Duke of Gordon.
An Old Kilmarnock Bottle 1867
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In 1853, he received exciting news through the grapevine about happenings in London. An Act named the Forbes-Mackenzie Act had been passed easing blending, but in bond. Though the Hansard (the official record of Parliamentary debates) was introduced in 1803, it remained a selective record of debates until it became the Official Report in 1909 and was often misquoted or misunderstood. All grocers were disappointed when actual details came across months later in print.
The Forbes-Mackenzie Act 1853, as The Licensing (Scotland) Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c.67) came to be known, when read with An Act to Impose Additional Duties on Spirits in Scotland and Ireland…(16 & 17 Vict. c. 37) of 1853, imposed regulatory timings on licenced liquor sales premises and defined the taxes to be paid on the full quantity of spirits contained in any one or more casks in any warehouse, while allowing the distiller or proprietor of such spirits… ‘ from time to time to rack or draw off such spirits into any other cask or casks, provided that no less a quantity than ten gallons shall be racked into any one of the last-mentioned casks…’ But only distilleries and breweries could take advantage of this Act.
In 1957, Usher informed them that a Spirits Act had been approved in principle by then Prime Minister H Temple and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gladstone was under pressure to allow blending of Grain whiskies with Malt whiskies in Bond. What he didn’t tell them was that there was severe counter-pressure from the five-times larger Irish whisky industry not to pass the Act. Some grocers, but not John Walker, started blending their malt and grain whiskies in their stores then. John Walker died in 1857 and Alec (1837-89) assumed charge. The Spirits Act permitting blending of grain and malt whiskies in bond was passed in 1860 with Irish disapproval, but limited such vatting to distillers and brewers only.
Alexander Walker pulled off a marketing coup when he was able to convince Captains of sea-going vessels to sell his Old Kilmarnock whisky in their bars, for a commission. The increased movement of his dumpy 28oz bottles by rail and by sea revealed a major failing-his bottles were proving short-lived and breaking enroute, causing considerable loss. His first attempt to make their bases square with each side equal to the diameter of his rounded bottles made the already dumpy and shabby bottles look squat and positively ugly in dim lighting in bars. This led to his first masterstroke as designer. He slimmed the bottles down to stand elegantly tall. They could be tightly packed in less space, reducing the threat of breakages by over 75% and also the storage space per carton of twelve bottles, equating to more bottles per cargo. As the art of manufacturing bottles improved with time, he found he could both increase volume to quart bottles (1.12L) and thicken each side by a minuscule amount to strengthen them further, reducing breakages to near zero. These were extremely cost-effective improvements.
Even so, there was an unforeseen consequence to their standing tall. They obscured the bottles in the row behind them, so they were moved to the rearmost row of shelves in bars where their names could not be seen. This led to the birth of the second label on his bottles, albeit small. It carried only the name but was pasted on the neck of the bottle and was prominently visible. The first ever label was white in colour, a harbinger of things to come. In five years, the Old Kilmarnock crossed the 100,000 gallon per year sales mark, a testament to Alec’s business acumen and creativity.
Alexander Walker was finally able to blend his stocks of grain and malt whiskies and, starting 1865, bottle them for sale as a five year old blended whisky, now named Walker’s Old Highland Whisky, copyrighted as such in 1867. The introduction of grain whisky into the blend of malts reduced the fierce strength of the whisky and was accepted as a welcome feature. His whiskies were bottled at proof, equivalent to 57.1% ABV.
The five-year waiting period was to prove a blessing in disguise. He was able to convince captains of naval vessels to use his stocks in transit overseas to new markets as ballast and serve them as good quality whisky in their bars, for a commission. Once his whisky gained popularity, some bottles were brought back to the front shelf in bars everywhere.
Competition was fierce and Alec once again used his imagination to bring his bottles into the public eye. He invested in visual promotion by increasing the size of his main label to accommodate much larger bright golden colour lettering encased in an equally prominent golden border. Since they no longer fitted one face of his square bottle, he had no option but to tilt the label to fit it on one face stylishly without appearing to do so and display its contents on one face of the bottle and found 24° exactly right and aesthetically pleasing. This tilt was upwards, signalling strength, stamina and determination. He trademarked this design in 1877.
Alec wanted to create even older whiskies and started experimenting on a primary scale, maturing his Old Highland Whisky for more than five years. Unfortunately, the quality was found inferior to the 5-YO. They would peak at best at 6 years of age, no further. Specific-to-task cask management was in its infancy. Two unrelated factors were to help the industry. Firstly, fresh oak barrels were lying abandoned in France between 1860-1900 because of the Phylloxera devastation and could be used freely in the industry, particularly for grain whisky. Secondly, the Scots, Irish and other settlers in America, including English, Welsh, German and Frenchmen, began to distill their own whisky, using corn as the basic grain. The best of these whiskies came from the distillers using water from the Ohio River. The principal port on the Ohio River was Maysville, in present day Kentucky, from where whisky and other products were shipped within America and overseas.
Fortunately for Alec, that export overseas were in the same ships that Walker had used for his exports. He and his team located barrels of whisky that had come from America and bought them off once their contents had been bottled or sold. They were told that the coopers in America would deep-char and toast the casks before using them, a factor that would influence decisions in the next generation of Walkers. Alec found that the freshly imported barrels were a good choice to age his 5-YO whisky further and he was able to experiment with creating a whisky of premium quality. He died in 1889, leaving his sons Alexander II and George in charge.
The acquisition of Cardhu distillery in 1893 changed the Johnnie Walker trajectory to the best possible. When added to the blends in use, it changed the overall profile markedly. The Special Old Highland, featuring a red label was born in 1896. An exceptionally smooth and mellow whisky, it allowed Alex to reduce the strength to 25 under proof, equivalent to 42.8% ABV. The whisky could now be drunk neat, with a few drops of water or soda or with a cube or two of ice. The aroma of the 9 YO was overpowering, able to fill a room with its enticing qualities. It could not, however, be aged further.
It was only after the introduction of freshly charred second-fill European Oak barrels that the 9YO whisky could be aged further, by one full year. But Alex went a step further. Instead of European Oak, he used American Oak barrels and was able to age the blend to all of 12 years. By 1906, the company could boast three main brands: Old Highland White Label 5 YO; Special Old Highland Red Label 9 YO; Extra Special Old Highland Black Label 12 YO. In 1909, the company carried out its final rebranding, bringing out the Johnnie Walker 6 YO White Label, 10 YO Red Label and 12 YO Black Label.
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