THE EARLY DAYS OF JOHNNIE WALKER WHISKY
Johnnie Walker is the world's best-selling Scotch whisky brand by a virtually unbridgeable margin. Now part of the British behemoth Diageo plc, the story of the success of its founder, John 'Johnnie' Walker, is narrated with a fair amount of poetic licence and therefore deserves a more accurate reading.
John Walker was born on 25 July 1805 at Todriggs Farm, Riccarton, on the outskirts of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, Scotland to Alexander Walker (1780-1819) and Elizabeth Gemmel (~1780-1839). He attended a local primary School for six years, 1811-1817, before his father called him back. By then he had learned the two languages in use in his locality, English and Gaelic, as well as basic Arithmetic and Science, enough to get by, but insufficient for a keen student like John. His father was fond of his evening tot, perhaps one too many. In that era, whisky was sold at a staggering 70-75% ABV, leaving it to the drinker to cut to his liking. His father’s untimely death for a hardy farmer at 39 years made John a sworn teetotaller, a well-off farmer's lad thrust into maturity too early in life.
14-year old John (1805-1857) and his family held many a discussion on what to do next, planning to move out of the farming trade. His uncle found an Italian baker in Kilmarnock who was returning home and suggested they buy the Bakery and relocate from their farm to the Bakery in Kilmarnock town-centre itself in the Scottish Lowlands, converting the spacious building to a Grocery cum Winery. They decided to invest the proceeds of the sale of their farm (reported variously as a healthy £417 and £537) in the grocery cum winery by the next year, 1820. John wasn’t overly keen on the winery, but realised it would keep the distaff side of his family well occupied.
His education truncated, the teenaged new Head of the family’s primary aim was to ensure their investment would succeed and their wealth proliferate, with all remaining family members also pitching in. The unfortunate turn of family events and concomitant revised focus deprived him of the best five formative years of his youth. The Excise Act of 1823 relaxed strict laws on distillation of whisky and reduced, by a considerable amount, the extremely heavy taxes on the distillation and sale of whisky. All grocers saw their profits rise, other than John who was not interested in selling hard liquor. He kept off hard liquor till the local Grocer’s Association, realising he was an inexperienced minor, showed him that he was cutting his own foot off and that there was far more money in a Grocery that also supplied hard liquor. When he voiced his concerns, they told him how to safeguard himself: Issue a Disclaimer that he was selling the liquor in his store on an as-is basis, in sealed containers bearing the distiller’s name and its Proof value. He would thus be safe from any untoward incident affecting any of his buyers. By 1825, John was selling spirits, including rum, brandy, gin, and whisky.
Parsimonious by nature—a not uncommon Scottish 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, leaving him no leisurely moments to think about and chart their future. He had no time for foresight—his thought processes revolved solely around establishing and then growing his business, having started from ground zero. He was scrupulously honest, an endearing quality, which helped him with his plans. He was fortunate to have the services of an experienced ex-East India Company retired tea plantation official who had worked in the tea gardens of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Assam (NE India) as his assistant for a couple of years, who also proved to be a good teacher, and his initial gains were in the lucrative blended tea business. In an era when people married early, he had to perforce wait till the company was well settled before he wed Elizabeth Purves in 1833, at the age of 28. They had five children, Margaret (1836-67); Alexander (1837-89); Robert (1840—); Elizabeth (1842—) and John (1845-75). His children entered this world with an advantage over their father. They were town-bred and went on to be better educated and it was his ambitious son Alexander ‘Alec’ Walker and his sons—John's grandsons—who actually created the Johnnie Walker legend and empire.
John's intense lifestyle caught up with him and he died relatively early, aged 52, in 1857. The others members of his family would, no doubt, have helped him manage the expanding grocery and ancillary services. There is, surprisingly, no mention of his other sons in the whisky trade, other than the generic term 'grocer'. Apparently his genes did not contribute much to longevity, as all his children, where known, died young. Coincidentally, his eldest son Alexander also died at 52. His wife, Elizabeth, may well have outlived them all, reaching a grand 83 (1807-1890)!
Although lucrative, the expensive tea market was restricted to landed gentry and limited in scope. Brought to realise by the local Grocers' Association that the money lay in the liquor business, he rearranged his priorities accordingly, trading in all spirits, including rum, brandy, gin and whisky manufactured by others after ensuring that his disclaimer was clearly visible. Once wed and fully established, he gradually drifted into mainly selling legally distilled whisky. These included potent and punchy whiskies from distilleries in booming Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula; pungent, smoky and peat- flavoured whiskies from the Inner Hebridean Island of Islay and milder and more mellow spirits from Glenlivet (Speyside), Cardhu and other Highland distilleries.
Once the Stein and Coffey Stills became legal apparatus circa 1830, grain whiskies became very easy to distill in rather short time frames and were easily available. He sold these whiskies as well, but as an entirely separate category as demanded by law. As spirit off the stills, these were undrinkable in their early years and had to be blended with softening syrups, juices, honey and botanicals and also watered down to proof and just under (57-52% ABV.) He, however, guaranteed quality, thereby retaining and expanding his customer base.
Now that he was dealing mainly in whisky, his clients wanted something different from the predictable, and at times, disagreeable taste of single distillery products. Of the spirits he dealt with, malt whisky was the most popular, with the fiery brands bought at a staggering 11 over proof or higher, (111+ proof, equivalent to 63.5-65% ABV), to be tempered by blending with softer whiskies. He relied on the softer Cardhu and Glenlivet (Speyside) whiskies to make his blends far smoother than the ‘fiery’ whiskies in the market.This is where the lessons in blending tea from his erstwhile employee came in handy. He started blending whiskies in his cellar, selling them as made-to-order blends. The one factor he insisted on was strength—he limited strength of his blends to proof, i.e., 57.1% ABV. He finally and reluctantly launched his own blended whisky, Walker's Kilmarnock Whiky in 1950, undestanding that he owed it to his family to do what was best for business, rather than succumb to personal grievances and beliefs.
By 1852, grain whiskies had improved with advancements in technology to a high standard, so much so that they proved to be quite mild in taste, if somewhat thin. But they were found to be a good host spirit in which to marry the relatively strong and multifaceted malt whiskies and polish the rough edges. Unfortunately, commercial blending of these two types of whiskies was illegal and Dealers in Spirits had to wait for official sanction that was reportedly on the horizon. In any case, the Irish whisky industry, then the dominant force in global whisky production, considered the spirit to be dismissively inferior in taste profile to their own triple-distilled and smooth pot whiskies and not worthy of the appellation 'whisky'.
A disastrous flood in Kilmarnock in 1852 destroyed all of Walker's stock and it took him nearly 18 months to get back to his original status. With better quality new stock coming in at a measured pace, John was able to reassess each for its specific characteristics, so that he could improve his own blended whisky, Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky, in 1854. It turned out to be a fairly successful brand. When his eldest son Alexander returned from a training stint in Speyside distilleries in whisky and Glasgow in the Tea trade, he enthusiastically joined the family business in 1856. He was finally able to persuade his father to abandon the narrow realm of the grocery trade and to go into wholesale trading. Sadly, John was to die next year, 1857, of unknown cause. At that time, whisky constituted only eight per cent of his entire business.
16 and 8 oz Bottles
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He minimised the use of high-volume glass bottles for his whisky; they were far too expensive. Glass bottles were charged an inordinately high tax; his regulars thus used their own glass bottles, having bought them first-hand as new bottles of whisky of their choice, usually in convenient 8oz (230ml) and 16 oz (460ml) volumes, to be refilled on an as-required basis. The largest size in the days when glass-blowers created bottles was usually 28oz (800ml), but these were extremely flimsy and fragile. Mishandling would result in breakage and serious loss in a cost-conscious environment. All his bottles carried his authorised stamp on their bases, as was the prevailing custom then.
He used ewers and 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 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 additional storage, apart from routine victuals for his grocery.
When he felt he had become prosperous enough to afford glass bottles in 1850, he decided to bottle his own blended whisky -Walker's Kilmarnock. By then, his name had spread to nearby cities and he started to sell his brand of whisky on a reciprocal basis with other prominent grocers in those cities. A member of the freemasons and the local traders' associations, he also became a member of a loose and informal Grocer’s association in Scotland. They felt lucky to be associated — though long distance and infrequently — 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 in London through Glenlivet owner 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 licensed 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 from distillers of grain whisky, principally from the Lowlands, 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 Alexander 'Alec' assumed charge. That year, profits from wines and spirits represented just 8 percent of the firm's income. The Spirits Act permitting blending of grain and malt whiskies in Bond was finally passed in 1860 with Irish disapproval and resentment but limited such vatting to distillers and brewers only. As stated earlier, an unusual quirk of fate saw both John and Alec die at 52 years.
Alexander, who had formally studied the blending of tea as an apprentice with a tea merchant in Glasgow and observed the blending of whisky in Speyside distilleries, developed—aided by his father—a complete sense of blending and extended it to the spirit industry. He was keen on moving on from a grocery to a wholesale whisky dealer. Now that he was no longer restrained by his less ambitious father, he started blending whisky in storage in 1860, as he was still registered as a grocer. Grocers were finally permitted in 1863 to blend whiskies in Bond under an extension to the Chevalier-Cobden Act of 1860. Alec moved out of the grocery trade and began his shift to whisky, gradually exiting other spirits.
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 confirmed his major fear—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 now 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 bottles cost him more than the average but proved to be extremely cost-effective improvements that improved his return on investment markedly.
Even so, there was an unforeseen consequence to their standing tall. They obscured the bottles in the rows behind them, so they were moved to the rearmost row of shelves in bars. This meant that their names could no longer be seen. This major drawback led to the birth of the second label on his bottles, albeit small. It carried only the name in legible size of letters and was pasted on the neck of the bottle where it 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, as started by his father, 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 with every seller smartening up their bottles and Alec once again used his fertile 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 bronze coloured lettering encased in an equally prominent golden border. Since it 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 just the one face of the bottle and found 24° exactly right and aesthetically pleasing. This tilt was upwards L > R, signalling strength, stamina and determination. He trademarked this design in 1877. What is important to note is that the significance of the oak used in the creating of casks was still unknown.
Alec wanted to create even older whiskies and started experimenting on a primary scale, intending to increase bottling age in steps of one year. He started by selecting the whiskies that made up his Old Highland Whisky at five and a half years of age or slightly more. Unfortunately, when married for six to eight months in their final casks, the quality of the output was not superior to the 5 YO. Evidently the casks used for the last stage of their blending were not of the requisite class. Specific-to-task cask management was in its infancy.
Three 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. Thirdly, the use of Sherry in Great Britain also diminished, leaving their butts stranded around the country.
Fortunately for Alec, that export of American whiskies overseas was 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 Spain 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 restart his failed experiment and he was thus able to create a 6-year-old whisky of premium quality. Sadly, he died in 1889, aged 52, leaving his sons Alexander II and George in charge. By now, distillers and whisky blenders were beginning to understand the difference between the types of casks used and the importance of the cooper. By this date, whisky constituted 92-95 percent of the Walker family business.
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, again by one full year. But Alex went a step further. Instead of European Oak, he used American Oak barrels for the flourish and was able put together malt and grain whiskies aged eleven and a half years or more and let them marry in that Oak cask for eight months to get a final blended whisky aged 12 years. The age stated on the bottle was equal to or more than the age of the youngest component whisky. By 1906, the company could boast three main brands: Old Highland White Label 5 YO, Special Old Highland Red Label 9 YO and 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. The 'Old Highland' was laid to rest. Surprisingly, the Johnnie Walker brands of whisky did not use the term ‘Scotch’ till as late as 1939.
A year earlier, in 1908, the slogan "Born 1820—Still going Strong!" was created. That done, the Walkers next wanted to convey the brand’s unique point of view visually. They held a competition for suitable artwork in anticipation of the renaming of their brands, but nothing quite fit the bill. A cartoonist named Tom Browne eventually came up with the Striding Man logo, a figure used in their advertisements to this day in honour of the founder and given the same name.
The Striding Man: Browne reportedly sketched his 'Striding Man' on the back of a menu card; Alexander and George adopted the concept of the ‘Striding Man’ immediately. The Striding Man was critical because it differentiated Walker from other Scotch purveyors, which tended to play on Scotland’s traditions of bearded men in kilts playing bagpipes, an image that lacked universality. Here was a gentleman on the move. With one stroke, John Walker the Victorian grocer became Johnnie Walker, the Edwardian dandy.
ADDENDA
We have a conundrum here. The Johnnie Walker Special Old Highland bottle and carton: The term 'Red Label' is visible on the neck mini-label, but missing from the main label, even though it is coloured Red. There is no age statement visible anywhere. The Striding Man, sketched in 1909, is more than visible. The 1937 bottle of Red Label carried an age statement of 8 years. Well, well...
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HONOURING THE 52 YEAR OLD WALKERS
Johnnie Walker has released a limited edition 52-year-old blended whisky that contains spirits mainly from closed distilleries, in honour of both John 'Johnnie' Walker and Alexander 'Alec' Walker, who both lived for 52 years. Limited to 200 bottles, Johnnie Walker Aged 52 Years blends six rare malt whiskies and two grain whiskies from some of the oldest casks in the brand’s reserves.
Johnnie Walker master blender, Dr Emma Walker, and her team of experts selected some of their oldest and most precious casks of Highland single malt and Lowland single grain whiskies for this ultra-rare release, also a first for Emma.
The malt whiskies used are from Glenury Royal, Glenlochy, Glen Albyn (all closed), Brora (closed 1983, reopened 2021) and the working Blair Athol &Dalwhinnie distilleries; the grain whiskies come from Cambus and Carsebridge distilleries, both closed. Six of these distilleries operated during either John or Alexander Walker’s lifetimes, with only Dalwhinnie and Glenlochy opening shortly after Alexander died in 1889. Every whisky was distilled in 1972 or earlier, making it one of the oldest ever age-stated Johnnie Walker releases.
What is not really understood is that in such aged whiskies, the grain whiskies play a critical role. They need to be extremely fine in and by themselves, with distinguishable and subtle individual characteristics yet remain flexible to accept distinctly differently styled malt whiskies and blend with them to accentuate their individual strengths without displaying any grainy texture during their consumption.
In its heyday, the now-demolished Lowland Cambus distillery’s grain whisky was highly regarded by blenders. In an advertisement placed by DCL in The Daily Mail in 1906, Cambus Pure Grain Whisky was described as ‘the whisky with an individuality – notably different to all others in peculiar delicacy and charm of flavour – mild and mellow.
Carsebridge, closed in 1983, has only ever been bottled as a single grain with high age statements by independent bottlers. Its 52 year old release in 2018, bottled under the “Sovereign” label for K&L Wines, is described as amazing, dried flowers and Makassar oil with dark brandied raisins, dark plum, caramel, smooth, warming…Patience in a barrel.
Together, the single grain whiskies from Cambus and Carsebridge introduce rich vanilla, butterscotch, dark dried fruit and spice to the blend, while tea leaves and menthol add layers of depth.
Blair Athol, the heart and soul of Bell’s blended whiskies, provides intensity with fruit-forward notes of raisins, currants, and orange peel, balanced by wood spice and tropical fruit.
The addition of Glenury Royal and Glenlochy spirit to the blend results in the whisky gaining richness and texture, with flavours of berries, confectionery fruits, and oiliness. Glen Albyn and Dalwhinnie contribute salinity, cured meat, and cacao, while Brora imparts soft smoke, blue cheese, and deep complexity.
Put together in a homogenous mix, the rare aromas, flavours, and character in this blend, combined with their shared age and small number, make this super-limited edition of 200 bottles a testament to the art of whisky blending.
Tasting Notes
Nose: A soft note of rich clotted cream and plump blackcurrants, accompanied by redcurrant and more biscuity, almost leather-like notes.
Palate: The rich oiliness of the texture is luxurious — borderline decadent — with stone fruit, spice, and lingering menthol notes akin to after dinner chocolate mints. Through it all is the gentle wisp of smoke that is the backbone of the Johnnie Walker family.
Finish: Long with a pleasant dryness, notes of freshly cracked black pepper, and a light, comforting warmth, reminiscent of dying embers.
Bottled at 41.2% ABV, evidence of how much the Angel’s have imbibed as their Share over half a century, the 52-year-old blend retails for £23,500 (US$25,000) and can be purchased through Diageo private client teams and selected luxury retail outlets.
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