William Grant & Sons

William Grant & Sons Ltd. is an independent, family-owned Scottish company which distils Scotch whisky and other selected categories of spirits. It was founded in 1886 by William Grant, and is now run by the descendants of the founder. It is the largest of the handful of Scotch whisky distillers remaining in family ownership. "William Grant & Sons" is often abbreviated to "W. Grant & Sons" or just "Grant's", after their leading blended whisky of the same name.

The company is the 3rd largest producer of Scotch whisky (10.4% market share) after Diageo (34.4%), and Pernod Ricard. The company's central headquarters are in Strathclyde Business Park, North Lanarkshire. Sales and marketing headquarters are in Richmond, London. The company is a member of the Scotch Whisky Association.

The master blender of Grant's is David Stewart, who has been in his post for 42 years, the longest serving master blender with one distiller in the industry.

Awards

In 1974, William Grant & Sons won the Queen's Award to Industry for Outstanding Export Achievement, the first Scotch whisky company to receive this award.

In 1999, William Grant & Sons received the drinks industry's top accolade, 'Distiller of the Year' from the International Wine & Spirit Competition. In 2000, the company received the 'Distiller of the Year' accolade for an unprecedented second year in a row. In 2001, the company received the International Spirits Challenge 'Distiller of the Year' accolade. In 2003, Glenfiddich 40 Year Old was acclaimed 'Best of the Best' by industry bible Whisky magazine after 75 experts in three different continents declared it to be the world's finest single malt. In 2004, William Grant & Sons won a record number of medals and seals of approval at the International Spirits Challenge, one of the world's leading spirit competitions. The company won 3 gold medals, 9 silver, 10 bronze and 7 seals of approval - a total of 29. The independent panel awarded the gold medals for The Balvenie Vintage Cask 1972, The Balvenie 30 Year Old and Grant’s Rare Old 18 Year Old.

Distilleries

* Glenfiddich Distillery
* Balvenie Distillery (next to Balvenie Castle)
* Girvan Distillery (South of Ayr)
* Convalmore (only the bonded warehouses to increase warehousing capacity for Glenfiddich)
* Kininvie

History

William Grant was born in Dufftown in 1839. The young Grant worked at Mortlach Distillery and dreamed of one day running his own distillery. He worked hard and saved and in 1886 Grant and his 9 children laid the first stone of the Glenfiddich Distillery. It was Christmas day 1887 when the first spirit ran from the stills.

In 1892 William Grant & Sons bought a second neighbouring Distillery called Balvenie. In 1898 the two distilleries started blending their whiskies and Grant's Whisky was 'born'.

William Grant & Sons pioneered single malt Scotch whisky as until Glenfiddich, only blended brands were common.

While on the one side very traditional, the company has also been very innovative. The company:
* was the first to market Scotch whisky abroad
* revolutionized bottle design in the 1950s, creating a triangular bottle
* was the first to open up its distillery to visitors
* introduced the solera concept to Glenfiddich to create "Glenfiddich Solera Reserve"

In 1997 the Grant entered into a joint venture with the Robertson family (see The Edrington Group) creating a new company, Highland Distillers.

Brands

The company's leading single malt Scotch brand is Glenfiddich, the best-selling brand in the worldwide single malt Scotch market (700,000 cases/year and 17.37% market share). This is more than the sales of the next two single malts combined. Their leading blended Scotch brand is Grant's, the 4th best-selling brand in the worldwide blended Scotch market and the Scotch market as a whole (4 million cases/year). Grant's is also the 4th best-selling brand in the domestic United Kingdom Scotch market (420,000 cases/year and 14.6% market share).

Core brands

* Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whisky
* Grant's blended Scotch whisky
* Balvenie single malt Scotch whisky
* Hendrick's Gin

upport Brands

* Reyka Premium Icelandic Vodka
* Sailor Jerry Spiced rum
* Old Vatted Demerara rum
* Wood’s 100 Old Navy rum
* Vat 19 premium rum
* Gibson’s Finest
* Clan MacGregor blended Scotch whisky
* Monkey Shoulder triple malt whisky
* Taboo
* Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer:* Winner of gold in two categories and the overall Supreme Champion Beer prize at the International Beer Competition 2004

Rare whiskies

William Grant & Sons produces a number of rare whiskies, most of which are described in the articles on Glenfiddich, Grant's and Balvenie. However, their rare whiskies also include:

* Girvan First Batch Distillation (from casks filled in 1964)
* Ladyburn (from Ladyburn distillery which sadly had to be closed in 1975)

Other rare whiskies have been bottled as private vintages for Concorde, Queen Mary 2 and the Royal Danish Wedding.

Highland Distillers brands

William Grant & Sons and the Edrington Group took Highland Distillers private in 2000.

* The Famous Grouse
* The Macallan
* Highland Park
* Black Bottle
* Gloag's London Dry Gin

Other brands

* Virgin Vodka (Grant's co-developed this brand with Richard Bransons Virgin Group.)

External links

Independent sites

* [http://drwhisky.blogspot.com/search/label/william%20grant Dr. Whisky] on William Grant & Sons

Brand websites

* [http://www.williamgrant.com/ William Grant & Sons Ltd. corporate site]
* [http://www.glenfiddich.com/ Glenfiddich website]
* [http://www.grantswhisky.com/ Grant's website]
* [http://www.balvenie.com/ Balvenie website]
* [http://www.hendricksgin.com/ Hendrick's Gin website]
* [http://www.innisandgunn.com/ Innis & Gunn website]
* [http://www.polstarvodka.com/ Polstar website]
* [http://www.sailorjerry.com/ Sailor Jerry website]
* [http://www.monkeyshoulder.com/ Monkey Shoulder website]
* [http://www.shotoftheknot.com/ The Knot's website]
* [http://www.reyka.com/ Reyka Vodka's website]
* [http://www.milagrotequila.com/ Milagro Tequila website]

Media coverage

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4298619.stm BBC NEWS | Scotland | Rare whisky heads for Hong Kong]
* [http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack2002/migration/dbDetails.asp?siteID=5&compID=689&yr=2005 Ranked Britain's 7th biggest middle-market company]