Dewar's Whiskies

Known as the Gateway to the Highlands, it was perfectly situated to buy flavourful malt whiskies from Speyside and combine them with grain whisky from the Lowlands. The resulting blends were quite different to robust smoke-influenced whiskies produced by Johnnie Walker in Kilmarnock on the west coast.
These light whiskies were perfect for the London market. Previously the fashionable set would have drunk Cognac from France but the region’s vineyards were destroyed by phylloxera in the 1880s, the vine eating bug accidentally introduced from America. Scotch whisky stepped into the breach and never looked back. They were helped by some innovative advertising. John Dewar’s sons John Alexander and Thomas, known as Tommy, were master marketers.

In 1886 Tommy paid a bagpiper to play at the annual Brewers Show in London to drown everyone else out. In 1911, the firm had an enormous electric sign installed by the Thames of a Highlander in a tam o’ shanter raising a glass of White Label, and when he drank, his beard and kilt swayed. Before World War I, Dewar’s used to have a cart pulled by Shetland ponies and driven by a man in full Highland costume through the streets of Berlin. They were ahead of their time in other ways, too, as in 1898 Dewar’s ran the first ever cinema advert.

Dewar’s is now owned by Bacardi, which also owns Aberfeldy (the only distillery to have been built by the Dewar’s Family) and Craigellachie single malt in Speyside, Scotland’s distilling heartland. In 2006, Stephanie MacLeod became master blender and in 2024 year she won master blender of the year at the International Whisky Challenge.