Johnnie Walker

Johnnie Walker is the mark of a Scottish Blend - whiskeys of beverage group Diageo and the best-selling Scotch whiskey in the world.

history

The beginning under John Walker (1820-1857)

After their father's death in 1819, John Walker and his mother sold the previous family farm near Kilmarnock and used the proceeds to open a general store in town. After a while, the shop's range expanded to include whiskey. John experimentally applied blending methods, which were being used for tea at the time, to whiskey. The whiskey business was doing well, and the company was rebuilt after being destroyed by a flood in 1852. John Walker died in 1857.

Rise to an international brand (1857–1925)

Old logo

With the death of his father, Alexander Walker took over the business and the task of whiskey blending. The phylloxera plague , which destroyed almost the entire stock of French grapevines between 1858 and 1863, benefited the Walkers as well as the entire Scottish whiskey production during this time. Cognac , which had been widely drunk up until then , but also wine and brandy , became significantly more expensive as a result of this plague. 1860 a new law was passed that allowed for the first time, in addition to malt whiskeys and grain whiskeys to use for blending. The new flavors helped expand sales. Branch offices have opened over the years, the first in London in 1880 . Others followed in Sydney in 1880 , in South Africa and in Birmingham in 1897 . When Alexander Walker died in 1889, his sons George Paterson Walker and Alexander Walker II took over the management together. While George mainly took care of marketing and sales, Alexander mainly took on the work of blending. During this time the company acquired a number of Scottish distilleries, including Cardhu in 1894 and Talisker in 1916 .

By Distillers Company Ltd. to Diageo (since 1925)

In 1925, the Distillers Company Ltd., founded in 1877, merged. (DCL) with John Walker & Sons. In 1987 DCL and Arthur Bell & Sons merged to form United Distillers. Together with International Distillers & Vintners, these became United Distillers & Vintners (UDV) after the merger of the Guinness and GrandMet groups in 1997. In 2002 UDV was completely transferred to the Diageo Group . In 2012, Johnnie Walker sold over 170 million liters of whiskey.

Jim Beveridge, the sixth Master Blender at Johnnie Walker since 2001, was awarded the Order of British Knights (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in October 2019 for his services to the Scottish whiskey industry .

Advertising and reception

Today's rectangular bottle replaced the round bottles used until then in 1870. However, this was not done as a marketing strategy, but to save space during transport. The Striding Man has been used as the company logo since 1909 . The Moorhuhn computer game was developed in 1998 as an advertisement for Johnnie Walker.

Marius Müller-Westernhagen sang about the whiskey variety in 1978 under the song title Johnny W on his album With Peppermint I'm Your Prince .

In his surrealist novel Kafka am Strand, the Japanese author Haruki Murakami lets a demonic power appear in the form and outfit of Johnnie Walker.

In the German TV and cinema commercials of the 1990s, the Scottish folk song The Skye Boat Song was used as a signature tune. The spots ended with the slogan "The day goes, Johnnie Walker is coming".

Products

Red label bottle

At the beginning of 2014 Johnnie Walker had six blends in the normal range, besides there are always special editions for special occasions:

Red Label (main brand, no age information, so at least 3 years)
Black Label (12 years)
Green Label (15 years)
Double Black Label (no age information , higher proportion of Islay- Malt)
Gold Label (18 years)
Platinum Label (18 years)
Blue Label (no age information)
White Walker ( Game of Thrones Special Edition)

The bottlings of the Green Label (blended malt whiskey, 15 years) and Gold Label (18 years) were discontinued for the European market in 2012, outside of Europe the Green Label is partly still sold. The Green Label was reissued in 2016.