Johnnie Walker 12 Year Old Black Label Bold Steps

Johnnie Walker

The world’s most successful Scotch whisky, the Johnnie Walker name is infamous throughout the globe. In 2021 more than 19.1 million cases of Johnnie Walker were sold, valuing the brand at $4 Billion USD. A blended Scotch whisky brand founded by a small-time grocer named John “Johnnie” Walker in the early 1800s. Walker was born in 1805 and lost his father at the young age of 15, leaving the responsibility of generating income to the young boy. After selling off their farm, the Walker family established a grocery and warehousing business in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, quickly developing a reputation for the fine spirits they stocked. John Walker originally began blending teas and spices in his youth, as was the custom for many grocers at the time. With the excise act of 1823 coming into place, many rules around whisky production were relaxed, allowing for a larger volume of legal and taxed spirits to be produced in Scotland. Walker began experimenting with the various malt & grain whiskies produced in nearby distilleries, finding that the individual components were quite inconsistent in quality, but when blended together could be formed into a specific flavour profile. Utilising his blending experience developed through his tea and spice products, Walker created “Walker’s Kilmarnock Whisky”, a blend of whiskies crafted to fit his signature flavour profile. When Johnnie Walker died in 1857 his son Alec took over the business, transforming the brand into a worldwide global export. 
 
The John Walker & Sons firm purchased the Cardhu malt distillery in 1893, providing them with a key malt component for their future blends, a distillery still just as important to modern Johnnie Walker today. In 1915 they would purchase contracts for the Coleburn, Talisker, Dailuaine and Clynelish distilleries as well as outright purchasing Mortlach in 1923. Soon in 1925 the firm would merge with the Distillers Company Limited, a giant in the industry that brought even more distilleries under one roof. DCL went from strength to strength throughout the 1900s, acquiring substantial numbers of malt & grain distilleries all the way until the 1980s when the oversupply of whisky shut many of them down. DCL was purchased in 1986 by Guiness, who then merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form the drinks giant we know today as Diageo. Johnnie Walker has become synonymous with Scotch whisky, being available in over 120 countries across the globe. From its signature bottle shape to the striding man, the brand is instantly recognisable in all forms of media and is truly a titan of the whisky world.