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Friday 22 March 2019

Johnnie Walker

In 1820 John 'Johnnie' Walker (1805-1857) used part of a legacy to open a grocery, wine and spirits shop in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire. He soon made a name for himself by blending whiskies from different distilleries, which tasted better than any of the individual constituents he was using.

When the British Parliament three years later eased the restrictions on licensed distilleries, while at the same time making it harder for the illegal stills to John Walker along with many other Scottish whisky manufacturers found their profits increasing substantially.

Johnnie Walker is now owned by Diageo and sold in almost every country, with annual sales of the equivalent of over 223.7 million 700 ml bottles in 2016 (156.6 million litres).


Until 2013 was the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world. That year it was overtaken by Officer's Choice commonly known as OC,  an Indian whisky brand. It should be noted most distilled spirits that are labelled as "whisky" in India are actually distilled from fermented molasses with only 10 to 12 per cent consisting of traditional malt whisky,  Outside India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum.

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