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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 spirt 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

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 built a second neighbouring Distillery called Balvenie. And in 1898 the family starting blending their whisky and Grants Whisky was 'born'

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

While on the one side very traditional, the company has also been very innovative, introducing the solera concept to Glenfiddich to create Glenfiddich Solera Reserve.

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

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:

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.

Other brands

  • Virgin Vodka (Grant's co-developed this brand with Virgin.)

External links

Brand websites

Media coverage

Companies of Scotland | Breweries and beverage companies of the United Kingdom | Family business | North Lanarkshire | 1886 establishments

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "William Grant & Sons".

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