A Perth wine merchant
John Dewar came to Perth in 1828 as a cellarman and became a partner in MacDonald & Dewar in 1839; other sources give 1837.1,5,9 On 15 May 1846 he opened his own shop at 111 High Street, Perth.1,2,3 By 1860 a travelling salesman was taking his blends to hotels and pubs across Scotland.1
The sons take over
John Dewar died in January 1880, and the business passed to his wife Jane and their son John Alexander Dewar.1,9 In 1881 the firm was using what it now calls double ageing: ageing whisky, blending it, then ageing it again in oak casks.10 John Dewar's son Tommy became a partner in 1885, and the brothers took the business into England and London.5,10 The firm took the name John Dewar & Sons in 1886.2 In 1892 Tommy set off on a two-year sales trip through 26 countries and signed up 32 new sales agents.3,5 In 1893 Queen Victoria gave the firm a Royal Warrant, which named it a supplier to the crown.2,5
A distillery of its own
In 1897 John Alexander Dewar made A.J. Cameron the first official master blender from outside the family.10 The firm had bought its whisky from other distillers, and the small Tullymet distillery it leased could no longer keep up, so the brothers built Aberfeldy near their father's birthplace.2,4,5 In 1899 the firm launched Dewar's White Label, Cameron's blend, which became its best-selling whisky.3,11,12
Buchanan-Dewar
In March 1915 the firm announced a merger with James Buchanan & Co., maker of Black & White, into a company later named Buchanan-Dewar.3,5,12 In 1923 Buchanan-Dewar and John Walker & Sons bought the Dundee blender James Watson & Co, and the firm took on Glen Ord, Pulteney and Parkmore.12,13 The firm also bought Aultmore in 1923.14 In 1925 Buchanan-Dewar joined the Distillers Company Limited, and Aberfeldy passed with it.3,4,5
Under the Distillers Company
John Alexander Dewar, by then Lord Forteviot, died on 23 November 1929 after 35 years as chairman.12,15 Tommy Dewar took over but died on 11 April 1930, and P. M. Dewar, no relation of the family, became chairman.12,16 Also in 1930, Glen Ord, Aultmore and Parkmore went to Scottish Malt Distillers, a Distillers Company arm.13,14,17 In 1962 the firm moved its headquarters from old Victorian buildings to a new 26-acre site in Perth with a new bottling line; one source gives 1961.5,12,18 Henry Evelyn Dewar, the third Lord Forteviot, retired in 1976 as the last Dewar to chair the firm.12 Guinness bought the Distillers Company in 1986.2,5,19 In 1987 the Dewar's trademark was secretly moved from Guinness to Schenley Industries, which had sold Dewar's in the US since 1936.5 Soon after, Guinness paid $480 million for the trademark, Schenley's US sales network and the right to sell Dewar's in the US.5 United Distillers closed the Perth bottling plant in 1994.18 In 1997 Guinness merged with Grand Metropolitan to form Diageo.3,19
Bacardi
Diageo had to sell the firm to win US approval for the Guinness and Grand Metropolitan merger, and in 1998 Bacardi Limited bought it.4,6,7 Aultmore came back to the firm, which had owned it before.14 Craigellachie and Royal Brackla also joined the firm.5,20,21 Bacardi combined the firm with William Lawson Distillers, added Macduff Distillery, which Bacardi already owned, and set up headquarters on London Road in Glasgow.3,5,12 Stephanie Macleod became its seventh master blender in 2006, the first woman in the role.10,12 In July 2007 Bacardi began a $250m investment that redeveloped the Parkhead site in Glasgow and built new ageing warehouses at Poniel in central Scotland.2,3,22 In 2014 the firm announced plans to bottle single malts from all five of its distilleries under the name Last Great Malts.3 In 2024 Bacardi added three new ageing warehouses at Poniel, the firm's 200-acre blending and maturation centre.3,8