William Grant & Sons

William Grant had been book-keeper and later manager at Mortlach, and his family built Glenfiddich with second-hand equipment from Cardhu.^1,2,3 A whisky crash in 1898 bankrupted the blender Pattison, a buyer of the firm's whisky, and cost the firm its largest customer.^1,3,7 William Grant then began blending whisky himself, and the Grant's blend dates from that year.^1,3,7 In 1903 the firm set up a branch office and blending operation in Glasgow.^3,7 In 1909 Charles Gordon, his son-in-law and first salesman, set off on a year-long sales tour of the Far East.^1,3 By 1914 the firm had more than 60 sales offices, supporting exports to 30 countries.^3,7

Shortages during the First World War stopped production in 1917, and it did not restart until 1919.⁷ In 1920 William Grant kept making whisky despite US Prohibition, and after he died in 1923 his grandson William Grant Gordon had the firm make more.^1,7,8 Charles Grant Gordon, a great-grandson of the founder, became a director in 1953.^9,10

In 1961 the firm launched Glenfiddich as a single malt, the product of a single distillery, while most whisky sold was blended.^1,7,11 After a quarrel with the Distillers Company (DCL), which, the story goes, threatened to cut off its grain whisky, the firm built Girvan Distillery in nine months.^1,2,4 In 1964 it bought its own US importer and distributor, Popper Morson.⁷ In 1966 it added Ladyburn, a malt distillery inside the Girvan site, to make malt for the Grant's blends and free up Glenfiddich stock.¹²