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Even at that time it was twelve
years old. It was also at this
time that the striding figure
appeared on the labels. It was
sketched on a menu card over
lunch by the cartoonist Tom
Browne. Shortly afterwards
one of the directors came up
with the slogan "Born 1820 -
still going strong".

In 1923 the company went public and joined D.C.L. two
years later. D.C.L. was bought by Guinness in 1986.
Guinness merged with Grand
Metropolitan Hotels (a major
hotel, brewing and spirits
company) in 1997 and the
current Johnnie Walker owner,
Diageo, was formed. Diageo is
the world’s largest spirits
company and Johnnie Walker
one of it’s ‘Strategic’ brands.
Johnnie Walker was ranked as
the leading alcohol/spirits
brand worldwide in 2015,
based on a brand value of
US$5.6 billion! Not surprising
as they sell 108 million litres
annually (the No2 brand is
Ballantine’s who sell only 55 million litres).

The Blue label appeared in 1992, with the Green and
Gold labels appearing in 1997, although the gold label
blend was devised for the centenary of the company
(1920) but was kept for drinking at the distillery only.
There are other labels such as Double Black (heavily
peated), Platinum (replacing Gold in some markets,
presumably because JW cannot get enough of the right
malts to make enough Gold) and Swing (which has a
high proportion of Speyside malts).

As they say, Lang mae their lum reek

Frank Wynn

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