Johnnie Walker, " the man who walked around the world", first started blending fine whiskys in West Scotland at the age of 15. After his death in 1857 his grandsons Alexander and George continued to protect the whisky and introduced the famous "talk label" and "black label" and searched for a logo that would reflect the fine quality of the product. His search lead him to popular cartoonist Tom Browne. Tom produced the cartoon of the walking man which is belived to be a caricature of the great Johnnie Walker himself. Indeed he was so pleased with the logo that he later introduced the phrase "Johnnie Walker - keep on walking".

Company history

John Walker first started blending malt whiskys in his home town of Kilmarnock. His blend of Whisky provided a consitency rarely found in whiskys of the time. This small time blending quickly developed into a profitable commercial proporsition which grew into an industry. It was at this point that his sons Robert and Alexander joined John, the Walkers grew into one of the biggest names in the industry.                                                                                                                 They then bought the famous distilery in Cardhu which resulted in them becoming the biggest blender in Scotland. John Walker being as ambitious as he was, was not content with this and enlisted the services of Glasgows shipping captains and began to export the Johnnie Walker whisky around the globe. The Walkers then introduced the Square bottle with a distinctive label which became an icon around the world, not only did this give the bottle great presence on any shelf but it also meant less breakages in transit allowing them to transport more produce. In 1909 John's grandsons George and Alexander invented the soon to be famous "Red Label" and "Black Label" which led the brand into the 20th Century. With the addition of the Green, Gold and Blue label Johnnie walker became the worlds biggest whisky brand.

Brand history

Diageo acquired Johnnie Walker as part of the merger with Guiness (the brand owner since 1986) and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The EU deemed the resulting company to have too many whisky brands, however, and it was forced to divest Dewar's as a result. Nonetheless, Diageo remains the worlds largest whisky producer. Their Roseisle distillery produces around 7% of total annual whisky production. 

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