08/05/2014
John (Johnnie) Walker (1805 – 1857) was a
Scottish grocer, who originated what would
become one of the world’s most famous
whisky brand names, Johnnie Walker .
Biography
Walker was born near Kilmarnock in Ayrshire,
Scotland . When his father Alexander died in
1820 he was left £417 in trust. In 1820 the
trustees invested in an Italian warehouse,
grocery, and wine and spirits shop on the High
Street in Kilmarnock.
In 1833 John married Elizabeth Purves. He
was a respected businessman, leader of the
local trade association, and a Freemason . His
store’s stock was almost entirely destroyed in
an 1852 flood, but the business recovered
within a couple of years. His own whisky
brand, then known as Walker’s Kilmarnock
Whisky was popular locally. Interestingly, John
Walker was a teetotaller .
John’s son Alexander Walker (named after
John’s father) had apprenticed with a tea
merchant in Glasgow , and there learned the art
of blending tea . When he returned to take over
the business from his ailing father, he used
those skills to create Old Highland Whisky ,
(eventually renamed Johnnie Walker Black
Label) the blend that made Johnnie Walker
whisky famous.
Although he gave his name to the whisky,
John Walker was a far less important figure
to the brand than his son, Alexander. A
disastrous flood in Kilmarnock in 1852 had
destroyed all of Walker’s stock, and when
Alexander joined the business in 1856, he
persuaded his father to abandon the narrow
realm of the grocery trade and to go into
wholesale trading.
At the beginning, the firm offered a range of
spirits: Campbeltown whisky from the
Kintyre Peninsula; whisky from the Inner
Hebridean Island of Islay, with its pungent
smoky flavor; patent still, or grain, whisky;
and “Glenlivat” (sic), Speyside whisky. Even
so, whisky sales under John Walker
represented just 8 percent of the firm’s
income; by the time Alexander was ready to
pass on the company to his own sons, that
figure had increased to between 90 and 95
percent. —Giles MacDonogh
