吉兒・富蘭肯
Jill Frankham
相關專文 Essays


William Grant & Sons 1887-1987: 100 years of achievement
中文
 
text by Jill Frankham


Meet William Grant

The man whose face appears on more than ten million bottles of scotch each year was bom in 1839, the son of a village tailor.
William Grant, a former cattle herder and shoemaker's apprentice, built his first distillery in 1886. The distilling equipment he installed cost justd19.19s.10d!
The investment paid off. Today, the founder's great grandson is chairman of a family business that produces one of the fastest growing major scotch whisky blends in the UK, William Grant's.
Born in Dufftown, in the heart of Scotland's finest malt whisky region, William Grant worked for 20 years at a local distillery. For two decades he saved patiently out of his annual income of £100 a year.
Then in 1886 William and his seven sons started building The Glenfiddich Distillery with their own hands. They worked seven days a week and on Christmas Day 1887 the first whisky ran from the still.
William Grant converted the nearby Balvenie Castle into The Balvenie Distillery in 1892. It remains the only distillery in the Highlands still to farm its own barley and maintain its own cooperage and coppersmiths shop in the production of The Balvenie Founders' Reserve.
Today, William Grant & Sons are the largest privately owned distillers in the scotch whisky business. It is still a truly family concern after five generations. It is owned entirely by the family and the present chairman. Sandy Grant Gordon, is a direct descendant of the founder.

1898-1922 Birth of a Blend

The inspiration behind the birth of the William Grant's blend was the greatest disaster the scotch whisky industry had ever known!
In 1898, Pattison Limited, one of the largest blenders and wholesale merchants in the country went bankrupt. They had been William Grant's biggest buyers.
William Grant and his sons made the courageous decision to expand the business into blending themselves and to start exporting overseas.
William Grant next brought his son-in-law Charles Gordon, a former school teacher, into the firm. Charles established a whisky store in the basement of a disused church in Glasgow's Gorbals where William Grant's whisky was first blended. The first Grant's bottles carried the old war-cry of the Clan Grant. "Stand Fast".
Charles Gordon immediately began his sales drive on the streets of Glasgow, but it was only on his 181st call that he made his first sale - one dozen bottles of Grant's for £1-15-0d (£1.75p). After 503 calls he had still only sold 12 bottles.
Business gradually started to roll in. Making second calls he began to get orders and by doggedness and hard work Charles began to build up the reputation of the Grant's blend as a consistent, high quality product. After visiting Lancashire Charles opened an office in Blackburn in 1904 to meet the growing demand for William Grant's whisky.
William Grant's son, John, sailed to Canada in the same year and opened up the company's first agencies in Canada and the United States. In 1909, Charles Gordon toured the East including India, Malaya, Australia and New Zealand By August 1914 the company had established 60 agencies in 30 different countries. Today. Grant's is sold in over 180 countries thanks to the pioneering spirit of these early journeys.
In 1909 John Grant crossed swords with one of Britain's most famous politicians, Mr Lloyd George who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He led a deputation of distillers to the House of Commons to protest against the proposed increase of 3/9d per gallon duty on whisky- but without success.
By 1914 William Grant & Sons had grown from a small local firm of distillers into a world-wide wholesale and blending business.
The war hurt the whisky industry badly. Grain supplies were diverted to the manufacture of explosives and beer. The government made it illegal to stand anyone a drink - a measure they said was to protect the young, poorer paid officers. William Grant & Sons had to stop distilling completely in 1917 and were only able to start again in May 1919.

1923-1939 The Age of the Bootlegger

When William Grant died in 1923, at the age of 85, he had laid the foundations of a whisky business whose wares were of worldwide renown.
This reputation stood the company in good stead during the 20's and 30's when Prohibition and the Great Depression, cut deeply into the sales of scotch whisky everywhere.
At one time during the darkest days of the depression there were only six distilleries in production throughout all Scotland. Two of these bore the name of William Grant & Sons Ltd. and were the distilleries of Glenfiddich and Balvenie.
In "1927 the firm went ahead and opened up an office in Great Tower Street in the City of London. Norway repealed Prohibition in the same year, followed by Sweden soon after. Gordon Grant, grandson of William, and now the third generation to join the business, travelled to Scandinavia in 1929 to start reopening this part of the export market.
A year later the bootleggers tried unsuccessfully to lure William Grant & Sons into their schemes. A mysterious 60 year old sea captain arrived at their London office proposing a wild scheme to smuggle whisky into the USA.
But William Grant & Sons had always refused to have anything to do with bootlegging and the chairman, John Grant, refused to even see the captain.
As the world recovered from the depression and Prohibition came to an end in the USA, the world-wide popularity of blended whisky created a thirsty and successful market for the Grant's blend.
The last of William Grant's sons, Dr Alexander, died in 1936. He had acted as chairman since the death of John Grant in 1932. The next generation, one of William's Grandsons - Grant Gordon, son of Charles Gordon, now took over as chairman.
In 1937, the directors decided to move their London office to the heart of the West End and opened an office only yards away from Piccadilly Circus.
But as the war clouds began to darken over Britain in the late summer of 1939, the office was moved to Grant Gordon's home in Rickmansworth, "16 miles North West of London.

1940-1955 War and Reconstruction

During the early years of the war pressure was put on the distilling trade to export as much as possible to earn American dollars. It was one of these ships full of whisky which ran aground in 1941 off the coast of Eriskay in the Hebrides.
This incident was the basis for SirCompton Mackenzie's novel and film 'Whisky Galore'. As a result of the film Sir Compton Mackenzie was invited to be the star of a very successful William Grant's advertising campaign in the 1950's.
After the war, because of the seriousness of Britain's foreign exchange position the government continued to earmark scotch whisky supplies for export. In 1948 only 20 of the pre-war figure was allocated for home consumption.
Whisky became almost unobtainable in many parts of the country including the Highlands of Scotland, the home of scotch whisky, because so much was being exported.
Both chairman Grant Gordon and another grandson of the founder Gordon Grant travelled the world increasing the popularity of the William Grant's blend still further. But though the export trade was booming, at home it was a time of reconstruction while whisky sales were still restricted.
The early 50's saw the death of two of William Grant's grandsons. John Grant Junior, in 1950 and Grant Gordon in 1953. Another grandson now took on the mantle of chairman, Gordon Grant.

1956-1986 Business Booms

Since the mid-50's, William Grant & Sons has invested heavily in plant, people and machinery to keep pace with the rapidly growing demand for the William Grant's blend.
In 1956 they purchased an old cotton mill at Paisley, just outside Glasgow and turned it into a major bottling and distribution plant. Today over 500,000 bottles of Grant's pass down the bottling lines each week.
The take-off of the whisky industry in the 50's led, in 1957, to the introduction of the unique William Grant's triangular bottle which immediately set it apart from its competitors. The bottle was an instant winner.
The triangular design encapsulates the tradition, heritage and quality of the William Grant's blend. One side represents the success and reliability brought by five generations of an independent family business, the second its Scottish heritage and the third the blend's taste, smoothness and aroma.
Due to the huge success of Grant's whisky around the world, the firm built the most modern grain distillery in Europe at Gil-van in 1963. In the following year Grant's moved across the Atlantic to acquire the Popper Morson Corporation. Its name was changed in the early 70's to William Grant & Sons Inc. when it became the importer of Grant's and Glenfiddich.
The firm also set up a separate home sales company in 1966, known today as William Grant & Sons (UK Sales) Ltd, which in 1983 joined forces with a leading wines and spirits company, J R Phillips of Avonmouth Bristol.
The export market for the Grant's blend has continued to expand. The company has now acquired financial interests in distributors in key markets worldwide.
The William Grant's blends have gone from strength to strength. In 1985 the Grant's 12 year Old De Luxe won the Best Whisky Award at the 16th International Wine and Spirit Competition.

The Grant's Family Secret

A century of experience has maintained the perfection of the William Grant's blend. The unique formula remains locked in the family's safe in Glasgow.
Passed on by William Grant to his son George, the Grant's family secret has been guarded by only three other men outside the family. They are the blenders who were responsible for maintaining the quality and consistency of the brand.
David Stewart, the company's present Chief Blender, spent an eight- year apprenticeship learning the mysteries of his art. He has to remember the flavours and aromas of malt whiskies from throughout Scotland and also be able to distinguish between the many kinds of grain whisky.
The blender's skill is to keep the unique William Grant's flavour uniform from year to year by mixing around 25 different malts with a number of high quality grain whiskies which have been allowed to mature fora minimum of three years. Each malt contributes its own special flavour or character.
To get the proportions absolutely right he needs his acute sense of smell. He uses a special tall tulip-shaped glass called a nosing glass which bulges in the middle and narrows towards the top. A little water may be added and the whisky whirled around the glass before 'nosing'.
There are, of course, scientific methods - such as gas chromatography - for analysing the chemical make-up of whisky. But blending is the art of taste and a 'human' expert is indispensable.
Once the constituent whiskies have matured they are mixed together in special blending vats. The mixture is then piped into 'marrying' casks made specially by the company's own cooperage from Portuguese oak.
These casks are unique to the William Grant's blend. Other firms either use ordinary casks for this process or leave out the 'marrying' stage altogether.
The William Grant's blend is then left to honeymoon for three or four months giving the whisky its smooth taste. The component whiskies have time to settle down together and to achieve their final maturity in harmony.
The extensive skill and experience that go to make the William Grant's blend are the secret of its consistency, flavour, body and smoothness.

The William Grant's Success Story

Today, William Grant & Sons is essentially the same firm that was founded a century ago. It is still very much an independent family organization - the present chairman, Sandy Grant Gordon, is a great grandson of the founder and his nephew Grant, the fifth generation, joined the company in "1980.
Over 180 countries buy the unique Grant's blend. The international network taking the brand worldwide is of course headed by two other great grandsons of the founder, Charles Grant Gordon and David Grant.
William Grant & Sons is now one of the top ten largest private companies in Britain and has, over recent years, distilled more than 10 of Scotland's total whisky production.
Each year, in Britain alone, we drink more than ten million bottles of the William Grant's blend. In 1985, William Grant's grew at almost three times the rate of the overall whisky market, making it one of the fastest growing brands in the UK. Today William Grant's remains one of the best selling blended whiskies in Britain and still growing fast!
And the secret of its success? A combination of craftmanship, experience, hard work and the unique quality and taste from the blending formula devised by William Grant nearly a century ago.
 
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