Unwilling Whisky Baron Introduced a World-wide Hit, Glenfiddich

Sandy Grant Gordon led a wildly thriving products launch—the 1963 introduction of Glenfiddich, developing a global industry for single-malt whisky—but claimed tiny credit for it.

Mr. Gordon, who died Dec. 21 at the age of 89, was a great-grandson of the founder of the Scottish distiller William Grant & Sons and a unwilling entrant into the enterprise. As a youthful person, he was far more tempted by a occupation as a lawyer or plane designer, until finally his father, close to demise, persuaded him to help run the household whisky business enterprise.

In the early 1960s, virtually all Scotch exports ended up blended whiskies, and solitary malts were being little known outdoors Scotland. But foreign guests often learned them and requested why they weren’t offered abroad.

With encouragement from his Uncle Eric and brother Charles, Mr. Gordon launched Glenfiddich solitary malt to the U.S. and other overseas marketplaces. It was the 1st solitary malt “actively promoted” outside of Scotland, according to the organization, and became the chief in a booming new class. Product sales vastly exceeded early anticipations.

Glenfiddich was the greatest-promoting single-malt Scotch by world volume in 2019, in accordance to IWSR Beverages Market place Assessment.

“Through ignorance we did the appropriate point,” Mr. Gordon instructed the Scotsman in 1993.

The attraction was to would-be sophisticates. “Sit when you consume Glenfiddich, you may perhaps in no way stand for a blended Scotch again,” instructed an early Glenfiddich advert. (The name suggests Valley of the Deer in Gaelic.)

One malts account for about 10% of all Scotch exports by volume, according to the Scotch Whisky Association.

Household associates described Mr. Gordon as peaceful and far far more interested in hen-seeing than in advertising. He seemed most at relieve wearing an anorak and climbing with his golden retrievers, all known as Chookie.

However Mr. Gordon, recognised to staff members as Mr. Sandy, ran the company as handling director or chairman from 1968 to 1996 and preserved loved ones possession at a time when substantially of the industry was falling below foreign handle.

Alexander Grant Gordon,

regarded as Sandy, was born Might 6, 1931, in Glasgow. His father was chairman of the distilling business his mother was a health care health care provider.

As a schoolboy in Dufftown, in which the organization experienced a distillery, he sat in the back of the classroom, irrespective of poor vision that prevented him from looking at the blackboard. Following courses had been more than, he produced his way to the board to memorize the remaining chalk marks. As a teenager, he was despatched to the Rugby School in England.

An academic psychologist concluded that he was “a boy of pretty exceptionally superior intelligence with distinctive skill in mathematics” and advised his dad and mom: “Any endeavor to divert him to any other sphere of research might have a really discouraging and depressing effect.”

At Queens’ Higher education, Cambridge, he gained a diploma in math and law. Whilst finding out in Cambridge, he met

Linda Stobart.

When she recognized his marriage proposal, he showed her a minor black guide in which he experienced recorded his prices of courting her.

Even though he was seeking to decide on a occupation, his father was diagnosed with inoperable bowel most cancers and talked him into sticking with the spouse and children organization. As a newcomer in the spouse and children organization, he was presented obligation for revenue to a person of the most various and challenging marketplaces, Africa.

In the course of a single 3-thirty day period excursion, he built 513 revenue calls. “It grew to become distinct to me that my talents did not lie in offering,” he explained later on. Nevertheless, Africa had its pros: “It was a most enjoyable tour from the chook-looking at level of view because you can see extra species in 1 working day in Africa than you can in a calendar year in Scotland,” he reported.

Most of his career was in Scotland, in which he identified time to climb all 282 Munros, outlined as mountains of 3,000 or much more toes.

One of his greatest worries was to anticipate demand from customers tendencies. In the early 1980s, the Scotch enterprise slumped deeply as alcoholic beverages taxes rose, guidelines from drunken driving grew stricter and lots of individuals switched to other drinks. In additional the latest several years, the television demonstrate “Mad Adult men,” showcasing really hard-ingesting promotion executives, aided revive demand from customers among the young folks for Scotch.

Mainly because Scotch is aged in oak casks for at minimum three years and often a lot more time, “you just can’t switch the faucet on and off the way other companies do,” Mr. Gordon informed an interviewer in 1981.

Following retiring in 1996, Mr. Gordon manufactured hen-observing visits to Macquarie Island, Ethiopia, India, Peru and the Faeroe Islands, between other spots. He supported charities protecting endangered birds and advertising and marketing bagpipe competitions. At the time a week, he and his wife, Linda, sang with the Greenock Philharmonic choir.

She died in 2019. Mr. Gordon is survived by 4 small children and 9 grandchildren.

He liked to consume his Glenfiddich with a very little water “to provide out the flavor.”

Publish to James R. Hagerty at [email protected]