

A hundred or so years after the Battle of Culloden a man called John Ross, the hotelier of the Broadford Hotel on Skye, persuaded the MacKinnon’s to let him make up a batch of their family liqueur. It seemed to have been appreciated amongst the Skye locals and a story is told of two of the regulars to the inn sampling the liqueur and declaring it to be an dram buidheach - 'the drink that satisfies.' 'THE DRINK THAT SATISFIES' John’s son, James Ross, registered a patent for the name Drambuie in 1893. Later his widow Eleanor moved with the recipe to Edinburgh where in 1909 she worked with Malcolm MacKinnon, a whisky wholesaler, and started producing Drambuie in Edinburgh.



Malcolm and Eleanor created the Drambuie Liquor Company Ltd in 1914 and so begin ambitious plans for export. Drambuie survives through the World Wars and Prohibition in the United States. 'THE DRAMBUIE RECIPE IS PASSED ON FROM ONE FAMILY OWNED COMPANY TO ANOTHER' 100 years later in 2014 The Drambuie recipe is passed on from one family owned company to another as William Grant & Sons acquire the brand. Since the handover the recipe has been kept in a safe at our blending facility near Glasgow. Only three people know the recipe, one of who personally mixes each batch of Drambuie essence and is the fifth generation of our founder William Grant.

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