“Being a family owned company certainly has its advantages; speed and being able to adapt at a moment’s notice. Having that one person who can make immediate decisions is certainly a massive benefit. Knowing family companies is also incredibly important, all our distributors around the world are also family-owned, as we know the basis of how each of our companies work and also, much the same as ourselves, can get an answer much quicker,” George Grant.  

While they might share a surname, lets be clear that the Grants of Glenfarclas and the Grants of Glenfiddich are not related. Glenfarclas Distillery was bought by John Grant for £512 in 1865, the equivalent of £30,274.15 in today’s money, which, according to the National Archives, would have equated to the wages of roughly 2560 days work for a skilled tradesman, alongside Recherlich Farm. He was a well known cattle farmer in the area and already owned a farm at Glenlivet. He passed the distillery on to his son George in 1889, but unfortunately George passed away pretty soon after. It was then passed on to George’s children, conveniently named John and George. Their history has quite a few Johns and Georges, the Grant family are very into passing on distilleries and names. So George (the second one) took the distillery on alongside his brother John and together they formed the Glenfarclas-Glenlivet Distilling Company.

They entered into a partnership with the Pattisons of Leith, and as any discerning Whisky nerd will know, the Pattisons were pretty ill-faed in their Whisky selling. The Pattisons had a lot of marketing power but very little else and eventually they caused the whole Whisky industry to crash in Scotland, pulling down a lot of good distilleries with them. 

The Grant’s however, were enterprising, and through hard work and determination, they made Glenfarclas into a very successful brand. George went on to have two sons, who were called, to nobody’s surprise, John and George. George (the third one) went on to take over the distillery and saw it through some pretty difficult times, including prohibition and the Second World War. He passed it on to John LS Grant, who then brought on George S Grant, and the two remain in charge to this day.

Grant muses on the changes his family has seen; “there have been lots of ups and downs, for example, in the 1950s when they changed the law so you could mash and distil in the same day, in the 1970s with the introduction of visitor centres at distilleries, even factors like the advent of mains gas. The last two generations – my father and grandfather – have seen the most change overall. 

Despite being family owned, the two companies do things very differently, from their approach to business to their family history, the approach is unique to each, but both businesses work perfectly for the respective families who own them. 

“We still direct fire heat all the stills. Still mature nearly exclusively in Oloroso sherry casks”, says Grant, adding that “our difference is that we own all the whisky from the day we put it into the cask until the day it is sold, which is unusual. It’s a big plus point for us. At the end of the day, we want people to go buy a bottle, and then buy another one. We don’t want people to be worrying about whether they can afford to open the bottle on their shelf.

“Taking the 40 year old as an example, other brands are several thousands of pounds per bottle. This needs more of a significant reason to buy and to open a bottle. Ours is well below one thousand a bottle. People that do buy it, can hopefully buy it again and again before the cost adds up to that of most 40 year old whiskies,” he adds. 

Glenfiddich and William Grant expanded massively, building and buying new distilleries and constantly pushing their brand further. The effort has paid off, and they are now one of the biggest selling Scotches around the world. While Grant & Sons has become a company with many other brands under its name, Glenfarclas is not owned by any other company, nor have they bought any other brands.

Glenfarclas, while also very popular, especially in Scotland, are not quite as big. It is understandable that they shunned future partnerships after the disaster of the Pattison crash and today are entirely independent, one of the few distilleries that are. “[Family ownership] is important – you can only sell something once, so why would you sell it? We’re doing a good job, exporting to 100 countries around the world and growing,” notes Grant, ““The fact that we are still family owned and are still independent. We are who we are, and a well-recognised and well-respected brand around the world, and respected by our peers within the industry as well the general public.”

But several things unite the two businesses too as while they may have different outlooks to how they approach marketing and expansion, both are very successful and both insist on keeping it in the family. For good reason too, since this means they are able to capture a more traditional feel for their brands. Scotch is often entwined with myth and legend, and having a family history to back up any brand gives an extra edge, especially in new markets and territories. It also means there is more of a legacy to uphold and something for future generations to look back on and use as a foundation for future endeavour. Both brands have found great success by relying on family, and with Scotch becoming increasingly popular, it’ll be interesting to see where they go next.