Johnnie Walker

Johnnie Walker began in a grocery shop. In 1820, John Walker, who had lost his father at 14, opened a grocery, wine and spirits shop on King Street in Kilmarnock, Scotland, set up with money from the sale of the family farm. Because the malts of the day varied so much, he began blending them to get a whisky that tasted the same every time, known locally as Walker's Kilmarnock Whisky.

When John died in 1857, his son Alexander took over and turned the shop into a large business: in the 1860s he created the house's first commercial blend, Old Highland Whisky, and introduced the slanted label, designed to stand out on the shelf; in the 1870s the company was one of the first to use square bottles. By 1906 there were white, red and black labels, and in 1908 the cartoonist Tom Browne drew the Striding Man, as the company formally adopted the name Johnnie Walker. By 1920 the whisky was sold in more than 120 countries. Blue Label arrived in 1992 and the Keep Walking campaign in 1999. Today the brand belongs to Diageo, formed in 1997, which presents it as the biggest whisky brand in the world.