William Grant & Sons closed 2025 with a profit of £ 337 million; in Scotland, distilleries are shutting down stills for lack of demand
William Grant & Sons, the Scottish family company that owns Glenfiddich, Monkey Shoulder, Grant's and Hendrick's, closed 2025 with pre-tax profit of £ 337 million, 13% below the £ 388 million of 2024. Revenue fell 4%, to just under £ 1.76 billion. The figures, for the year ended December 31, were published on September 30 by The Spirits Business and the newspaper The Scotsman.
The company attributed the result to a difficult market throughout the year, with geopolitical and trade pressures and weak consumer demand. Total volume fell year on year, with uneven performance across brands. Even so, the company kept up its investments: in 2025 it completed the purchase of The Famous Grouse and Naked Malt brands from Edrington, and it continues to expand the Girvan distillery, on the west coast of Scotland. Speaking to The Scotsman, chief financial officer Graeme Jenkins described 2025 as another challenging year for spirits and said the company's confidence in the sector's long-term fundamentals remains strong.
The results come out in a week of bad news for Scotch whisky. Holyrood Distillery, in Edinburgh, has suspended production indefinitely, The Spirits Business reported. Opened in 2019, it receives about 40,000 visitors a year, and visits account for half of its revenue; the tours continue. Co-founder Rob Carpenter said the industry is currently producing something like a third of its usual volume. GlenWyvis, in the Highlands, announced it will appoint administrators, and workers at Cameronbridge, Diageo's largest distillery, went on strike over the possibility of layoffs.
The downturn comes after 15 years of growth, the EuQueroInvestir portal notes, based on a report by the British newspaper The Guardian. Among the reasons cited are home stocks built up during the pandemic, growing health concerns, prices that rose in the good years and the 2025 US tariffs: according to the Scotch Whisky Association, they cut Scotch whisky exports to the United States by 15%, before being withdrawn earlier this year. Because Scotch must age at least three years in oak casks in Scotland, distilleries decide today how much to produce for demand that will only exist years later.
Sources: The Spirits Business (September 30, 2026), The Scotsman (September 30, 2026), EuQueroInvestir (September 29, 2026).
