Seagram Distillers

Seagram Distillers was established in Scotland as the new Scotch whisky division of Seagram, a Canadian multinational that had risen to prominence during Prohibiton in the US. It was headed up by Samuel Bronfman, an ambitious businessman who was quick to use the financial muscle of Seagram to corner a considerable part of the American whiskey market following repeal in 1933. He had designs on the Scotch market too however, in part fuelled by a desire to seek revenge on the Distillers Company Limited. Having previously worked closely as their Canadian distributor, to the point where his company had been named Distillers Corporation prior to the Seagram merger, he took umbrage with the Dewar’s contract being awarded to rivals, Schenley, and was infamously thrown out of the DCL boardroom following a heated dispute.

Bronfman initially worked with a whisky broker named Jimmy Barclay who, with Seagram funds, secured the purchase of Robert Brown of Paisley and its substantial maturing stocks in 1935. Seagram Distillers incorporated the next year and shored up its position in Scotland in 1949 through the acquisition of Chivas Brothers. Still working with Barclay, they then acquired the Milton distillery to secure a malt supply in 1950, renaming it Strathisla in 1951.

With business booming due to the popularity of the Chivas Regal brand, the company invested further in its own supply and built the Glen Keith distillery next-door to Strathisla in 1957. An advanced facility, it was the first in Scotland to use gas-fired stills and produced several experimental single malts, including trials with triple-distillation and the unusually peated Glenisla. Although Samuel Bronfman died in 1971, he was succeeded by his son Edgar who added two more distilleries to the Speyside landscape in the shape of Allt-A-Bhainne and Braes of Glenlivet.

The most significant expansion of Seagram Distillers came in 1977 however, with the acquisition of The Glenlivet Distillers whose assets included the Glenlivet, Glen Grant, Caperdonich, Longmorn and Benriach distilleries alongside blending outfit Hill, Thompson & Co. The next decade saw the company continue to grow and it slowly began to invest in the growing single malt category as well as in its blends, introducing a 15-year-old Longmorn in the 1980s before eventually rebranding it and Strathisla as part of the Heritage Selection in 1993, alongside debut products from Glen Keith and Benriach.

Unfortunately, by the end of the 1990s Seagram was teetering toward the brink of collapse having made an ill-advised attempt to diversify into the entertainment industry. The move in 1995 signalled the end for the company, and five years later it was dissolved. The new entertainment division was sold to Vivendi in France, while its alcoholic beverage businesses were carved up between Pernod Ricard and Diageo. Seagram Distillers was acquired by the former in 2001, who merged it with their existing Scotch subsidiary, Campbell Distillers, using the Chivas Brothers name for the new entity.