The company
Murray McDavid was founded in 1996 by Mark Reynier, Simon Coughlin and Gordon Wright. The company was named after Reynier's grandparents, Harriet Murray and Jock McDavid. The new bottler quickly became well known, not least due to its unconventional style. His Gaelic company logo "Clachan a Choin" loosely translates as "dog's balls".
At the end of 2000, Murray McDavid became involved in the acquisition and relaunch of the Bruichladdich distillery. The distillery and the bottler worked shoulder to shoulder for the next few years. Jim McEwan, the Master Distiller at Bruichladdich, also participated in the independent bottler's series. In 2012, Bruichladdich was sold to the French spirits group Remy Cointreau.
This was followed in 2013 by the sale of the independent bottler Murray McDavid to Aceo Spirits. Aceo Spirits had previously worked as a supplier to the whisky industry. It also provided services such as bottling, bottle labelling and cask storage for the distilleries. The Parkmore distillery, which had been closed for over 100 years, is also part of the family business.
Since the sale, Murray McDavid has been very quiet. No new bottlings have been released under the company's own name.
The range
The malts from Murray McDavid are generally uncoloured. Single malts, grains and blends are bottled in various series.
Many different series are still bottled today under the name of the independent bottler Murray McDavid. The first series, Celtic Heartlands, is rarely found on the market.
Today there are new series such as Cask Craft, Benchmark and Mission Gold.
Series
In his various series, he bottles a wide variety of single malts, grains and blends. The Benchmark series represents the heart of Murray McDavid. Great importance is attached to selecting the right cask maturation for the bottlings. In the Cask Craft series, whiskies are matured in a wide variety of oak casks and in the Mission Gold series, only the oldest and best casks are used.
