Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse

Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse History

In 1974 Alexander (Sandy) Bulloch, chairman of A. Bulloch & Co., founded Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse Ltd as a private blending and bottling facility to supply the family’s chain of shops with its own label gin, vodka and whisky. The Bulloch family can trace its connections with whisky back to 1842, when Gabriel Bulloch partnered with JH Dewar in a Scotch wholesaling business in Glasgow.

By the 1970s, A. Bulloch & Co operated around 25 shops across Scotland, with Glen Catrine supplying its own-label spirits. However the business grew rapidly, and by 2013 was producing over 36.5 million bottles of whisky and other spirits per year. Among its brands were the hugely popular High Commissioner blended Scotch and the UK’s second best-selling vodka, Glen’s.

In 1986 the group acquired Loch Lomond distillery from Inver House Distillers during a downturn in the market, and began producing its own grain whisky and spirits at the site in 1993. The following year it added Glen Scotia and Littlemill distilleries to its portfolio through its acquisition of Gibson International, although it closed and sold the latter distillery almost immediately.

In 2014 the group sold its whisky distilleries, along with the Glen Catrine bottling plant, High Commissioner and Glen’s vodka brands, to Exponent Private Equity.