John Crabbie & Company

John Crabbie & Company History

The origins of John Crabbie & Co can be traced back to 1801, when one Miller Crabbie set himself up as a merchant in Edinburgh. Under the control of his son, John, the company acquired a former porter brewery in Leith, which became the base for the family’s expanding whisky blending business. They owned Haddington distillery in East Lothian, which produced grain whisky from 1852 until the mid-1860s when the operation closed. John Crabbie & Co was also involved in the rectification of gin and the production of fruit cordials, and Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine became its best-known product.

John Crabbie was the first chairman of Edinburgh’s North British Distillery, established in October 1885 as an independent alternative source of grain spirit to the increasingly influential Distillers Company Ltd. Ultimately, however, Crabbie’s was acquired by DCL in 1963 and subsequently Balmenach distillery on Speyside was licensed to the firm.

During the 1980s, DCL sold John Crabbie & Co Ltd to Macdonald & Muir, owner of the Highland Queen blend and Glenmorangie single malt, and production of green ginger wine was transferred from Leith to Macdonald & Muir’s headquarters at Broxburn in West Lothian. In 2007 the brand was sold on to Halewood International, based near Liverpool.

In terms of Scotch whisky, John Crabbie & Co Ltd was best recognised in later years for its 8-year-old and 12-year-old deluxe blends.