La Martiniquaise

Profile
History
Distilleries & Brands
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La Martiniquaise Profile

La Martiniquaise has its headquarters in the Paris commune of Charentot-le-Pont. It is the second-largest spirits group in France and features in the world’s top 10, with a large portfolio of international brands. Employing 1,600 people, the company operates 27 subsidiaries and 24 production sites throughout the world, including France, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Vietnam. It is a world leader in Port and Madeira and the French number one for calvados and Armagnac.

In terms of Scotch whisky, La Martiniquaise’s leading brand is the Label 5 blend, the world’s ninth-best-selling Scotch whisky. The firm owns and runs Glen Moray malt distillery in Elgin, Moray, and Glen Turner grain distillery at Bathgate in West Lothian, with the latter being part of the Glen Turner Company subsidiary. Glen Turner is La Martiniquaise’s second major Scotch whisky brand, and is available as both a blended malt and a single malt, with sales of more than one million bottles per annum, principally in France.

La Martiniquaise History

La Martiniquaise was established in 1934 by Jean Cayard to act as a rum importer and distributor. After the Second World War, in 1946, the firm diversified into the marketing of Cognac, calvados, kirsch, Madeira, Port and natural sweet wine, going on to launch Label 5 Scotch whisky in 1969.

The Glen Turner subsidiary was established in 1981 but did not start operations until March 2004, and during that year the company’s first Scotch whisky maturation and bottling facility was developed at Bathgate, in West Lothian.

The decision was taken to switch from buying all Scotch whisky from external sources and blending and bottling in France to producing spirit in Scotland, and then maturing, blending and bottling it there.

Accordingly, in 2008 Glen Moray malt distillery was acquired from Glenmorangie, while a new grain distillery was constructed at Bathgate, with production commencing in 2011. As well as bottling whisky in Scotland, Glen Turner exports bulk spirit to La Martiniquaise operations in France.