Type Scotch whisky Country of origin Scotland | Manufacturer John Haig & Co Ltd | |
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Haig, also known as Dimple, Dimple Pinch, or Haig's Pinch, is brand of Scotch whisky, originally manufactured by John Haig & Co Ltd. The brand and its original distillery are now part of Diageo, the world's largest spirits company (and a major producer of beer and wine).
Contents
History
Andrew Stein founded a distillery in the early 1720s in the Kennetpans near Stirling, which became Scotland's largest distillery by 1733. It has been called the world's first commercial distillery. Stein had taken over some land and distilling operations from a local monastery. (Stein's distillery is now in ruins, and fund-raising was attempted in early 2015 in an effort to try to preserve its remnants.)
Robert Haig was a distiller in the early 1600s and a member of the Scottish Clan Haig family. His great-grandson John Haig, who lived in the Kennetpans area, married Margaret Stein of the Stein family in 1751 and founded the company known as John Haig & Co.
Their daughter, also named Margaret, married John Jameson who founded the Jameson Irish Whiskey Company in Dublin in 1780. The Stein, Haig, and Jameson families were significant figures in the whisky market from that time forward.
A Haig distillery, now known as the Cameronbridge distillery, was founded in 1824. In 1830, it became the first distillery to produce grain whisky using the column still method invented by Robert Stein in 1826 (before the later better-known refinement developed by Aeneas Coffey).
John Haig & Co. was subsequently merged into the Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1877. The dimpled bottle was introduced in the 1890s. The bottle was registered as a trademark in the US in 1958 by Julius Lunsford. It and the bottle design for Coca-Cola (which was also registered by Lunsford) were the first two bottle designs to appear in the Principal Register of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
DCL combined with John Walker & Son and Buchanan-Dewar in 1925 and was then acquired by Guinness in 1986, which put it into its United Distillers subsidiary in 1987. Guinness then merged with Grand Metropolitan to form Diageo in 1997.
Most current variations of the Haig brand are produced using spirits from Diageo's Glenkinchie distillery and Linkwood distillery.
Promotions
One of their best known advertising slogans was Don't be vague, ask for Haig.
A brand expression called Haig Club was launched in 2014 as a single grain whisky with no age statement, in association with David Beckham and Simon Fuller. The spirits for Haig Club are sourced from the Cameronbridge distillery.
