Murray McDavid was formed by Gordon Wright, Mark Reynier, and Simon Coughlin in1996. Gordon’s family own Springbank Distillery and Cadenhead’s (another independent bottler). Gordon was the sales and marketing director for nine years before starting Murray McDavid. Mark and Simon own four fine wine stores in London and specialise in Burgundy. Nine generations in the whisky business between them. Murray McDavid is now owned by the Bruichladdich Distillery.

“Murray McDavid are Independent Bottlers with a difference. The tradition of independent bottling goes back 150 years and was, until fairly recently, the only source for many of Scotland’s finest malts. The practice of distilleries bottling their own malts started in the 60s, but only became a major event in the last few years. Independent bottlers offer the consumer many things. They offer the opportunity to taste some of the more esoteric malts not bottled by their owners. They offer the chance to try well known and widely available brands at a different age, a different strength, possibly even a different type of barrel than the distillery bottled product. ”

Murray McDavid prides itself with its cask selection. “The selection of casks is of prime importance and great care is taken to find the finest available. Murray McDavid only selects for bottling those casks that they feel represent the best the distillery can produce. All the Single Malt Scotches are bottled without chill filtering, which removes many of the oils that carry the flavour and complexity of the malt. They are not coloured with caramel like many other bottlings which gives the drinker the chance to sample the Scotch in its most natural form. The bottling strength is 46% Alc/Vol (92 proof) which is an ideal drinking strength, no complicated mathematical calculations to work out how much water to add! ”

The philosophy is largely inspired by the traditions from the top-of-the-range wine world. Mark Reynier a third generation wine merchant, uses several aspects from the wine world in the preparation of their bottlings, for example always tasting each cask, creating an assemblage of several casks from the same distillation for maximal complexity.

Murray McDavid represents a particular trend in the world of independent bottlers, due to the wine traditions inherited by its managers. Great respect for tradition and a constant search for quality. Unlike many others, they never bottle a “single cask”, arguing that these kind of bottlings never guarantee a constant quality, are unrepresentative, and often out of balance. There are many factors influencing the quality of a cask (poor quality wood, nails, poorly coopered casks, the proximity of the windows or ceilings, the humidity and temperature in the maturing warehouse, etc…)

Murray McDavid also does not alter the color of the whisky and all of the whiskys are chill filtered.