60 FROM THE ISLE OF SKY TO
BUCKINGHAM PALACE,
A 171-YEAR JOURNEY

The Battle of Culloden (or in Gaelic, Blàr Chùil Lodair) was the final confrontation of the Jacobite Rising. On 16 April 1746, the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, more commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, fought the loyalist troops commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

The conflict was the last pitched battle fought on British soil, but its other claim to fame is that it is the first stage on the journey of one of the world’s most famous liqueur brand. It was a journey that would take 171 years for the drink to travel from the Isle of Skye to Buckingham Palace, from one royal household to another.

Having lost the battle, Bonnie Prince Charlie fled, but was pursued by the King’s men across the Highlands and Islands of Western Scotland. During this flight, he was aided by many Highland Clans, amongst them was Clan MacKinnon. It was their chief, Captain John MacKinnon, who helped the Prince escape across the sea to the Isle of Skye.

There, he was given sanctuary by the Captain and in thanks for the man’s bravery, the Prince gave John MacKinnon the secret recipe to his personal liqueur. It was a gift that the Clan were to treasure down the generations.

More than 100 years later, the recipe passed to John Ross of The Broadford Hotel on Skye, where he developed and improved the recipe and the drink gained its now famous brand name. It is said that upon tasting it one of these locals exclaimed that this was “the drink that satisies”, – or in Gaelic, “an dram buidheach”. This was shortened to ‘”Drambuie” and was registered as a trademark in 1893.

Ross died young, and to pay for their children’s education, his widow sold the recipe, by coincidence to a different MacKinnon family, in the early 20th Century.

In 1900 the brand’s journey continued, as Malcolm MacKinnon travelled from Skye to Edinburgh to work in the wines and spirits trade. There he realized the opportunity that the liqueur offered, and in 1909 he produced the first commercial bottling for his company MacBeth & Sons. By 1914, he had acquired the recipe and trademark, and he established The Drambuie Liqueur Company.

Success soon followed and the brand travelled south to England. In 1916, Drambuie became the first liqueur to be allowed in the cellars of the House of Lords.

A year later, Buckingham Palace ordered a case for its cellars…and the brand was back in a Royal household again

And the moral is that not all innovations are overnight successes. Are you keeping faith in ideas that you believe will be slow-burn successes?