Who We are


Mark Reynier	Simon Coughlin

Jim McEwan	Andrew Gray

We are four friends from the polar opposite ends of the drinks trade – but who share one simple ambition: to make the very finest single malt whisky experience possible.

Mark Reynier and Simon Coughlin come from a wine trade background while Jim McEwan and Andrew Gray have many years of experience in the whisky industry.

The catalyst for saving Bruichladdich was a visiting card. A fateful encounter in 1985 at the London Wine Trade Fair began the roller-coaster journey that led to the acquisition of the distillery on December 19^th 2000.

Whisky guru Jack Milroy had organised a lucky dip draw for visiting cards at the fair, the prize on offer a 50 year old bottle of whisky worth £1000. Pressed into entering the draw, Mark was surprised to win the prize which led to a life-changing moment: he was invited to collect the prize from Jack’s cellar where he tasted for the first time various barrel samples of single malt whisk.

He was amazed at the elegance and sophistication of one particular whisky, one that was reminiscent of the complexity of a fine wine. It was a Bruichladdich from the sixties.

“it was a religious moment for me; I never thought that a distillate could possibly show the same characteristics as a fine wine. It stood out like a sore thumb from the rest. I remember coming away that sunny morning and thinking ‘wow – I’ve really hit on something here."

At that time single malts in general were not widely available – and Bruichladdich not at all. After tracking it down, Mark & Simon sold the whisky to their fine wine customers with great success.

In 1989 a visit to the distillery was met by the depressing “Plant Closed - No Visitors!” sign – and a hostile reception. The seed of trying to buy the distillery was sown.

A tentative toe was first dipped in to the whisky trade in 1996. Frustrated by the variance, imbalance, irregular supply and general unreliability of most single cask bottlings available at that time, Murray McDavid was formed along with Gordon Wright.

The aim to of offer the best casks of a single malt selected purely by tasting, assembled together for harmony, bottled naturally without chill filtration, and colouring- free. The wine trade concept of ‘The Sum of the Parts’.

Meanwhile Andrew developed his own range of premium single malts on similar lines, while Jim became distillery manager, then brand Ambassador for Bowmore.

After a decade of writing to distilling companies (Bruichladdich went through four owners in that period following industry consolidation ) the chance to purchase the distillery finally came in January 2000.

After eventually convincing a bank to support the hair-brained scheme, rounding up a group of intrepid private investors many from the island of Islay itself, the distillery was finally purchased after dramatically tense negotiations on 19th December 2001. Mark’s son Ruari was born 30 minutes later.

With both Jim (production Director) and Andrew (Sales Director) on board the unlikely but innovative combination of wine and whisky cultures was complete.