Haig Club and Clubman: how the brands came about and what's next?

Diversifying an historic brand has allowed Diageo-owned Haig Club to move whisky in front of a younger demographic, according to global whisky master Ewan Gunn.

The foundations single grain whiskies Haig Club and Clubman have derived are centuries old, but these are the first liquids to go in a completely new direction, said Gunn in this video interview with The Morning Advertiser. 

Historically, the Haig family produced blended whisky, a practice first carried out by Robert Haig in 1627 who studied distilling in the Netherlands.

In partnership with David Beckham

In the next century (1751), relative John Haig married into a family with a rich distilling history. He later had 11 children with wife Margaret Stein, several of whom went on to open distilleries of their own.

Later, in 1830, John Haig set up a still at Cameronbridge – several miles outside Edinburgh – and in 1888 his son John Alicious Haig set up Haig and Haig, and entered the US market.

Many years later and after many successes, Haig Club in partnership with David Beckham and Simon Fuller – was announced in 2014. This year, the Clubman variant was launched as a more "accessible" option.

'The brand is diversifying'

Gunn said: "The brand is diversifying from a blended Scotch whisky because one of the opportunities we've identified as a producer of single grain Scotch whisky is to share it with the world in its own right.

"We're inviting a new generation of Scotch whisky drinkers into our world."

Watch this video to find out what could be next in the portfolio and how the Haig Club brand was developed.