You’d think that a history of a 200 year old company could be a yawn-inducing affair, echoing the tedium of digging through endless ledgers that the author inevitably had to do to look for clues in reconstructing the stories… however in the right hands it is the stories that come to life, and this exploration of the tale of Johnnie Walker is expertly pieced together by Dr Nicholas Morgan – someone with not only the historian’s skillset, but the lived experience of working alongside the archival materials for half a lifetime, and a living passion for the subject matter: Scotch Whisky. Any fan of the topic will tell you that it’s the people that bring it to life, and this book’s no exception. I found it a gripping read, even in spite of it being a history book. I had no idea that in the 1930s Johnnie Walker deployed cricket scoreboards to cities all over the Empire, where board operators would sit inside listening to the radio and not only keep the scores updated, but also “act out” each shot on a puppet-like surface using a series of rods and controls.
