Pattisons (whisky company)

Seeing an opportunity for much greater profits, they entered the whisky business by forming a blending company in 1887, going public two years later.

Around this time, the great phylloxera epidemic devastated the vineyards of France, significantly depleting the region's brandy reserves.

[2] They employed a sales force of 150 men, many more than their much larger competitor Distillers Company Ltd. Their advertising budget alone totalled over £60,000 in 1898 (£8.44 million in 2023[3]).

In addition to their huge print advertising campaigns, they gave away 500 grey parrots to vendors that were trained to repeat phrases like "Pattisons Whisky is best!"

It was revealed that the company had massively inflated their profits through shoddy accounting practices and defaulted on several substantial debts.