He was managing director of The Macallan Malt Whisky from 1978 until the company was bought by Highland Distillers in 1996. During this period, his team’s passionate adherence to the proven quality of The Macallan Single Malt established it as an international brand.

However, when Willie joined the Macallan Distillery in 1974 – moving to Craigellachie from Edinburgh with his wife Margaret and two young children – it was not the global brand it is today.

Joining the team as the distillery’s first accountant, Willie quickly learned the ropes. First, he was given a pair of wellies (he hadn’t been told his role included being farm manager!), and in these early months he worked shifts to understand how the business operated, and to bond with the team. This was helped no end by the fact he also handed out the wage packets – getting to know everyone by name.

“At the time it was a premium product – and possibly the most respected single malt in Speyside – but it wasn’t known abroad,” says Willie, from his home in Balfron.

“It was renowned as the most popular of Speyside’s single malts in bottle, and certainly one of the top three malt whiskies for the blending trade.”

By 1976 Willie was finance director and by 1978 – when the distillery’s major shareholder Peter Shiach became chairman – Willie was appointed Managing Director.

“At the time Peter was very unwell, in fact he was dying,” says Willie “and one day he shared his vision with me.

“He wanted to grow The Macallan into one of the best-known single malts in the world, and he said to me ‘go and do it!’ – so, with Peter’s older brother, Allan at the helm, that is what we did.

“I was very fortunate that we had an amazing team around us. We had a superb marketing director Hugh Mitcalfe, with whom I just clicked, a dedicated production team (two leaders of which were malt whisky afficionados) and we built our brand with quality at the core.

“We had an in-house nosing panel for every bottling where we compared the current bottling with the previous bottling and ones from three years and five years before – to ensure no product drift.”

“It was a very egalitarian operation – with one of the office ladies on the panel, as she had a really good nose,” Willie says.

It was also great timing. Some years earlier, in 1968, the distillery has started laying down stocks in their newly constructed warehouse, so by 1980 they were well and truly ready to go.

It was the start of The Macallan’s meteoric rise.

Allan, Willie, Hugh and the team spearheaded a highly innovative PR and marketing campaign, including renaming their whisky The Macallan – which, as awareness grew, became The Macallan, The Malt.

They ran a series of funny, quirky (and relatively cheap) adverts – including a series of ads beside the Times crosswords – and did a major PR push in the US.

This included weeks spent stateside where Willie and Hugh independently would – quite literally – walk into retailers to convince them to carry their malt.

Willie recounts going into Sherry Lehmann’s liquor store on 5th Avenue, New York, no less than four times before the store owner relented and gave Willie an audience.

They also brought their US PR and sales people to Scotland for a top-drawer trip of a lifetime, where they toured Edinburgh, played golf in St Andrews, visited Glen Coe, ate at Rogano, went to ceilidhs and enjoyed the very finest food and drink on offer – as well as trips to more colourful venues such as the Drovers Inn by Loch Lomond!

This was topped off by a visit to The Macallan.

“As I said to them at the time,  I just wanted them to return to the US with a wee bit of Scotland in their hearts, and truth be told there were tears in many of their eyes as they left from Glasgow airport,” Willie recounts

The plan was a vast success – sales stateside and world wide continued to rise and in 1988, The Macallan won The Queen’s Award for Export.

And this success has continued to today – where The Macallan remains one the world’s best known and respected whisky brands.

The distillery was subsequently bought by Highland Distillers in 1996, and the year after Willie and his wife Margaret moved to France to start a new adventure with a role as Managing Director of Janneau SA, an Armagnac company, where they stayed for six years.

Since then he has retained a passionate interest in whisky and the industry, leading a consortium in an unsuccessful attempt to buy Tamdhu distillery, appointed as an early non-executive director during the construction and the completion of the Isle of Harris distillery, and then in 2017 he took a call from his old friend and colleague, Max McFarlane.

“Max and I have known each other many years and he was very enthused about the Ardgowan Distillery which is taking shape on his doorstep at Inverkip.

“He introduced me to the business owners Martin McAdam and Alan Baker and I was impressed with their plans. I asked them how I could help, and they asked me if I would be Chairman – which I accepted.

Since then Willie has worked closely with the distillery team – and was instrumental in the selection of the whisky used for Expedition 20-year-old, which he selected and blended from his own industry sources.  It was subsequently awarded a gold medal in in the 2019 Scottish Whisky Awards.

Together with Max, he has stressed the impact of quality casks on the finished product – advice which has gone into the release of Coppersmith – which comprises only single malts wholly matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks.

“You can do all of the marketing and all of the promotions that you like – but ultimately it is the spirit in the bottle that counts. Quality is the key,” Willie concludes.

To that we should always be able to raise a second glass!