Berry Bros. & Rudd

(BBR) is Britain’s oldest wine and spirit merchant. Founded by the Widow Bourne in 1698 at no. 3 St. James’s Street, London—the address that still serves as its headquarters today—it is the holder of two royal warrants and has been supplier of wine and spirits to the royal family since the reign of King George III. The firm’s famous customers have included Lord Byron, William Pitt the Younger, and the Aga Khan.The company began life as a grocer supplying the neighboring coffee houses of St. James’s (a fact attested to by the “Sign of the Coffee Mill,” which still hangs outside the shop), before second cousins Francis Berry and Charles Walter Berry made the decision to specialize in wines and spirits in the late 1800s. In 1920 they were joined in business by the wine merchant Hugh Rudd.

While Berry Bros. & Rudd is best known as a wine merchant today, it has made a number of significant contributions to the world of spirits in the last hundred years, including the creation of the Cutty Sark Scotch whisky blend in 1923 and the reinvention of Speyside’s Glenrothes as a “vintage” single malt in the 1990s. BBR is also responsible for the King’s Ginger, a fiery liqueur created for King George VII in 1903 at the behest of his physician, who wished for something to keep His Highness warm during long drives in his new motor car. Other spirits in the BBR stable include the single-estate Mauritian rum Penny Blue XO, No. 3 Gin, Pink Pigeon Rum, and a large range of own-label malts, brandies, and rums.

More than three hundred years after it was founded, the company is still family-owned and run, with outposts in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan as well as a sizeable online business.

Berry Bros. & Rudd. http://www.bbr.com/about/history (accessed February 2, 2021).

By: Alice Lascelles