Whisky Posters, Print Advertising and Label Art

Black & White's terriers spent decades in advertising before they reached the bottle label in 2013. Johnnie Walker's Striding Man, commissioned in 1908, likewise belongs to a story bigger than the bottle. Whisky posters, print advertising and label art share familiar faces, but those faces can lead very different lives on paper and glass.[1][9][10]

Reading whisky posters, print advertising and label art

A bottle and the pictures used to advertise it can have different histories. Start by separating the container, the images circulated around it and the stories later told about both. Museum catalogues preserve individual objects; company histories explain a brand's account of its identity. Read side by side, they reveal changing pictures rather than a procession of timeless trademarks.

For a wider view of whisky as a cultural subject, start with whisky in literature and art. Here, the pleasure is in the particulars: a poster's format, a photograph's construction, a slogan changed at the last moment. Each shows how a brand chose to present itself.

Johnnie Walker: a figure repeatedly redrawn

The Striding Man came later than the shop and the slanted label: he was commissioned in 1908. Diageo's account begins with John Walker opening a grocer's shop in 1820, the year after his father died. It credits his son Alexander with introducing the slanted label to catch the eye on the shelf.[2][10]

The V&A holds Golfing 1820, a colour lithograph published in London by Lawrence & Jellicoe between 1908 and 1910. It names the artist as Tom Browne and identifies the print as one of eight advertisements showing the Striding Man in sporting scenes. Diageo's brand page spells the surname “Brown”; the museum's catalogue spelling is used here.[1][2]

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Disputed

Sources differ over the spelling of the Striding Man artist's surname. The V&A catalogue uses Browne, while Diageo's brand page uses Brown.[1][2] The correct spelling is not established by the supplied sources, nor is the earliest known source established from those checked.

Sources: V&A, Golfing 1820: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O709358/; Diageo, Johnnie Walker: https://www.diageo.com/en/our-brands/scotch-whisky/johnnie-walker

Last checked: November 2026.

The date in Golfing 1820 belongs to the title, not the print's production. Title, date and subject each tell a different part of the story. The figure itself was repeatedly redesigned.

Dewar's: the picture moves beyond paper

In 1897, Dewar's brought an advertising painting to life on film. The company had used The Whisky of his Forefathers widely in its advertising, then acted it out for the camera. A painted subject became a performed one, carrying the image beyond the medium in which it began.[3]

Light and movement followed. In 1898, Dewar's installed an illuminated sign of a kilted Scotsman drinking its whisky on the Shot Tower beside Waterloo Bridge in London. A moving illuminated replacement arrived in 1910 or 1911, using 1,400 lamps. Ink and paper were only part of the company's advertising repertoire.[3]

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Documented

Dewar's illuminated Scotsman on the Shot Tower was replaced by a moving sign with 1,400 lamps. The first sign was installed in 1898 and the replacement followed in 1910 or 1911.[3] The supplied source does not establish that the first sign was the world's largest. The earliest known source is not established from those checked.

Source: Niall G. MacKenzie, Local Patriots: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/enterprise-and-society/article/local-patriots-dewars-scotch-whisky-prosociality-politics-and-place18461930/51FD45613C56E068F843AC2AE85CBB46

Last checked: November 2026.

That journey between media offers a useful comparison with a painting and its story. The original artwork is one object of study; its reproduction, display or performance is another. Following those changes reveals how an advertising image acquired a life beyond the painting itself.

Kauffer and the importance of format

The format is the starting point for Edward McKnight Kauffer's strip poster for Gilbey's Spey Royal Scotch Whisky, issued in 1933. The V&A records it as a colour lithograph from a series advertising W. & A. Gilbey Ltd products, under museum number CIRC.333-1971.[4]

The catalogue's plain description, “strip poster”, is the best place to begin looking. How does the design occupy that format? Where does the product name sit, and how does the eye travel through the composition? The object offers firmer ground for those questions than assumptions about what a celebrated designer must have intended.

White Horse: politics, photography and a changed slogan

White Horse linked its whisky with pride in the British Empire in a January 1932 advertisement in the Glasgow student magazine Ygorra. Glasgow University Archive Services preserves the item as DC198/2/11. Its message belongs to the brand's advertising, rather than to a neutral account of the world it invoked.[5]

At Te Papa in New Zealand, another White Horse object tells a story about making an advertisement. Steve Rumsey's 1968 photograph was commissioned by the Auckland agency Inglis Wright. The museum record captures a late change of slogan: the words intended to accompany the picture changed after the image could no longer be altered.[6]

Story box: the photograph outlasts its slogan

A horse, a glass and a late change

The White Horse firm was founded in 1861 by James Logan Mackie, owner of the old White Horse Inn in Edinburgh. Peter Mackie registered the brand name in 1891.[5]

In the account of the 1968 commission, the client reverted from “Put a white horse in your glass” to “There's no mistaking White Horse Whisky” after the picture could no longer be changed.[6]

Rumsey overlaid a photograph of a horse and rider on one of the bottle and glass, using line conversion and a circular screen to direct attention to the central glass.[6]

Sources and what they establish:

• Glasgow University Archive Services, Advertisement for White Horse Scotch whisky in Ygorra, supplies the firm's founding, founder and brand registration: https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSD00110.
• Te Papa, White Horse whisky (1968), records the commission, date, agency, photographic method and changed slogan: https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/631300.

Last checked: Exact day not documented; sources checked November 2026.

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Documented.

The White Horse slogan changed after Rumsey's image could no longer be altered. Te Papa records the intended wording, replacement slogan and inability to change the picture.[6] No contrary evidence or gap was found. The earliest known source is not established from those checked.

Source: Te Papa, object record for White Horse whisky, photograph dated 1968: https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/631300.

Last checked: Exact day not documented; source checked November 2026.

Label art is not advertising history in miniature

Black & White acquired its name from the bottle, but its dogs took a different route. According to the trade history published by Scotchwhisky.com, Buchanan's blend came in a dark bottle with a white label. Drinkers asked for “that Black & White whisky”, and the name was officially changed in 1902.[9]

Under the Distillers Company, the terriers featured more heavily in advertising from the 1920s. Yet they first appeared on the bottle label in 2013. Their long advertising career cannot, by itself, date a label: the dogs' appearances in adverts and on bottles follow separate chronologies.[9]

Haig brings bottle shape and memorable wording together in another way. Scotchwhisky.com's trade account describes Gold Label's squat, dark brown bottle, plain white label and row of medals. It also records early advertising asking “D'ye ken John Haig?”, before the long running “Don't be vague, ask for Haig”. The later slogan may be familiar, but it was not the first.[8]

Exact wording matters, especially when a phrase becomes easy to remember and repeat. For the neighbouring problem of sayings detached from their sources, see verified quotations and misattributions. A recognisable slogan, like a familiar picture, gives research a starting point. Its source supplies the detail that memory can lose.

How to read a whisky advertisement

Begin with the object in front of you: the poster, magazine page or label. Its medium, date, image and wording provide a clear route into the larger brand history. Work through them in that order, keeping what you can see distinct from what you interpret.

1. Identify the medium. Record whether the object is a lithograph, magazine advertisement, photograph or label. Evidence about one does not automatically describe another.
2. Separate the dates. Note the object's recorded date, any date printed within the design and any later redesign. Golfing 1820 shows why those entries need not agree.[1]
3. Read image and copy together. Do the words explain the picture, redirect it or sit awkwardly beside it? Rumsey's White Horse photograph shows how copy could change after an image was fixed.[6]
4. Keep the interpretation proportionate. A source may establish a commission, a publication date or a slogan change without establishing the effect on its audience. Describe what the object shows before proposing what it meant.

Where to go next

• Whisky in Literature and Art: place advertising alongside other forms of cultural expression.
• The Illicit Highland Whisky Still by Edwin Landseer: The Painting and Its Story: follow a different relationship between whisky and a painted image.
• Whisky Quotations: Verified Sources and Misattributions: examine how familiar wording can become separated from its evidence.

Sources

1. Victoria and Albert Museum. Golfing 1820, Tom Browne, advertisement. Online collection catalogue, undated; object dated 1908 to 1910, museum number E.973-1915. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O709358/

2. Diageo. Johnnie Walker. Producer's account, online brand history, undated. https://www.diageo.com/en/our-brands/scotch-whisky/johnnie-walker

3. Niall G. MacKenzie, Cambridge University Press, Enterprise & Society. Local Patriots: Dewar's Scotch Whisky, Prosociality, Politics, and Place, 1846 to 1930. Academic article; publication year not supplied in the fact sheet. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/enterprise-and-society/article/local-patriots-dewars-scotch-whisky-prosociality-politics-and-place18461930/51FD45613C56E068F843AC2AE85CBB46

4. Victoria and Albert Museum. Gilbey's Spey Royal Scotch Whisky, Edward McKnight Kauffer, poster. Online collection catalogue, undated; object issued 1933, museum number CIRC.333-1971. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1036006/gilbeys-spey-royal-scotch-whisky-poster-kauffer-edward-mcknight/

5. Glasgow University Archive Services, via TheGlasgowStory. Advertisement for White Horse Scotch whisky in Ygorra, January 1932. Online archival description, undated; archive reference DC198/2/11. https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSD00110

6. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. White Horse whisky, Steve Rumsey, 1968. Online collection record, undated; object number 631300. https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/631300

7. Scotchwhisky.com. Haig. Trade reference, online edition, undated. https://scotchwhisky.com/whiskypedia/2389/haig/

8. Scotchwhisky.com. Black & White. Trade reference, online edition, undated. https://scotchwhisky.com/whiskypedia/2322/black-white/

9. The Whiskey Wash. The Man Who Never Stops: How the Striding Man Defined Johnnie Walker. Trade article, online edition; publication year not supplied in the fact sheet. https://www.thewhiskeywash.com/whiskey-articles/the-man-who-never-stops-how-the-striding-man-defined-johnnie-walker/

This desk research article draws on the site's verified fact sheet, combining museum and archive records with academic research, an attributed producer history and trade accounts.

Last checked: November 2026