Small Saanich distillery in David vs. Goliath fight with Scotch Whisky Association

The founder of Macaloney’s Caledonian Distillery is being accused of branding his whisky as too Scottish by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“Officially, they are saying that we’re using too many Scottish sounding names on our whisky, like my name Macaloney,” said Graeme Macaloney, the distillery’s founder.

The names of two of his whiskies are Glenloy and Invermallie. Again, too Scottish for the association, but meaningful for Macaloney, who is from Scotland.

“Glenloy and Invermallie is where my family lived for a thousand years, so it’s a nice story to tell,” said Macaloney.

Last year, the SWA filed a lawsuit to prevent Macaloney from using his name and other Scottish-sounding names in the branding of his Canadian whisky.

Now, the fight has escalated, and it’s going to hurt the award-winning distillery’s business.

“Just a month ago, (the SWA) threatened our German importer with a lawsuit to force them to stop bringing our Canadian best single malt into Germany,” said Macaloney.

Macaloney says the German importer was his growing distillery’s portal into the European Union. Now, he has to find a new importer, but that takes months. And, if an importer was to take him on, the SWA would make it difficult on that new importer, too, Macaloney says.

“They would set the lawyers on that person too,” said Macaloney.

That leaves Macaloney is a tough spot. The young company and its 750 shareholders had plans to distribute their whisky in 25 countries around the world. With this new wrinkle, those growth plans are now on hold.

“People are scared of the SWA in this industry,” said Macaloney.

The distillery founder has reached out to the SWA in hopes a compromise can be reached, but he said he has gone to mediation with them in the past, to no avail.

A letter-writing campaign has started, and so far, Canadians have sent more than 1,000 letters of support for the Saanich distillery to the SWA. Macaloney hopes that will persuade the association to back down and come to an agreement, because he says he’s not willing to give up his name, or the name of his Canadian whisky.