O.V.D. - Scotland's No. 1 Dark Rum

History

A time of extraordinary change

Our story began in 1838.

This was the year of the first successful transatlantic steam crossing, the year Queen Victoria was crowned at Westminster Abbey and when the first photograph was just about to be taken by William Henry Fox-Talbot.

It was, in short, a time of great change and innovation.

With his draper’s business flourishing, George made regular trips to Dundee, the capital of high-quality jute brought over by ship from India. It was while standing on the Dundee docks, watching the cargoes from far-flung lands being unloaded, that everything changed for George Morton. Ships from the new colony of British Guiana began arriving with casks full of Demerara rum, a rich dark navy rum quite unlike the Caribbean rums that had come before. George was entranced. He bought a barrel there and then and never looked back. In honour of that first inspiring moment, he established his future rum business on Dock Street, Dundee, overlooking that same quay.

Meet Mr Morton

The Morton family name can be traced to ancient Strathclyde-Briton families in the Dumfries region of Scotland.

By the 1800s the Mortons had established themselves all across Scotland. Our founder George Morton had a humble start in business in Bathgate, West Lothian, just outside Edinburgh.

A family man with seven children, he was a local draper, grocer and the heart of the village His shop, stuffed to bursting with rolls of tweed, jute, cotton and velvet, attracted a steady local trade, and he stocked everything from parasols to pocket-handkerchiefs, blankets to bonnets.

He was the epitome of an ordinary tradesman; a local pillar of the community. But beneath this unassuming appearance lay an innate entrepreneurial flair and a desire to do something extraordinary