The Conversation
In attendance were Francis Berry and Hugh Rudd, the partners of the world’s most prestigious wine and spirits merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd, together with Scottish artist James McBey. The conversation turned, inevitably, to whisky; Berry had been selling its own brands for some time in the UK and a small quantity had been exported to the USA to private customers immediately before World War I. Berry Bros. & Rudd, like all good merchants, knew what their customers liked and felt that heavy, dark whiskies would spoil the palate of their wine-loving clientele.