Details of this company’s earlier history and its brands can be found at pages 154-5 of “The Schweppes Guide to Scotch” [link] and full profiles of the distilleries which were formerly registered to it, as they were up to 1986, at pages 89-90 (Brora Distillery) and at pages 91-93 (Clynelish Distillery) of “The Whisky Distilleries of Scotland and Ireland” [link].

Subsequently, DCL having registered the Ainslie brand in 1937, its successor companies continued to market the Ainslie range well into the 1980’s. Royal Edinburgh enjoyed outstanding success in Belgium. Not surprisingly, the Belgian distiller P. Bruggeman, producer of Peterman genever, acquired the discontinued (in 1993) Ainslie’s brand in 1998 from Diageo and registered it in both the United States and Europe. Bruggeman released a 12-year-old Speyside single malt under the brand, as well as a blend containing ‘six different grain whiskies and 36 malt whiskies’ from the Highlands, Lowlands, Campbeltown and Islay.

In 2009 the company was taken over by French drinks group La Martiniquaise. The Ainslie’s brands have since been finally discontinued, although Bruggeman remains the licence holder in the EU.