Sir Peter Mackie, 1st Baronet

Sir Peter Jeffrey Mackie, 1st Baronet (26 November 1855–22 September 1924) was a Scottish whisky distiller and writer.

Mackie was born at St Ninians, Stirling. His father, Alexander Mackie, was a distiller. He was educated at Stirling High School and in 1878 joined his uncle's firm, James L. Mackie & Co, at the Lagavulin distillery on Islay. In the mid-1880s he became a founding partner in Mackie & Co, which was set up to market Lagavulin and other whiskies in London. In 1890 the two businesses amalgamated as Mackie & Co (Distillers) and began to blend White Horse. In 1895 Mackie's became a limited company and Peter Mackie became chairman, a post he held until his death. In 1924 the firm was renamed White Horse Distillers Ltd and became a public company.

Mackie travelled and wrote extensively on politics, especially on tariff reform and Imperial Federation. In 1918 he made a gift of pedigree cattle to Rhodesia to encourage ranching and cattle breeding. He also financed the Mackie Anthropological Expedition to Uganda. He was also a major landowner (owning convert|12000|acre|km2 in Argyllshire), a Justice of the Peace for Argyllshire, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, and an active member of the Scottish Unionist Association, serving as chairman from 1922

He was created a baronet in the 1920 Birthday Honours.

References

*Biography, "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"
*Obituary, "The Times", 23 September 1924