It could be argued that 140-year-old Corby Distilleries owes its survival to a single astute sales manager hired in 1921.

At the time, the distillery’s sales had dried up to a mere 500 gallons a month. But new sales manager Harry Hatch, like many of his Canadian counterparts, saw opportunity in selling liquor to customers from the U.S., where Prohibition – that ‘noble experiment’ in official abstention – was just getting underway.

The result was a hundredfold increase in monthly output, as Corby became, for a time, one of the largest distilleries in the world.

While these Prohibition-era dealings proved a gold mine, one cannot help wonder how founder Henry Corby Sr. would have felt about seeing his company involved with associates of such questionable repute.

Henry Corby arrived in Upper Canada from England in 1832 with his wife Alma and their children, and settled in Belleville. The family established a bakery, and within six years had a thriving business.

Not long after, Corby lost his entire family in a freak accident, when their sleigh fell through the ice in Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte. He later married his wife’s sister, and the two went on to have 12 children.

Not content with being a baker, Corby purchased a steamer, which for four years ferried between Belleville and Kingston, buying and selling grain along the banks of Lake Ontario. This business was successful enough to warrant the establishment of a dam and a grist mill, located six kilometres up the Moira River from Belleville, in 1857.

Alma Mills serviced the grain farmers in the area, and a small community – Corbyville – quickly sprang up around it. Then, in 1859, Corby began distilling the grain. Soon, the lucrative distillery business had taken on prime importance for him.

Corby continued to diversify his interests, and was elected mayor of Belleville soon after the mill opened. He was also named to the board of police commissioners, became captain of the local fire fighting company, and was elected a Liberal member of the provincial parliament for the area.

When Henry Corby Sr. died in 1881, at the age of 75, the company was passed on to his son, Henry Jr.

The younger Corby had his father’s business acumen, and was quick to recognize the benefits of modernization. Bottling and branding were introduced (ending the practice of selling product by the barrel, or straight into the jugs of customers).

Henry Corby Jr. moved some of his offices to Belleville, and built a warehouse on the main street of the town. Barrels of aged whisky were brought to this warehouse from Corbyville for bottling – that is, until the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways installed spurs to Corbyville, opening up access to all points in North America directly from the distillery.

Henry Jr. didn’t stop there: He soon diversified the company’s interests by importing tobacco, as well as wines and scotch whisky. (Like his father, he also had political aspirations; he was active in the Conservative party, and later earned an appointment to the Senate.)

Around 1905, Henry Jr. let it be known that he would entertain bids for the company. Tobacco salesman Mortimer Davis was the eventual taker, purchasing the H. Corby Distillery Company for a cool $1 million.

The next few years saw many changes. In 1907, a fire destroyed most of the buildings. Davis immediately rebuilt. Then, during World War One, production of potable spirits was suspended to make way for manufacture of the industrial alcohol used in making explosives and synthetic rubber. Finally, in 1918, the H. Corby Distillery Company was merged into a holding company created by Davis, called Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company.

This last move signaled the beginning of what would prove to be many years of growth through acquisition. The new entity quickly began acquiring other interests – among them Wiser’s Distillery, wine and spirits merchant J.M Douglas and Company and Robert Macnish and Company of Scotland.

While Davis was busy running the H. Corby Distillery Company/ Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company, his former Corby sales manager, Harry Hatch, had moved on to other things.

In 1923, Hatch, his brother and the distiller L.J. McGuinness bought Gooderham & Worts. Three years later they acquired Hiram Walker as well, merging the two to form Hiram Walker-Gooderham & Worts. This determined group also launched the Canada Malting Company, and later acquired the Brights and Jordan wineries.

And they didn’t stop there. By the 1930s, Hiram Walker-Gooderham & Worts had set its sights on the Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company, and proceeded to acquire a majority interest.

For the better part of the next two decades, Corby operated under the name of its holding company, until 1950, when it reverted to the ‘H. Corby Distillery Company’ name.

The postwar era saw an increase in alcohol consumption. Aged alcohol, however, was scarce, since most distilleries had been taken over once again to produce industrial alcohol for the war effort. Well into the 1950s, liquor stores were still limiting the amount a person could purchase. (Un-aged spirits such as gin and liqueurs, on the other hand, stayed readily available.)

By the 1960s, Canadian whisky producers had hit a boom time, with sales increasing at the rate of about 10% a year. This growth would continue for another 20 years, peaking in 1981.

After that, however, events took a dramatic turn: Between 1981 and 1992, sales of legal domestic spirits decreased 46%, for reasons that include everything from an aging population to high taxes.

With sales dropping, Corby shored up its resources through further acquisitions. In 1978, the company acquired Montreal-based Meagher’s Distillery, and with it William Mara Company, a wine producer. This acquisition helped expand its operations in the imported gin, domestic liqueur and imported wine segments of the market.

In 1981, Corby purchased the Lamb’s Rum trademarks for Canada. And in 1987, the company acquired McGuinness Distillers, thereby broadening its range of traditional spirits, and increasing its stake in the schnapps and cooler markets.

Meanwhile, in the mid-1980s, the British company Allied-Lyons PLC (now Allied Domeq PLC) purchased Hiram Walker and Sons, which in turn owns more than 50% of Corby Distilleries.

In 1991, Corby bought 40% of the Upper Canada Brewing Company, with an option to purchase the remaining 60% of the microbrewery in 1994. When the time came, the company exercised that option, only to sell off Upper Canada six months later. While the sale earned Corby approximately $2.8 million, the experience also convinced executives that they should stick to what they know best.

‘In the final analysis, we got out of the beer business because it was far less complementary [to our core business] than we had thought,’ says Peter Chubb, Corby’s vice-president of government and industry affairs. ‘There are different channels of distribution, there’s a different consumer.’

All told, the welter of deal-making that has taken place over the past two decades has left Corby with a well-stocked bar indeed – one that includes 19 different whiskies (notably Canadian Club, Ballantine’s Finest and Wiser’s DeLuxe), more than a dozen white spirits (including Polar Ice vodka, Tequila Sauza and Beefeater gin), liqueurs (such as Kahlua, Carolans Irish Cream and Tia Maria) and a solid selection of wines and champagnes.

As much as Corby honours its past, its focus today is very much on the future.

In 1991, the historic plant in Corbyville was shut down, at a cost of approximately 170 jobs. Production and bottling work now takes place at Hiram Walker plants in Windsor, Ont. and Kelowna, B.C., and at the Corby-owned plant de Kuyper Canada in Quebec.

Philosophically, Chubb says, the company has also made a significant shift, moving away from its long-standing strategy of growth through acquisition to focus instead on cultivating what it already has in its portfolio. ‘We came to the conclusion that our growth was going to come from organic growth rather than going out and buying new things,’ he explains.

Perhaps most symbolic of the new Corby is its decision to seek out a new home. Last year, the company left behind the Montreal headquarters it had occupied for the past several decades, and set up shop in Toronto’s historic Heintzman Hall building on Yonge Street.

Also in this report:

– Bjarnason brings brands closer to customers: New focus reflects shift away from growth through acquisitions p.23

– Hoeg charts new course for Corby: Moves headquarters, commits to core brands p.24

– Long-running CC campaign the stuff adventures are made of: Why did it last 46 years? Simple: it worked p.25