Illustrative cocktail preparation, not the Monkey Shoulder event or team described. Photo: Pexels4818238, cropped and framed. Pexels licence.

Monkey Shoulder was selling very little, Maurice Doyle recalls, when colleagues at William Grant & Sons discussed whether to stop backing it. He remembers the brand being three or four years into its life. But a visit to an event, encouraged by a brand ambassador, revealed younger men and women drinking it in cocktails. To Doyle, their response was a reason to continue. He told the Maffeo Drinks Podcast about that early uncertainty in April 2026.

It is a revealing contrast: the sales total looked disappointing, while the way some people were using the product suggested a possibility worth pursuing. What followed was not simply passive persistence. Monkey Shoulder continued putting whisky into cocktail settings, with bartenders playing a central role.

A different place for Scotch

William Grant & Sons dates Monkey Shoulder's launch to 2005, describing a blend of Speyside single malts intended for mixing. That put the drinking occasion, rather than a distillery visit or an age statement, at the centre of its appeal.

In a 2018 interview with The Spirits Business, William Grant's head of whisk(e)y, Jonny Cornthwaite, described an ambition to reach people who did not already drink whisky. He said master blender Brian Kinsman had designed the flavour for cocktails. Cornthwaite also resisted defining the audience by age: the opportunity was a shared approach to drinking Scotch, rather than a particular generation. The company supported that approach through Camp Monkey and its Ultimate Bartender Championship, building relationships with the people making the drinks.

Those choices matter commercially. A bartender can give an unfamiliar spirit a role in a drink the customer already understands. The first question need not be whether someone wants to become a Scotch enthusiast. It can be whether they enjoy what is in their glass.

The event gave Doyle a view of the brand that the sales total could not: Scotch being enjoyed in cocktails by people he did not associate with its traditional audience.

The work continued beyond the early doubts

By 2018, the brand was making its mixing proposition unusually visible. In a February announcement, Monkey Shoulder introduced a US touring cocktail vehicle modelled on a cement mixer. It was due to debut at Arizona Cocktail Week, serving a cocktail with whisky, mint, sugar, soda and lemon. An ambassador and a brand associate would present it to attendees.

The vehicle was an extravagant execution of a straightforward idea: let people encounter Scotch as a mixed drink. A small brand need not copy the spectacle to understand what it demonstrated. The message was being delivered through the experience of drinking, rather than relying only on a claim about how whisky could be used.

There were also results beyond event attendance. The Spirits Business reported that Monkey Shoulder entered the US in 2012, exceeded 200,000 cases globally in 2014 and reached 311,000 cases in 2017. These figures describe a later commercial trajectory. They do not establish how much any particular event or bartender programme contributed to it.

The bartender focus has endured. In February 2026, Tales of the Cocktail Foundation announced a partnership with Monkey Shoulder for a skills-based championship across its US tour stops. The announced challenges included service, pouring accuracy, sensory knowledge and making drinks under time pressure. This was a programme around the bartender's job, not only a contest for the most elaborate recipe.

The backing behind the brand

Monkey Shoulder had William Grant & Sons' whisky-making expertise, established spirits portfolio and commercial organisation behind it. The 2018 US announcement identifies a wholly owned American subsidiary, founded in 1964, whose portfolio included Glenfiddich, The Balvenie and Hendrick's. This was a brand developing within an experienced producer with an existing sales network, not a founder building every relationship alone.

Doyle's recollection is not a full account of the brand's early finances. That difference in backing matters: an independent founder financing the next few months cannot simply borrow the same timescale.

A smaller decision for a smaller brand

For a founder financing the next few months, the useful question is more specific than how long Monkey Shoulder took. What, exactly, would the next investment help the brand find out?

Suppose an independent spirit has had little response through general retail, but its cocktails interest a few neighbourhood bars. The founder has a choice: keep spending broadly, stop, or concentrate a limited test on bars with a credible reason to serve the drink.

The third option requires active selling. Talk to the owners and bartenders about their menus, price and customers. Work with a local partner who can introduce suitable venues and help staff understand the serve. Agree in advance how much time and money the test can use, and what would justify another round of investment. A menu placement and a repeat case order may matter more to that decision than a crowded tasting.

Rejection is useful too, if the brand understands it. A bar that likes the drink but cannot make the margin is a different problem from one whose customers do not order it. The response should change the next move, whether that means adjusting the offer, trying a better-matched buyer or stopping the test.

This is where Lexir can help a smaller brand act on what it is learning. Brands can develop direct sales with chosen buyers and local partners, get samples to interested venues and give them a workable way to order. Combining those conversations with first orders and repeat purchases helps the brand decide where another investment is justified. The order record shows what happened; the conversation helps explain why.

Monkey Shoulder's early audience response was a reason to investigate further, not permission to ignore weak sales. For another brand, the next step may be a narrower test rather than a bigger budget. The value of that test is whether it changes the decision.