John Glaser worked for many years as a marketer at Johnnie Walker, then part of Diageo, when he concluded that blended Scotch whisky had lost its luster. In 2000, he founded Compass Box, based on the premise that a blend could be just as refined as a single malt — provided you assemble the whiskies with precision and audacity.
Compass Box does not distill anything itself: the company purchases malt and grain whisky from various Scottish distilleries and adds its signature in its own "Blending Room" in London, with experimental cask maturation and thoughtful proportions. In 2015, the company caused a stir by publicly disclosing the exact composition of several bottlings — an unusual step that clashed with the Scotch Whisky Association, but perfectly aligned with the brand's self-image.
The approach bore fruit: Compass Box has grown into one of the most awarded blenders in Scotland, and John Glaser was inducted into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame in 2020. Since 2024, whisky maker James Saxon has continued that work.