The independent bottling company Murray McDavid was founded in 1994 by Springbank’s Gordon Wright alongside Simon Coughlin and Mark Reynier, the owners of London wine merchants La Réserve, with the Murray McDavid moniker coming from Reynier’s grandparents’ surnames. The company's logo gave a hint of their maverick nature - a West Highland terrier along with the motto 'Clachan a Choin', a loose Gaelic translation of The Dog's Bollocks.

Murray McDavid were among the first independent bottlers to commit to bottling their products at a minimum strength 46% and reject the use of colouring or chill filtration. The combination of Wright’s contacts and knowledge of the whisky business with Coughlin and Reynier’s experience in wine broking was a winning one, and the company was soon bottling top class malts from the likes of Springbank, Macallan, Bowmore, Glen Grant and Laphroaig. 

Having lost out to Glenmorangie in the sale of Ardbeg in 1997, Murray McDavid bought the dilapidated Bruichladdich distillery in 2000. The resurrected Bruichladdich quickly became a spectacular success, with Reynier and manager Jim McEwan embracing the emerging trend for wine-finished whisky with great enthusiasm. In 2012 Murray McDavid was acquired by Rémy Cointreau, who sold the company in 2013 to the commercial whisky broking and bottling company Aceo Ltd, based at the former Coleburn distillery.