Whisky Names Explained: King Charles Blended

From time to time, newly crowned monarchs have products named after them. But the freshly ascended King Charles III did not immediately receive the honor of having a Scotch bear his name.

The namesake of King Charles Blended Scotch Whisky is in fact his “predecessor,” King Charles II of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, who reigned from 1660 until his death in 1685. He had technically been crowned as early as 1645, because the age of King Charles II was a tumultuous chapter in the history of the monarchy.

His father, King Charles I, entered the history books in 1645 as the first, and so far only, sitting English monarch to be executed.

His son was crowned immediately afterward, but before he could truly take the throne, power was seized by the infamous Oliver Cromwell. He declared England a republic—and then condemned a third of the Irish population to death by famine.

After Cromwell’s death in 1659, a political crisis erupted in England, and royalists put forward a plan to restore the monarchy. This became the so-called Restoration of 1660. King Charles II was able to return from exile, which he had spent in France, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Under his rule—perhaps thanks in part to what he learned on the European continent—there was a renewed appreciation for the arts and culture. And an appreciation for a certain spirit called whisky.

King Charles II was a great admirer of the “water of life” and championed the industry, earning him a place as a kind of patron saint of both the arts and whisky. That’s why he has the honor of appearing on the bottle of King Charles Blended Scotch Whisky.

In the Netherlands, King Charles II is often seen in a slightly different light. He was the monarch responsible for the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars, fought from 1665–1667 and 1672–1674.

In the former, King Charles II suffered a stinging humiliation at the hands of one Michiel de Ruyter, who sailed a small fleet up the River Medway and towed the HMS Royal Charles, the English flagship, back to the Netherlands. So we can regard King Charles Blended Scotch Whisky with a wry little smile.

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