Article by Don Smith / Photography by Josianne Masseau

Muskoka is well-known as being home to individuals who have interesting life experiences, fascinating careers and recognitions for their accomplishments.

For most Muskokans who are connoisseurs of fine single-malt whiskys from Scotland, they might not know there is a Keeper of the Quaich in their midst – a member of the exclusive, international society that recognizes, rewards and celebrates those who have shown an outstanding commitment to Scotland’s whisky industry.

Todd McDonald, who moved to Bracebridge in 2020 with his wife, Bonnie, traces his family roots to the Isle of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.

Early in his career, while telling his family about a planned business trip with his employer to a distillery on the Isle of Mull, McDonald was surprised to learn from his father, “That’s where we’re from.”

He was thrilled when representatives from the Tobermory distillery on the Isle of Mull, one of the oldest in Scotland, presented him with a book on the community where his family had lived. They also showed him old photos of staff at the distillery, many of whom were McDonalds. While not certain which ones, he suspects some of them must be relatives. Emigrating to the Beaverton-Cannington area of Ontario, his family has been in Canada since 1827.

Growing up in Scarborough, McDonald started college at 17 and was, he says, “…not sure what I wanted to do in life.” While taking a marketing and administration course at Seneca College, McDonald was getting advice from a sales professor who “…told me not to go into sales. So, that’s when I decided I would go into sales.” And the rest is history.

To support his extracurricular activities at college, McDonald was employed unloading trucks at Wine Rack. He couldn’t work with customers in the store until he turned 18 but shortly after graduating from college, he became a manager at the Newmarket location. Soon afterwards, he added the Richmond Hill outlet to his responsibilities.

Timing and a willingness to take on new challenges have been hallmarks of McDonald’s career. Such was the case at Wine Rack. Working to expand the company’s outside sales, he caught the eye of management and by the time he was 24, McDonald had become a district manager with a portfolio of 55 stores.

McDonald says he found it surprising that so many 50-year-olds at the time were satisfied to work for the wine retailer with him as their much younger supervisor. While McDonald was happy with the progress he was making during his 11-year career at Wine Rack, a change in ownership saw the company cut staff and change much of its management.

Again, fortune smiled on McDonald when he responded to a small advertisement that caught his eye in the Toronto Star from Peter Mielzynski Agencies Ltd. (PMA). The company, which would grow to become Canada’s leading wine and spirits agency, was looking for a wine sales representative. Interviewed by Peter Mielzynski Jr., the son of PMA’s founder, McDonald hit it off immediately. Overcoming an objection from the firm’s sales manager, he was hired to service locations throughout eastern Ontario.

Getting to know about these small-town businesses and the families of the owners was very important to McDonald as he grew his accounts.

“It’s always about relationships,” advises McDonald, who disagrees with more current philosophies that question this sales approach. It was a philosophy that would serve him even better, later in his career, working with European wineries and distilleries.

McDonald’s style worked well, seeing him become new business development manager at PMA. His next challenge was as national director of wines, spirits and beers where he was tasked with attracting suppliers to the agency’s growing portfolio.

Describing that position as an amazing on-the-job education, McDonald says his employer invested the better part of half a million dollars in travel expenses over 15 years while he gained knowledge at the same time as he signed contracts with new suppliers.

“Instead of learning from books, I learned from people who did it,” says McDonald of his excursions around the world to visit wineries, distilleries and breweries where he talked with the vintners, distillers and brewers. “I got a real education,” he says.

With that knowledge in his toolkit, McDonald would return to Canada where he would advise the company’s sales team and represent the growing collection of brands to liquor control boards and other buyers from coast-to-coast. Often, his work meant attention to details; some as tricky as navigating the labelling and packaging requirements that can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Part of McDonald’s value-added sales approach included staff training for large buyers, assisting with food pairings, developing wine and spirit lists, and sourcing brands that would provide unique offerings for different businesses.

Introduced to Aperol Spritz during one of this many trips to Italy, McDonald tells the story of offering the product to one of his Italian restaurant customers who agreed to take the minimum order of 250 cases – a fairly substantial leap of faith. The product was such a hit in that first year, says McDonald, “they didn’t do one order; they did three orders.”

Among the achievements that bring a smile to McDonald’s face is selling the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) the most expensive product they had ever bought at the time – two bottles of a Balvenie single malt whisky from Scotland that had been aged for 50 years. Each bottle had a selling price of $30,000. With a bit of showmanship in his blood, McDonald made special plans for the delivery of these bottles.

“I called Brink’s,” says McDonald. With lots of media attention, two armed guards from the armoured-vehicle company delivered the bottles to the LCBO’s Summerhill store in the heart of Toronto, often referred to as one of the company’s flagship locations.

He continues to laugh when he finishes the story by saying one of the buyers of the two bottles used the subway to transport his $30,000 purchase to his restaurant in east Toronto.

With this and many other whisky-related accomplishments to his credit, McDonald came to the attention of the management committee of the Keepers of the Quaich Society who make the final decision on whether or not a nominee is accepted to membership. It is important the nomination  “…reflects the outstanding work that the nominee has contributed to the Scotch whisky industry,” says the society’s website.

In McDonald’s case, while he had associations with a number of distilleries, it was his promotion and sales of 30-year-old Glenfiddich single malt whisky that resulted in the distillery putting forward his nomination.

While Keepers of the Quaich are most likely to be distillery executives, distillers, blenders and those who are known for promoting whisky, other notable Keepers – past and present – include King Charles, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Sir Rod Stewart and the late Sir Sean Connery. With an estimated 3,000 Keepers throughout the world, today, it is a distinction reserved for a very few and even more of a recognition for McDonald, who was inducted in 2005 when there were fewer than 1,600 Keepers.

And the ceremony to install Keepers is every bit as impressive as its name and Scottish heritage would suggest. Taking place in Blair Castle, the oldest part of which dates back to1269, the twice-yearly banquet and induction ceremonies are described as “the pinnacle” of the society’s activities.

Blair Castle is the fortress of the Earls and Dukes of Atholl and home to the only legal private army in Europe, the Atholl Highlanders. The infantry regiment plays a pivotal role in the Ceremony of Induction.

Both Todd and Bonnie McDonald will attest to the pomp and flourish which is a part of the banquet. Literally receiving “the red-carpet treatment,” the McDonalds felt like royalty while staying at the nearby Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry. Throughout the time they were there for the ceremonies, they received personal invitations to other castles and Scottish attractions, as well as traditional gifts, as guests of other Keepers.

At the induction ceremony, each Keeper is decked out in their own, personally-fitted kilt, made in the Keepers’ tartan. The Master of the Quaich reads the accomplishment of each newly inducted Keeper who is then pinned with a Keeper’s medal, a cummerbund made from an original Keepers’ tartan and their personally engraved quaich. A two-handled cup, which is used for sharing whisky with visitors, quaiches (pronounced quakes) have a history in Scotland dating back as much as 500 years and possibly as far back as the Viking invasions.

After finishing his career with PMA, McDonald took almost two years off to de-stress from his constant world travels and resolving issues with his international roster of suppliers. He eventually realized he was not one to sit quietly at home. Today, McDonald continues to share his knowledge and passion for quality wines and spirits as a customer service representative at the Bracebridge outlet of the LCBO. With a sense of pride, McDonald says many of the brands on the store shelves were ones brought to Canada by him and members of his marketing team.

“Whisky is a personal thing for me,” says McDonald, noting his feeling of “personal pride” in discovering his family’s connection to whisky. “It’s come full circle from generation to generation,” he concludes.