The story starts in a wood machinist's workshop at Marshall Amplification in Bletchley, where Andy Lambourne spent four decades crafting the components that would become part of rock and roll history. While musicians around the world cranked Marshall amps to deafening volumes, Lambourne quietly tucked away an unusual collection—18 bottles of whisky he never intended to drink.
Now, those bottles are heading to auction, carrying with them a piece of music history that most people never knew existed.
Lambourne joined Marshall Amplification in 1972, the same year the company celebrated its first decade of shaking concert halls and recording studios with its signature sound. For 44 years, he worked as a wood machinist at the Bletchley factory, watching the company grow from a workshop operation into a global icon of rock music.
Starting in 1996, something became tradition at the Marshall factory. Each Christmas, employees received a bottle of Inchmurrin single malt whisky, specially produced by the Loch Lomond Distillery. These weren't bottles anyone could walk into a shop and buy. They existed solely for the people who built the amplifiers that powered generations of rock music.
The bottles themselves told the Marshall story. Some labels featured drums. Others displayed the Union Jack or images of Marshall amps in all their glory. A few bore the likeness of Jim Marshall himself—the man his colleagues called "the father of loud."
"I've never been much of a spirits drinker so I hung on to my bottles over the years," Lambourne explained. "I have a feeling most of my colleagues might have drunk theirs."
That decision to leave the bottles unopened turned out to be significant. Year after year, as Christmas came around, Lambourne added another bottle to his collection. His coworkers likely enjoyed their bottles during holiday celebrations. Lambourne just kept saving his.
The tradition continued until 2012, when Jim Marshall passed away at age 88. With his death, the custom-bottled whisky program ended. No more Inchmurrin bottles with Marshall branding would ever be produced, making Lambourne's collection of 17 bottles from those years one of the most complete sets in existence.
But there's another bottle in the collection that stands apart from the rest.
When Lambourne reached 40 years of service with Marshall Amplification, the company presented him with something extraordinary. It was a Marshall 50-year-old Islay blended malt, created to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary in 2012. Only 228 bottles were ever produced.
The box proclaims "Fifty Years of Loud," a fitting tribute to a company that built its reputation on volume and power. Most of these rare bottles went to Jim Marshall's famous friends in the music industry—the guitarists and bassists who made Marshall amps synonymous with rock and roll.
Stuart Palmer heads the wines and spirits department at Hansons Auctioneers, the Derby-based firm handling the sale. He recognizes what makes these bottles special goes beyond their age or scarcity.
"This special series of very rare bottlings were only given out to Marshall Amplification's employees each Christmas," Palmer said. "They were never sold outside the company and, with the death of Jim Marshall in 2012, aged 88, production ended – making them all the rarer and more sought after."
The 17-bottle Inchmurrin collection carries an estimate of £500 at the January 29 auction. The single 50-year-old Islay bottle is estimated between £200 and £400.
Jim Marshall's journey began far from the factory floors of Bletchley. In 1962, he started building amplifiers in the workshop behind his London music shop. Musicians kept asking for something louder, something that could cut through the drums and fill larger venues. Marshall delivered.
The distinctive Marshall sound and look—those black boxes with gold panels and white script—became as recognizable as the musicians who used them. Jimi Hendrix stacked them on stage. Jeff Beck plugged into them. Slash and Paul Weller made them part of their sonic signatures. Walk into almost any concert venue in the world, and there's a good chance you'll see Marshall cabinets on stage.
By 1967, demand had outgrown the London workshop. The company relocated to a dedicated facility in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. That's where it remains today, and that's where Lambourne spent his working life.
The facility wasn't just about production numbers and shipping schedules. People stayed. Lambourne's 44 years there tells its own story about the workplace culture Marshall created.
"It was a great place to work, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed there so long," Lambourne said.
Marshall's influence extended beyond amplifiers and business success. He received an MBE in 2003, recognizing both his contributions to the music industry and his charitable work. The Jim Marshall Charity continues that legacy today.
Just this year, Willen Hospice in Milton Keynes used funds from the Jim Marshall Charity to build a wellbeing room for patients. The man who spent his career making things louder also worked to make life better for people in his community.
Palmer sees the whisky collection as a window into that side of Marshall's character.
"As well as a legendary name in the music industry, Jim Marshall was clearing a generous man and caring employer, it is a privilege to be selling these much-loved bottles of whisky on behalf of the vendor," Palmer said.
The auction takes place at a moment when the music equipment world continues to recognize Marshall's lasting impact. New guitarists discover Marshall amps every day. Vintage models from the era when Lambourne was cutting wood for cabinets now command premium prices among collectors.
But these whisky bottles represent something different. They weren't made for collectors or investors. They were gifts for the people who showed up to work, who operated the machines, who assembled the components, who made the company possible.
Most of those bottles disappeared into Christmas celebrations, shared among friends or savored during quiet moments. Lambourne's discipline—or perhaps his simple preference for beer over spirits—preserved this collection.
The bottles sat in storage for years after Lambourne's retirement in 2016. Now they're about to enter the market, where collectors of rare whisky and Marshall memorabilia will have their chance.
For buyers, the appeal might be the rarity, the connection to music history, or the story behind each bottle. For Lambourne, the sale marks the end of his personal connection to items he never expected would matter to anyone beyond the factory walls.
The wood machinist who started work when Marshall Amplification was just ten years old watched the company become a global institution. He saw Jim Marshall build not just amplifiers but a community. He experienced firsthand the culture that kept employees around for decades.
Those 18 bottles of whisky were never meant to be valuable. They were thank-you gifts, tokens of appreciation, small gestures acknowledging another year of work. That they've become collectible items worth hundreds of pounds says something about how completely Marshall's legacy has permeated music culture.
On January 29, when the auctioneer's hammer falls, these bottles will find new homes. Collectors might keep them sealed, preserving them as artifacts of rock history. Others might actually open them, tasting whisky that was bottled during the years when grunge gave way to indie rock, when digital recording transformed studios, when the music industry itself underwent revolution.
Either way, they represent a bridge between the factory floor and the concert stage, between the craftsmen and the rock stars, between the everyday work of building amplifiers and the extraordinary sounds those amplifiers made possible.
Lambourne's long career at Marshall Amplification is over. His collection of Christmas gifts is moving on to new owners. But the amplifiers built during his four decades at the factory—those are still out there, still cranked up to eleven, still making noise.
Just as Jim Marshall intended.
