Cutty Sark (whisky) the famous poem by Robert Burns, "Tam o' Shanter". The drawing of the clipper ship "Cutty Sark" on the label of the whisky bottles is a work of the Swedish artist Carl Georg August Wallin. He was a mariner painter, and this is probably his most famous ship painting. This drawing has been on the whisky bottles since 1955. The Tall Ships' Races for large sailing ships were originally known as The Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races, under the terms of sponsorship by the whisky brand. Cutty Sark was originally distributed in the United States by Buckingham Co., which was
George Thompson (shipowner) was designed for this trade. On her maiden voyage in 1869 she broke records for London to Melbourne, Newcastle (NSW) to Shanghai and Foochow to London. Ousted from the tea trade by steamers in 1879, Thermopylae was deployed as a wool clipper on the Australian trade. In both the Chinese tea trade and the Australian wool trade her chief rival was Cutty Sark. Thermopylae was one of only two composite (i.e. iron and hardwood) ships owned by Thompson. Thereafter his ships were mainly constructed of iron. They included Patriarch and Samuel Plimsoll. George Thompson had adopted the famous loadline recommendations