Background
Mackie was born at Street Ninians, Stirling. His father, Alexander Mackie, was a distiller.
Mackie was born at Street Ninians, Stirling. His father, Alexander Mackie, was a distiller.
He was educated at Stirling High School and in 1878 joined his uncle"s firm, James L. Mackie & Company, at the Lagavulin distillery on Islay.
In the mid-1880s he became a founding partner in Mackie & Company, which was set up to market Lagavulin and other whiskies in London. In 1890 the two businesses amalgamated as Mackie & Company (Distillers) and began to blend White Horse. In 1895 Mackie"s became a limited company and Peter Mackie became chairman, a post he held until his death.
In 1924 the firm was renamed White Horse Distillers Limited and became a public company.
Mackie travelled and wrote extensively on politics, especially on tariff reform and Imperial Federation. In 1918 he made a gift of pedigree cattle to Rhodesia to encourage ranching and cattle breeding.
He also financed the Mackie Anthropological Expedition to Uganda. He was created a baronet in the 1920 Birthday Honours.
He was also a major landowner (owning 12,000 acres (49 km2) in Argyllshire), a Justice of the Peace for Argyllshire, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, and an active member of the Scottish Unionist Association, serving as chairman from 1922.