Location: Midway between the Caledonian and Crinan canals.

Visitors Centre: Open all year, Tel: (Scotland) 01631 564262.
Daily opening hours: Mon to Fri 0930 to 1700.

The Distillery
The town of Oban is also known as the 'Gateway to the Isles'. Two brothers, the Stevensons settled here in 1778 and greatly enriched the hamlet, as it was then, with their business activities ranging from slate quarrying to shipbuilding. In 1794 Hugh Stevenson built the Oban Distillery, hiring an experienced Lowland distiller to manage the whole operation.

The distillery remained in the hands of the family until 1866 and was eventually acquired by one Walter Higgin (1883). By this time Oban was a busy port with wool, whisky, slate, and kelp being shipped to Liverpool and Glasgow by steamship. The railway also brought in a new wave of prosperity to the area: tourism with the first scheduled passenger trains arriving from Glasgow in 1880. Higgin made many improvements to the distillery with solid rockface behind it blasted away to accommodate the enlargements.

In 1898, Alexander Edward, owner of Aultmore Distillery, bought Higgin out. In its first year the Oban and Aultmore Distilleries Ltd. suffered near fatal loses, when the major blending company Patterson's of Leith collapsed.

In 1923 Aultmore was acquired by John Dewar & Sons and Oban by a new company, Oban Distillery Co. This in turn came under the wing of DCL when Scottish Malt Distillers bought the entire capital share in 1930.