Oban Distillery

Oban Dis­tillery is a whisky dis­tillery in the Scot­tish west coast port of Oban. The town of Oban in Argyll sprung up around the dis­tillery after it was built. The dis­tillery only has two pot stills, mak­ing it one of the small­est in Scot­land. Oban is cur­rently owned by Diageo.

His­tory

The dis­tillery was built in 1794 by the broth­ers John and Hugh Steven­son and oper­ated by him until 1866 when it was bought by Peter Curn­stie. It was then acquired by Wal­ter Hig­gin in 1883 and rebuilt. In 1898, Alexan­der Edward, who also owned Ault­more Dis­tillery, bought out Hig­gin. In its first year of oper­a­tion, it suf­fered major losses when a major blend­ing com­pany, Pattison’s of Leith, went under. In 1923, Oban was sold to Dewars and joined Dis­tillers Com­pany Lim­ited with that com­pany in 1925. It fell silent from 1931 until 1937 and again from 1969 to 1972 when a new still house was built. In 1989 a new vis­i­tors’ cen­tre was installed.

Bot­tlings

The Oban dis­tillery is pri­mar­ily known for its aged 14 years sin­gle malt Scotch, which is mar­keted as part of United Dis­tillers’ Clas­sic Malts range, launched in 1988. Recently they intro­duced “Oban Distiller’s Edi­tion” in which the whisky is fin­ished in a sherry cask prior to bottling.