Tobermory Distillers

Tobermory Distillers History

Mull’s only distillery has a patchy history beset with closures and name changes as it was passed around from owner to owner. Founded in 1798 by local kelp merchant John Sinclair, the distillery was one of the first to take out a distilling licence in 1823.

It was closed for 40 years from 1837 and eventually landed in the lap of the DCL, which had acquired the distillery’s owner, John Hopkins & Co., in 1916. But the distillery fell silent again soon after, and remained that way for another four decades.

In 1972 a Liverpool shipping company, along with Pedro Domecq and ‘Panamanian interests’ formed Ledaig Distillery (Tobermory) Ltd, and reopened the distillery as Ledaig. Despite the best of intentions, the group filed for bankruptcy just three years later and the site closed once more.

Eventually, in 1979, Tobermory Distillers Ltd. was established by Kirkleavington Property Co. to acquire the distillery, which it renamed Tobermory. Sadly its efforts to restablish Tobermory distillery failed, and the site closed yet again only three years later, its buildings transformed into holiday lets and cheese storage facilities.

It wasn’t until 1993 when Burn Stewart Distillers bought the distillery buildings and its remaining stock that Tobermory once more had a future ahead of it. Tobermory Distillers was incorporated as a limited company in the same year and the company invested heavily in bringing the distillery back into production once more.

Today Tobermory Distillers Ltd remains a non-trading subsidiary of Burn Stewart, which is now owned itself by South African wine and spirits group Distell.