Bowmore | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

is a whisky distillery on the Scottish isle of Islay, in the Inner Hebrides. The distillery is located in the town of Bowmore, on the shore of Loch Indaal, and its 1779 founding makes it one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, and the oldest on Islay. The distillery was first established by David Simson and was later taken over by James Mutter; the Mutter family retained the distillery until 1887, when it was sold to John Sherriff of Campbeltown, and in 1963 the Bowmore Distillery Company was acquired by Stanley P. Morrison. Today, Bowmore is owned by Morrison Bowmore Distillers, a holding company that also owns the Auchentoshan and Glen Garioch distilleries, which was purchased by Suntory (now Beam Suntory) in 1994. See Suntory. The distillery produces a highly regarded malt whisky using its own floor-malted barley grown on the island, supplemented by malted barley from the Scottish mainland; per Islay tradition, Bowmore uses a peated malt, giving its whisky a distinctive smoky edge. See floor malting. The distillery’s water source is the River Laggan, and the whisky is distilled using two wash stills and two spirit stills; annual capacity is around two million liters. Bowmore’s maturation warehouses are adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean; during the Second World War, the distillery was closed and the buildings were utilized by the RAF Coastal Command.