Bowmore Voyage

About The Brand: Bowmore

On the Isle of Islay, an island in the Inner Hebrides, there is a distillery called Bowmore that creates Scotch whisky. One of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, it is located on the south-eastern coast of Loch Indaal. It is the oldest operating distillery on Islay and is reported to have been founded in 1779. Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd., a holding company owned by Beam Suntory, a division of Japanese multinational beverage corporation Suntory, is the owner of the distillery. The Auchentoshan and Glen Garioch distilleries are both owned by Morrison Bowmore, which also creates the McClelland's Single Malt line of bottles. John P. Simson, a local trader, founded the Bowmore Distillery in 1779. Later, the German-American Mutter family acquired possession of the distillery. The family's leader, James Mutter, was vice consul and represented the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Brazil through their consulates in Glasgow. He also had farming interests. No documents exist that specify when Mutter bought the distillery from Simpson. During his tenure at the distillery, Mutter would implement a number of novel procedures and even had a small iron steam ship constructed to import barley and coal from the mainland and to export the whisky to Glasgow. In September 2007, a bottle of 1850 Bowmore Single Malt brought £29,400 at auction. The distillery was shut down in 1915, and J.B. Sheriff & Co. acquired it from the Mutter family in 1925. It remained in their hands until 1950, when William Grigor & Son, Ltd. of Inverness acquired it. The Bowmore Distillery stopped making whiskey during World War II and served as a base for the RAF Coastal Command, which flew flying boats on anti-submarine warfare operations off of Loch Indaal. In order to acquire the Bowmore Distillery, Stanley P. Morrison and James Howat founded Stanley P. Morrison Ltd. in 1951. This business then established Morrison's Bowmore Distillery, Ltd. in 1963. Following the passing of Stanley P. Morrison in 1971, Brian Morrison assumed ownership of the businesses. The corporate name has been modified a little, and after a little amount of reorganization, Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd., which is ultimately controlled by the Japanese distiller Suntory, now owns the distillery. Suntory acquired Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd. in 1994. For many years prior, Suntory has been a Morrison Bowmore stakeholder.