Bowmore was the first of Islay's distilleries to receive a license, springing fully-formed into official existence in 1779. It is likely that the founder of the distillery, one William Simson, had been been distilling in Bowmore since shortly after his arrival in 1766, at a time when Daniel Campbell the Younger (the laird of the island) was expanding the village into the island's capital. The distillery passed through four owners before 1963, when it was bought by the Morrison family, who sold to the Japanese whisky company Suntory in 1994.
