Oban Distillery

📌 Oban, Argyll & Bute
★★★

Half-past-the-crack-of-dawn every summer morning, the doors open and tourists pour in! With a central location in one of the Highlands’ most popular towns, Oban Distillery is always going to have a captive audience. Founded in 1794, this is one of Scotland’s oldest and smallest distilleries – in fact even older than Oban itself, with the town growing up around the distillery. Why small? Production buildings have always been hemmed in by cliffs and adjacent houses, preventing expansion. Instead – so they say – Oban Distillery focuses on quality rather than quantity, producing a rich, mostly lightly-peated malt which falls somewhere between the typical Highland and Island flavours. The tour has recently become quite expensive, and we found the trip to the production area a bit brief, though this deals with the crowds quite well. Numbers on each tour are limited so you still get a good chance to see what’s going on, and regular slots continue late into the evening during summer to squeeze in as many people as possible. No photos were permitted beyond the exhibition floor on our 2018 visit.