In 1846 Hector Henderson, a Glasgow distillery owner, chose a small bay in Islay Sound as the location for his distillery. He named it after the Sound, "Caol Ila" in Gaelic. In the following two decades, the distillery changed hands three times, is rebuilt and expanded. In 1879 Caol Ila was given its own pier, allowing steamships to deliver raw materials and load whiskey for sale on the mainland, which helped the distillery to gradually develop into the largest distillery on Islay.
