 The distillery was established in 1839 by entrepreneur Alexander Matheson, who after 28 years decided it was time to pass the distillery onto new owners.Andrew and Charles Mackenzie came forward, and as members of the clan Mackenzie they brought with them the iconic 12-pointed Royal Stag emblem, the "caberfeidh" which has adorned every bottle of The Dalmore.Operations ran fairly smoothly at the distillery until 1917, when the British Royal Navy began to use the firth next to the distillery as a site for the production of deep-sea mines.