With
a history dating as far back as 1913, the Distilleries Company
of Sri Lanka PLC has the distinctive merit of being the
pioneering distillery in the country. It took almost a century
to build Sri Lanka’s largest distillery and we are proud
of our heritage and the consistent acclamation of our products
over the years.
In 1913, the Excise Department of Ceylon was created to distil,
manufacture and bottle liquor in Sri Lanka. Later, the State
Distilleries Corporation was incorporated by statute to take
over these functions, and the Excise Department continued to
operate as the monitoring authority.
The Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC came into being
in 1989 and took over the assets and liabilities of the State
Distilleries Corporation. In the liberalised economic climate
of recent times and with the marked shift towards privatisation,
the majority stake of DCSL was sold to the highest bidder on
the Colombo Stock Exchange in 1992. In February of that year
The Stassen Group, one of the most dynamic and successful companies
in Sri Lanka, bought a controlling interest in DCSL. To date,
this transaction is the single largest recorded in the history
of the CSE.
History
