User blog comment:Stormwell/Dunwall Locations/@comment-24477775-20140131172012/@comment-1500935-20140131185546

Drapers Ward did not start as a clothing center for the aristocrats until Mortimer Hat and the others settle their businesses there. It was originally a simple textile production area with mills powered by the Millenary Canal and docks to export fabric across the Empire. I would see it more fit near other industrial areas, but still close enough to the rich parts of the city or else the clients would have not wandered so far into the commoners' districts.

The Hatters may had controlled the distillery once, but the building is at least a hundred years old (or perhaps that's the age of the traditional whiskey produced there). Being in business, Hat could have possessed the distillery before the Bottle Street boys went big in Dunwall, but that doesn't necessary mean it was near their territory.