This colorless liquid is slightly soluble in water, but miscible with diethyl ether and ethanol.

Two additional straight chain isomers of 1-hexanol, 2-hexanol and 3-hexanol, exist, both of which differing by the location of the hydroxyl group.

Hexanol is produced industrially by the oligomerization of ethylene using triethylaluminium followed by oxidation of the alkylaluminium products.

[3] An idealized synthesis is shown: The process generates a range of oligomers that are separated by distillation.

[3] In principle, 1-hexene could be converted to 1-hexanol by hydroboration (diborane in tetrahydrofuran followed by treatment with hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide): This method is instructive and useful in laboratory synthesis but of no practical relevance because of the commercial availability of inexpensive 1-hexanol from ethylene.