We sell gift vouchers - for more details call us on 0115 911 0555 or email us at eann@gauntleys.com
We sell gift vouchers - for more details call us on 0115 911 0555 or email us at eann@gauntleys.com
Region: Highlands (Skye)
Owner: Mossburn Distillers (Marussia Beverages)
Founded: 2017
The history, albeit fairly brief as it’s a new distillery doesn’t start with the company that finally constructed it. The distillery’s story starts a number of years before then. Back in 1972, Sir Iain Noble, the founder of Noble Grossart, Scotland’s first modern merchant bank, moved to the Isle of Skye He purchased 20,000 acres of land, including a hotel at Isle Ornsay, which had been part of Lord Macdonald’s estate and was being sold in order to pay death duties.
Noble also had a fondness whisky and had founded the independent blender and bottler Pràban na Linne (Gaelic Whiskies) in 1976. His plan was to convert a 19th century listed farm steading at Torabhaig into a distillery and by 2002 he had obtained planning permission. Unfortunately, he was never to see this plan come to fruition as sadly passed away in 2010 after a long illness.
Around the same time, Mossburn Distillers, a subsidiary of Dutch drinks group Marussia Beverages, was also scoping out the island as a possible location for its own distillery project. Apparently, they hadn’t considered the renovation and preservation of a historic building for its project, but the Torabhaig farm steading seemed like an ideal place for it.
Just like the building of the new Lagg distillery on the Isle of Aran, Torabhaig had its challenges, apart from the sometimes wild and woolly weather on Skye, there was the restrictions of renovating a listed building. The doorways weren’t large enough to get the washbacks and stills in and they could just knock down a wall or two, so the architects devised an ingenious removable slate roof, so they were able to lower everything in through the roof using a crane. Also, if they ever need to replace any of the kit, then the same method can be employed.
Unlike a number of the newer Scottish distilleries that have used multiple cask types in order to cerate an end product with a good degree of complexity, Torabhaig have decided to fill almost exclusively into American oak and basically let the spirit do the talking. So, they have opted for a reasonably long wort fermentation of 90 hours, to set the spirit up with a good fruity base. But it is peat that will be the main focus of the spirit and although it is relatively heavily peated, that peat doesn’t roar at you like a force nine gale, rather the distillery has created a spirit with a flavour profile that we describe as Well-Tempered Peat and I’m not going to disagree with that assertion!
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