Torabhaig distillery: Skye’s not the limit

In summer one of Scotland’s most touristic corners, the Isle of Skye’s warm, welcoming embrace becomes a cold handshake in the depths of December. Its dramatic, granite-grey peaks rise from the North Atlantic to tickle the underside of the dense cloud layer like a scene from a fantasy film, enshrouding the island’s rocky coastline in deep shadow, while rain and wind whipped at our car as we crossed the Skye Bridge, leaving mainland Scotland behind.

This was my first visit to Skye, and it would come courtesy of a truly epic car ride from Bruce Perry, the Global Brand Manager of Torabhaig Distillery, which I had flown up from London to come see first hand. Upon landing at Inverness Airport on a blustery mid-afternoon, I met up with Bruce to discover that he had traversed the Highlands from Skye to Inverness that morning, only to drive me all the way back to the distillery on the island, stopping at a number of jaw-dropping viewpoints on the way.

To an outsider taking a first glance, Torabhaig could be lumped with the overused – and often derogatory – label of “disruptor”, along with so many recently launched business ventures. After all, when one thinks of Skye whisky, they think of Talisker; that distillery, founded in 1830, has proudly waved its “only distillery on Skye” flag for the best part of 200 years. But in 2017, following the frankly astonishing renovation of a ruined farmhouse in the village of Teangue on the opposite side of the island, Torabhaig revved up its production line, and Talisker has had to settle for being merely the oldest distillery on Skye. I’m sure they’ll live.

But disruption was never the goal Torabhaig, nor its parent company Mossburn Distillers, were aiming at – that was and remains making good whisky – and down in Teangue (rather counterintuitively pronounced “Chang”), they’ve combined forces to score a 30-yard screamer.

Originally constructed in the 19th century but left in a practically ruined state by decades of abandonment, the farm steading which now houses Torabhaig’s distillery is now a thriving, bustling environment in which distillers, gift shop cashiers, cafe staff and the intrepid tourists who find their way there shuttle back and forth across the grounds. Countering the weather outside, it’s a warm place, rich with the reverence for whisky making that this fiddly, endlessly complex process deserves. Having found our feet after the lengthy drive, we were immediately led to the production room, ripe with the smell of malt, and weaved among the towering traditional wooden washbacks as we were told of the distillery’s past, present and future. 

Upon entering a tasting room at the far end of the distillery, we were presented with a tray of whiskies and so-called “new make” – high-proof alcoholic liquid that comes straight from the still without undergoing the necessary three-year aging process required in order to be labeled whisky. First up, rather fittingly, was the Legacy Series 2017, the brand’s first release. Three years in the making and crafted by a team made up almost exclusively of native Skye residents, February 2021 saw this expression unleashed on the public; a robustly vanilla-tinged offering with hints of spice and smoke as it settles on the tongue, this is not a bad start for Torabhaig by any means. As the rather detailed bottle copy notes, the 2017 was made with concerto barley with in-grain phenols of 55-60ppm and bottled without chill-filtration or added colouring, allowing it a naturally pale amber tint.

Even in their wildest dreams, the Torabhaig team couldn’t have envisaged the heights this whisky would hit, selling out its initial run in record time. As a result, later the same year, the distillery released the second in the Legacy Series, Allt Gleann, named for the burn or stream that flows downhill beside the old farmhouse, from where the water for the brand’s whiskies is plucked.

Straying from the gentle richness of the 2017, the Allt Gleann is an entirely different beast. It is essentially Skye in a bottle, replete with both the maritime saltiness that (literally) comes with the storm-lashed territory, and a textbook smokiness that Torabhaig itself describes as “Well-Tempered Peat”.

But while these expressions have turned heads in the whisky world, it is the distillery’s future that has connoisseurs truly excited. Having already begun the process of launching their single malt gradually over seven years under the Legacy Series name, Torabhaig will eventually release a total of four expressions by 2028, at which point they will finally unveil their highly anticipated 10-year-old, which is sure to be a showstopper.

Uniquely, while the release of the Legacy Series expressions will allow the distillery to hone and perfect their production, as well as finding their niche, ahead of the 10-year-old, an intriguing and somewhat unusual side project of the distillery is also underway. The distilling team, formed of just nine young workers, are being afforded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to each produce their own small batch of whisky in which anything goes. They have been given the chance to customise every last detail of their expression, from the barley and peat to the cut and cask. It’s a remarkable gift for the staff here, and an impressive display of trust in their work by the distillery; Torabhaig feels more like a family-run business than many actual bloodline-based enterprises.

If preparation is an art, Torabhaig is its Picasso. Most distilleries, had they taken a rubble-strewn farmhouse in rural Skye to the heights of whisky making, would perhaps have skipped a step or two, missing opportunities left and right to catapult their brand into the stratosphere straight from the off. But no matter how hard I looked, I could not see any evidence of this at Torabhaig. From their production schedule to their carefully curated tours, there were no steps left forgone and no bases left uncovered; they have even quietly introduced an exclusive members club amusingly dubbed the Peat Elite. It is a distillery that knew what it wanted and would stop at nothing to get it, and thus was destined for greatness from the off through an insatiable appetite for planning, allowing it to plunge itself to the Scotch scene not with a gentle hop but a fireworks-backed skydive.

torabhaig.com