When speaking of the many new distilleries to have set up and commenced operations in the last 10 years, we often refer to them as “the new kid on the block”. Which is fair enough if you set up in the Highlands and you’re one of many distilleries already established in the area. But what happens if you’re the new kid on the block and the old kid on the block has had the block all to himself for over 187 years? Such is the lot of Torabhaig Distillery.
Torabhaig Distillery is many things but, to a lot of whisky enthusiasts, one suspects it will long be referred to as the other distillery on the Isle of Skye. It is just the second distillery on the island, joining, of course, the long-established Talisker. Talisker has waved the flag on Skye since 1830; Torabhaig’s spirit first started flowing from the stills in 2017. So how does a new distillery get going in the shadow of a bigger and long-established neighbour? The formula is pretty simple: Do things properly and do them well. And Torabhaig doing things both properly and well is precisely what I observed during a very pleasant morning visit to the distillery on a warm summer’s day.
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