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Distillery tours
on Skye.

It’s 21:03 on Skye.
Isle of Skye

Distillery tours and tastings.

A distillery tour is one of the best ways to spend a wet afternoon on Skye. You'll see how the barley, water and peat come together, walk through still houses and warehouses that smell of the sea and the casks, and finish with a tasting of the island's whisky. Each distillery has its own character and setting, from a loch-side village to a farm steading looking out to the mainland and a villa across the water on Raasay. Book ahead, especially in summer, and arrange a driver if you can.

Isle of Raasay Distillery→
Talisker Distillery→
Torabhaig Distillery→
Did you know20 hours ago

The Isle of Raasay Distillery's house is named after an Iron Age broch, a round stone tower that stands in ruins a short walk away.

The Victorian house that holds the distillery was built as Borodale House, and its name comes from Dun Borodale nearby. The broch once stood more than 20 feet tall. Today it is a scatter of stones in which a gallery in the wall, steps and a doorway can still be made out, and it makes a walk for anyone who would rather skip the tour.

See Isle of Raasay Distillery · Isle of Skye
True or false19 hours ago

True or false: Talisker, the oldest working distillery on Skye, malts its barley on the island.

Did you know18 hours ago

Talisker distillery on Skye works an odd number of stills, five, which may be a leftover from the days when it distilled its whisky three times.

Two wash stills do the first distilling and three spirit stills do the second. That uneven line-up is thought to go back to Talisker's years of triple distillation, when the spirit went through the stills a third time. The third distillation stopped in 1928, but the extra still stayed.

See Talisker Distillery · Isle of Skye
Tours17 hours agoIsle of SkyeTalisker DistilleryAttractionIsle of SkyeTorabhaig DistilleryAttractionIsle of SkyeIsle of Raasay DistillerySleeps 2

Distillery tours you can book.

From the mash tun to the cask, and a dram at the end of it.

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Did you know17 hours ago

The first legal spirit made on Raasay, an island of smugglers, was a gin.

Raasay has centuries of illicit distilling behind it. Legal distilling began only when the distillery opened in September 2017, and the first spirit it made was gin.

See Isle of Raasay Distillery · Isle of Skye
Quiz16 hours ago

When Talisker distillery was built on Skye in 1830, what did the local former minister, Roderick Macleod, call it?

New at Torabhaig Distillery15 hours ago

Torabhaig Distillery in Sleat has launched its Distillers' Series, whiskies made start to finish by its own distillers.

Each year two of the nine distillers take over the stills for a month and choose the malt, the yeast, the fermentation and the casks. The first two editions, one built on chocolate malt and one on a coastal, rum-cask style, are £75 and limited to 5,250 bottles each.

Photograph: MACM4C on Google MapsSee Torabhaig Distillery · Isle of Skye
Did you know14 hours ago

Robert Louis Stevenson named Talisker among the King o' drinks.

In 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson named Talisker in verse among the King o' drinks, alongside Islay and Glenlivet.

See Talisker Distillery · Isle of Skye
Quiz13 hours ago

In 1898 Talisker joined with a distillery that was then the largest single malt distillery in Speyside, to form one company. Which?

Did you know13 hours ago

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, named Talisker distillery's whisky one of his three 'king o' drinks'.

In a poem of 1880 written in Scots, Stevenson gave his verdict on Scotland's finest drink: the king o' drinks, he declared, was 'Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet'. The distillery on the shore of Loch Harport on Skye has been quoting him ever since.

See Talisker Distillery · Isle of Skye
Did you know12 hours ago

Torabhaig distillery on Skye was the plan of the banker Sir Iain Noble, who died before it could be built.

Noble, who founded Scotland's first modern merchant bank, Noble Grossart, moved to Skye in 1972 and gave much of his life to the island. He meant to turn a listed farm steading at Torabhaig in Sleat into a distillery, and had planning permission by 2002, but he died in 2010. Others took the plan on, and the first spirit ran in the old steading in 2017.

See Torabhaig Distillery · Isle of Skye
Did you know11 hours ago

The Isle of Raasay Distillery has used a champagne yeast to ferment the wash for its whisky.

Before whisky is distilled it is brewed, rather like a beer: in the washbacks, yeast turns the sugars from the malted barley into alcohol over two to four days. At the Isle of Raasay Distillery, on the island between Skye and the mainland, the team has used a champagne yeast for part of that work. It was chosen to help bring out the dark-fruit flavours they want in their new spirit.

See Isle of Raasay Distillery · Isle of Skye