For musicians Ian Smith and Alain Campbell, touring Scotland with their folk band Trail West doubled as research for the germ of an idea which would become the Isle of Tiree Distillery. Their traditional music (Smith plays accordion, Campbell guitar and whistles) takes them around the country and its islands, often via distilleries.
The tiny distillery launched its inaugural single malt Scotch whisky earlier this month, selling out almost instantly (in 12 minutes, according to Smith). Of the 800-bottle drop, half had been claimed via presale a year prior to launch, leaving around 400 more available to those at the ready in that precious 12-minute window. Much of the selling power is down to the distillery’s relationship with those following its story. Isle of Tiree doesn’t have any outside investment, so having a community to support it is vital.
The journey has been more than a decade in the making: the duo founded the Tiree Whisky Company in 2012, and in 2019 lit the stills for the first time, in Smith’s father’s shed which they had converted into the Isle of Tiree production hub. Although Tiree was historically home to many illicit whisky distilleries, this is the first legal whisky to be released from the island in more than two centuries. Reviving and honouring Tiree's whisky legacy is a responsibility that Smith and Campbell do not shy away from; rather, it's the core thread in their work.
The small, hands-on nature of the distillery has an appeal for whisky tourists, Smith explains. “Both Alain and I do the tours ourselves, we don’t have a tour guide, and you can really tell that some folk that are into whisky distilleries and that have been to other ones just really love the set up we've got and actually seeing it made by our own hands,” he says. “I think that that’s a real interest for people that are interested in that kind of small-scale whisky production. It’s not something you see very often, either.”
There is minimal technology in the Isle of Tiree distillery, and the team is minuscule — Smith, Campbell, and a third team member, Ryan, who supports with production and keeps the distillery running while the founders are travelling with Trail West. The team mash malted Laureate barley on-site in a repurposed sherry butt using a giant hops bag manufactured in the US, where the boom in American craft distilling has created more tools for similar-scale producers to Tiree. Fermenting is also done in sherry butts, as well as some stainless-steel German fermenters.
When it came to the duo’s vision for their single malt, traditional production methods were always going to be a key factor in determining the flavour. Campbell explains, “We wanted to keep direct fire on the copper stills. We didn't want, like, a steam jacket or elements in there. So we will bring the toasty flavour that you get, especially at the first distillation, or stripping one, as we call it, when you've got that solid in there.”
Peat is not particularly traditional to Tiree, unlike other Scotch-making islands, so the other major flavour decision made early on was to keep the spirit unpeated. The whisky is matured in “basically a tin shed”, explains Campbell, meaning the distillery is faced with a balancing act between faster maturation and evaporation.
Campbell says, “We knew that we were going to lose a lot, but we knew we would get a slightly faster maturation than you would do in a kind of temperature controlled, humidity controlled, bonded warehouse environment. So we knew that that was going to be on our side on one hand, but then we're going to lose a lot with evaporation.”
The size of the operation allows the distillery to adapt. The cask size is kept very small, with two spirit runs of 60 litres filling a quarter cask. A smaller output allows Isle of Tiree to be choosy with its maturation. Campbell professes himself a fan of Heaven Hill (“I just do as Alain says,” jokes Smith), so the duo sourced ex-Heaven Hill casks early on.
A major consideration for this first release was the age. “We knew it was going to be young, so potential in there for it being quite fruity and quite cereal-led, the flavours,” says Campbell. “So, what we did was we kept the mash temps as low as possible without being too low. We mash it in at 64[°C] so yeah, we're on the kind of lower end of the scale. We could potentially mash in hot on that, and then potentially squeeze more yield out of what we're doing, but then we're going to bring more malted flavours doing that. So we decided to keep the mash temps fairly low in order to lose the kind of cereal taste that you can get when it's quite young.”
To accentuate complexity in the spirit, Campbell and Smith selected several cask types. The inaugural release has been through four woods: new oak, Campbell’s beloved American oak ex-Heaven Hill bourbon, oloroso first-fill hogshead, and another oloroso sherry butt in which they married the contents of two hogsheads. According to tasting notes supplied by Caroline Dewar, who consulted on the whisky for Tiree, the resulting single malt has flavours of sweet spices, caramel, vanilla, citrus, and honey.
Next up on the horizon for the distillery is a single grain Scotch whisky made with 70 per cent rye and 30 per cent barley; a limited run of bottles is expected in summer 2025. In terms of malt, the next release is pencilled in as a single cask for 2026, to coincide with the “homecoming” festival held every decade on the island.
The first 10 bottles of Isle of Tiree’s inaugural release have been held for auction, and will be sold via Whisky Auctioneer from 31 January, with 10 per cent of proceeds donated to local island charities.
