A Very Social Drink

For all the headlines, not all is bad in 'booze Brittania'. As Tom Bruce-Gardyne reports - a number of new whisky distilleries have brought much-needed jobs and a sense of renewal to their remote island communities …  

William Topaz McGonagall, the teetotal bard of Dundee who believed Queen Victoria should have made him poet laureate, was at a loss to find any redeeming qualities in the 'demon drink'. As he wrote in his poem of the same name - 'What hast though done to society, let me think? I answer thou hast caused the most of ills, thou demon Drink'

To convince him that it's not all bad, he should time-travel to the Hebrides and take with him all those politicians and public health officials for whom 'drink' is only ever 'problematic'. The tour could start with the Isle of Harris distillery which launched its first single malt – The Hearach, last September.  

Isle of Harris bills itself as 'a social distillery' – a term cooked up during its conception twelve years ago. "We were trying to get our heads round what the essence of this distillery was," explains MD Simon Erlanger. "At some moment we thought its purpose is the economic regeneration of Harris, and it's about creating generations of future employment."

"When you talk to young people on the island, it's extraordinary what a sense of commitment they have. I think if the jobs were there, people would prefer to stay. Whereas, what tends to happen is that they have to leave the island and just don't return." That exodus had shrunk the population to 1,916 in the 2011 census from over 4,000 fifty years ago.

By doing everything possible, including maturation and bottling, on Harris, the distillery hoped to create around twenty jobs, and this helped secure a development grant which was the catalyst for bringing in private investors. Today, Simon is delighted to report that Isle of Harris employs 46, nearly all of them full-time, plus another eight on the mainland, making it by far the biggest private employer on the island.

"The distillery was a godsend to Harris" says lead tour guide Marie Morrison, and while it is clearly not a charity, the 'social' aspect feeds the marketing of the gin and whisky. If story-telling is core to brand-building, Isle of Harris has it in spades, and that's "absolutely fundamental" says Simon. "People love human interest stories because they're genuine. All our stories are written by our own people, and it's all done from the heart."

Since the launch of The Hearach, islanders have been despatched to whisky festivals in California, Germany and France to spread the word and reinforce the Hebridean bond. Back home, there are issues with finding affordable housing on the island for all the employees, and the necessary land for future warehouses. Hopefully these growing pains will ease in time.

Moving south to Raasay, the island within an island off Skye, Alasdair Day first came here in 2014, with his future business partner, Bill Dobbie. Though dreaming then, and perhaps still, of making whisky in the Borders, he had to concede while staring across the water to the Cuillins on Skye, that: "Yes, it would make for a very nice distillery." 

Raasay is roughly the size of Manhattan with slightly fewer people. The 2011 census recorded just 161 residents, and it was clearly in decline with its closed hotel and fading memories of school field trips to its outdoor centre. Today, Alasdair reckons the population has bounced to around 200, of whom 40 are employed by the distillery and its cosy, boutique hotel next-door.

Like The Hearach, the whisky is matured on the island and bottled there, initially by hand with the community rallying round to fill 125,000 bottles. "It was literally, all hands to the pump," says Alasdair. "But last year we got an automated bottling line. I think everyone was at breaking point at that stage." And as with Harris, the Isle of Raasay distillery has been doing its bit for island demographics. "We've had a couple of marriages and I think the average age of employees is about 30."

What struck him from the start was the ingenuity of the locals who made up the early recruits. "The number of engineers we've got is incredible, because if you live on an island you have to fix things," he says, mentioning Calum's Road. The tale of Calum Macleod who spent a decade building a road in the north of the island, almost with his bare hands, has become the stuff of legend.

In the south of Skye, on the Sleat peninsular, Mossburn Distillers needed to staff its new distillery of Torabhaig that opened in 2017. "We did two little adverts, one locally," recalls the company's CEO, Neil Mathieson, and the response was immediate. "There were people who drove down after the local rag came out, knocked on the door, and said 'when do we start?"

By his side was the former Scotland Rugby player, Finlay Calder, who told him: "How about giving these people who know absolutely nothing, a second chance." And so it was that Torabhaig recruited its entirely local, and at first gloriously unqualified, team of nine distillers including a former gardener, an ex-roofer and the local bin man.

"I don't see why anyone can't change, and why anyone can't make whisky," says Neil who has taken this to a whole new level with the 'Journeyman's Dram' which the distillers each get to make, completely to their own recipe one month a year. Added to which, all 28 employees set their own shifts. "Since we started, we've never had a shift missed," he says, "not in the visitor centre, not in the stillhouse, not in cleaning the toilets. If you entrust the people you work with, they become like a family."