Torabhaig, founded in 2016 and up and running since 2017, may indeed be a very young distillery, but they are definitely going the extra mile to fully embed themselves into Skye’s roots, soil and history. Located in a fully restored 18th century farm, itself in turn partly built from the ruins of the 15th century Cambus Castle, it’s fair to say they are giving a part of the island and its heritage and history a new purpose and destination for the future.
There are definitely some similarities to be drawn between Torabhaig and its relationship to Skye on the one hand and between Torabhaig’s owners Mossburn and Scotch whisky in general on the other. Mossburn too started as an indie bottler in 2017, but it's built on the knowledge and experience of folk like Neil Macleod Mathieson, who has been involved in blending and bottling for decades.
Now, Torabhaig’s long term plan is to release a 10 yo whisky as a core range expression, but given the fact that building and running a distillery costs quite the princely sum, they have been and will be releasing younger whiskies in their Legacy series for the time being to generate some cash flow and income. Taking in mind that Talisker has had the isle of Skye pretty much to its own for some 190 years, one might argue that having a colleague/competitor was probably overdue in any case.
Currently, their capacity capacity allows them to put out some 1.5 million bottles of whisky each year (something they’ll of course won’t as they still need a significant amount of stock to mature), they’ve released their first few batches in the past year. The Allt Gleann release seems to be the widely available one these days, but as I was kindly gifted a sample from last year’s Inaugural release by someone in the community (released at 32000 bottles, so no risk of any shortage of that one either), this is what we’ll roll with for today’s drample impression.
With a phenol level of some 55-60 ppm, this sits at the higher end of peated malts. Although their long term goal is to go for “well-tempered peat”, and this being exclusively matured in 1st fill bourbon casks, I’m expecting this youngster to be predominately peat driven. So let’s dig straight into this.
On the nose, it’s spirity, with a vanilla driven sweetness clearly coming from the 1st fill bourbon casks, immediately followed by a clear ashy peat note, as was to be expected. The combination of sweetness and peat translates into an oily, tar-like character, which I quite enjoy and underneath there’s a soft, sweet orange peel and citrus note developing, alongside a salty-maritime thing I can’t quite put my finger on.
The palate is surprisingly less sweet, and has a more grassy-herbaceous thing going on. Again a clear and quite dominant ashy peat note. Little to no smoke though. A very slight, yet not unpleasant peppery burn from the alcohol and the youth and that indistinguishable salty touch. The mouthfeel is medium, almost light. Not per se thin, but this has a delicateness to it, despite the big and bold peat note.
The finish is medium long, dry and ashy, becoming increasingly ashy and salty towards the very end.
What we’ve got here, in my opinion, is a nice, young whisky relying heavily on the peat influence to build not per se character, but definitely identity. If, as they say, they’re ailing for “well- tempered peat” in the long run, than this definitely needs more time in the cask to help balance things out. This isn’t an in your face peat blast, but it’s definitely peat driven from start to finish. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ or bad about this, let there be no misunderstanding about that, and if you enjoy all things Islay, then this will probably be right up your alley. Much like the Nc’Nean from last week, I like this and enjoy this already, but I think (I know) they’ll really be shining in a few years down the road.
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