A great afternoon gin making with Isle of Skye Distillery
Gin making experience with the Isle of Skye Distillery
RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Highlights
- No nonsense ( but hilariously dry) teacher
- Good value (especially if two of you)
- Simplified methodology
- Very generous samples
Duration – 3 hours ( 2- 5pm)
Cost – £85 (for a two person still )
Location – Portree, Isle of Skye
Gin Intro
The Isle of Skye distillery started in 2017, and is fully managed and owned by the Wilson brothers. Alistair has a background in hospitality, and so has the expertise of the industry, and Thomas – the older (apparently wiser) brother is the practical one, as well as well as distiller, he is also a retained fireman.
We were so excited to visit Skye on our tour, and we couldn’t go without visiting the Isle of Skye distillery. It’s been a favourite in our house since a friend, a local of Portree, shared it with us a few years ago.
They don’t have tours, because they just don’t have the space (apparently they out grew their premises after six weeks) so we booked the make your own experience in their Gin School in the heart of the town of Portree.
The Making 5⭐️
The Gin School is located at the back of the Gin Shop, where as well as Misty Isle gin you can buy other spirts, but ones made by Scottish distillers using original methods. Happy to see a few we had already bought on our tour.
We were honoured that our Gin School was ran by Thomas one of the brothers. We started our gin making with Thomas telling us that we had a “crucial hour” and so could we please not ask questions, or if we did ask questions but keep them brief!
He also told us that a good gin could be made from just a few botanicals. Explained that you should always have Juniper, Coriander, and then just a few extra. That we could add loads but at the end of the day the boiling process will take a lot of them out.
We were given paper and asked to pop down Sweet, Spice and Fruit. Thomas then handed around botanicals from each category, talking through them, where they were from and what they would add to the flavour. We tasted, smelt and then wrote down the ones we liked.
We loved his hilarious dry delivery. I think that honestly getting us sorted quickly meant we would have time to make the gin, as I can imagine that with some groups this would be really hard if you let them ask lots of questions or as my mam would say “dilly dally.”
When we made our choices he talked through them with us, to made sure we were going for the right combo and told us the amounts to measure. With the little (drug) scales we measured them out. Mixed them together in a dish first so we could try our recipe and then made tea bags of the botanicals and addd them to our stills.
Great thing about this process, was we were fully involved, and had to look after our stills and make sure that we had the right water flow, to ensure correct condensing. During this time, Thomas talked about the distillery and how they create their gins and the stills they use.
They have 3 stills that are 100ltr and 1 50ltr. Running 5 days a week, we worked out that the team work at least 13 hour days ! Plus the time in the gin school and the shop – oh and a fireman too, I think if I had to do all that I wouldn’t be a people person either !
When our gin was finished we filtered and bottled, and we choose our bespoke label. We choose “Isle of Skye 21” as it was our 21st wedding anniversary – not very boring but honestly the name is the hardest part!
Thomas made us laugh throughout, he said he wasn’t a people person, I think actually it’s the opposite, he’s a great teacher, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Having the no nonsense guidance made sure we got the best out of the experience.
Although, I do wish I had listened to his advice on what we put in, not sure my gin is going to be very good. I think the term “I told you so” might have been said a few times…
The Taste 5⭐️
Thankfully no driving for either of us. Thomas did offer us a cup of coffee about an hour in…which made me panic that we weren’t going to get a taste. But I think with the complication of making the gin, actually waiting for tasting when we had (safely) got our gin all sorted was a good idea..the samples were very generous !
For the tasting we basically tried the full range, and Thomas talked through them – we had:
- MISTY ISLE – made with 11 botanicals
- TOMMY’S GIN – For every bottle of Tommy’s gin sold, proceeds are donated to local Military Charities
- MULLED GIN – Christmas in a glass
- MISTY ISLE ‘SPOOKILY SPICED’ GIN – think pumpkins..
- MISTY ISLE ‘CILL TARGHLAIN’ GIN – our favourite, sea orache from the shores of Loch Portree give it a unique taste
- MISTY ISLE PINK GIN – fresh raspberries grown by the family, and its next on my list – delicious
- MISTY ISLE VODKA – clear and crisp
As I said a lot and generous samples, and we could help ourselves if we wanted any more. We bought Cill Targhlain, and I will definitely be ordering Tommys and the Pink Gin.
Tour Top Tips
- Before you go, look at your collection to see what sort of gins you like and botanicals so you have some idea of what you want to make
- Listen and do as you are told, the professionals know what they are doing, and try not to be too clever with flavours ( like us)
- Check out the shop, great selection of all the ones you tried and other good quality Scottish spirts
- Enjoy, lean in to the experience and don’t take it too seriously or not serious enough !
5⭐️ Overall we really enjoyed the experience and it will be a great memory for our 21st
Tour de Gin 