Isle of Harris
The Isle of Harris distillery was born from an inspiration by Anderson Burr Bakewell, who fell in love with the place, its wild landscapes, and a small community of people living on this island of the Scottish Hebrides archipelago. The underlying idea was to try to capture in a bottle of Gin the atmosphere and charm of a magical place. Anderson Burr was concerned that the island was progressively depopulating due to a lack of job opportunities and thought that creating a distillery would provide a long-term economic growth perspective for the local community. He thus decided to share his project with others and after seven years of work, finally in 2015 the Isle of Harris Distillery came to light.
The distillery started its activity with a staff of about ten people, which today has reached 40 units in a total population of only 2000 inhabitants on the island. The Gin is made entirely on the island, particularly in the small town of Tarbert, where the company is based. The distillery uses a small copper still and the use in the production process of the Sugar Kelp seaweed, hand-harvested along the coast and which gives a characteristic marine and briny profile to the Gin. The water used to lower the proof of the distillate before bottling comes from the purest local spring of Abhainn Cnoc at 'Charrain. The bottling and packaging process is done by hand in an artisanal manner, with a wooden cork and a paper seal featuring the geographical coordinates of the island.
The distillation process is carried out with extreme care, with the sole aim of achieving maximum purity and expressive finesse. Normally during the first distillation only the heart is retained, discarding the head and tail of the process, which are then reused in a new distillation. Isle of Harris, on the other hand, discards the head and tail definitively, in order to obtain a better quality. It is an expensive choice, but it guarantees the consumer a high-end product, particularly appreciated by connoisseurs who love tasting Gin neat or with ice. The distillate is indeed particularly smooth and intense.
The Isle of Harris distillery was born from an inspiration by Anderson Burr Bakewell, who fell in love with the place, its wild landscapes, and a small community of people living on this island of the Scottish Hebrides archipelago. The underlying idea was to try to capture in a bottle of Gin the atmosphere and charm of a magical place. Anderson Burr was concerned that the island was progressively depopulating due to a lack of job opportunities and thought that creating a distillery would provide a long-term economic growth perspective for the local community. He thus decided to share his project with others and after seven years of work, finally in 2015 the Isle of Harris Distillery came to light.
The distillery started its activity with a staff of about ten people, which today has reached 40 units in a total population of only 2000 inhabitants on the island. The Gin is made entirely on the island, particularly in the small town of Tarbert, where the company is based. The distillery uses a small copper still and the use in the production process of the Sugar Kelp seaweed, hand-harvested along the coast and which gives a characteristic marine and briny profile to the Gin. The water used to lower the proof of the distillate before bottling comes from the purest local spring of Abhainn Cnoc at 'Charrain. The bottling and packaging process is done by hand in an artisanal manner, with a wooden cork and a paper seal featuring the geographical coordinates of the island.
The distillation process is carried out with extreme care, with the sole aim of achieving maximum purity and expressive finesse. Normally during the first distillation only the heart is retained, discarding the head and tail of the process, which are then reused in a new distillation. Isle of Harris, on the other hand, discards the head and tail definitively, in order to obtain a better quality. It is an expensive choice, but it guarantees the consumer a high-end product, particularly appreciated by connoisseurs who love tasting Gin neat or with ice. The distillate is indeed particularly smooth and intense.
