Whisky Magazine – August 2019

50 Whisky Magazine | Issue 161

Distillery Focus Isle of Raasay

T

he romantic, community-

owned isle of Raasay is a

rugged and atmospheric

strip of rocky coastline

and muscular hills, about

14 miles long and three miles wide,

that boasts spectacular views across

the Sound of Raasay toward Skye and

the inner sound to Applecross on the

mainland. The island has a population

of around 150 people, though many of

those are seasonal, and over the years

it has become a popular destination for

outward bound excursions. Once held

by the Macleod Clan (not the Macleods

of Skye but relations of the Lewis

Macleods), the island was sold in the

1840s as the ruling family never truly

recovered financially from the fallout of

the Jacobite Rising a century earlier.

An iron mine operated at Inverarish

from 1913–1919 and the village that

can be seen there today is mostly

contemporaneous with that project,

which significantly boosted the

island’s dwindling resident population.

Production at the site began in earnest

with the outbreak of WWI and the

ore mined there was shipped from

a purpose-built pier at Suisnish,

which can still be seen today, to the

supply chain of the British Ministry of

Munitions. With many of the Raasay

men supporting the war effort abroad,

around 260 German POWs were

brought in to work for the operation.

Relations with the locals were

reportedly positive, though many of the

POWs succumbed to the ‘Spanish flu’

during an epidemic that tore through

the island’s population. In a cruel twist

of fate, these hardworking men had

survived the war but still never made it

home to their families. They are buried

on the island.

Like many places in rural Scotland,

Raasay has a long history of illicit

whisky distillation in its various

hidden glens, such as at Eyre, where

the remains of an historic outdoor

distillation site can still be visited

by those who know where to look.

However, it wasn’t until September

2017 that legal malt spirit flowed

Legal malt spirit is flowing for the first time on this Hebridean isle

RAASAY

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