You all know by now that scones are our main objective where ever we go. However, sometimes it’s not as easy as you might imagine. Distractions abound e.g. sheds, eagles … distilleries! If we can’t find one to live in we feel somewhat obliged to visit them … it’s the decent thing to do. Maybe it’s just a Scottish thing, who knows? Anyway this long winded preamble is simply trying to let you know that we are in another distillery – the Isle of Harris Distillery. Like Raasay this is another new kid on the block. It hasn’t actually produced any whisky yet but in the meantime it’s producing lots of gin.

The old established distilleries don’t bother with gin and probably look down their noses at those that do. However for these new ones cash flow is of paramount importance and ten years is a long time to wait for a return on your investment. Gin, on the other hand, you can make in a couple of days.

Sugar Kelp

Because of this there are dedicated gin distilleries popping up all over Scotland … about 70 at the last count and they join 125 whisky distilleries. We also hadn’t realised until recently that the big well known gins like Gordons, Hendricks and Tanquery are all produced in Scotland as well. That’s a lot of gin! They all claim to use their own unique blend of botanicals to flavour their products. On Harris they use locally harvested sugar kelp … whatever? As long as they keep it well away from the whisky!

Mairi Mackenzie

Being only a few years old the distillery is very modern and has a large rather swanky visitor centre … and a café. We arrived back from our trip to the Butt of Lewis just as it was about to close. Enough time for a scone however. Mairi Mackenzie does all their home-baking and it all looked delicious. As always a scone was what we had in our sights. It came accompanied with cream and jam. We have been desperate to find a topscone on this trip and so far it has eluded us. Unfortunately Mairi’s scone didn’t change the situation. We thoroughly enjoyed it as we did everything about this place but it came up just short of the mark … pity.

They call the Isle of Harris Distillery the ‘social distillery’ because it aims to become the centre of the community. It certainly provides much needed employment in this part of the world. Island economies are always fragile so anything that increases stability is always welcome. More power to their elbow! Their first whisky is to be called ‘Hearach’ which is what people from Harris are called in gaelic … can’t wait!

Social places

Can’t wait for the fiasco masquerading as politics under the Westminster banner to sort itself out. Today, as Theresa May gives the Speaker a body swerve and tries for a third time to get her Brexit deal through the Commons, here, on the very edge of the EU, you feel pretty insulated from all that stuff. You feel, no matter what happens, the folks on these isolated islands where everyone knows everyone else will look after each other, come what may. It would be great if we could all have that sort of social community spirit. We are coming to the end of our time on Harris … sad!

HS3 3DJ              tel: 01859 502212             Harris Distillery