Known as Tyree and not Tiree is another nod to the island’s history, as Ian explains: “Tyree was a historical form of spelling for the island while the modern spelling of Tiree first appeared on a map of Scotland by John & Frederic Tallis in 1851.” Creating a whisky for Tiree Music Festival As well as this, Tiree’s water is amongst the hardest in the UK, with a large amount of solids contained in it. Production water was up to 500ppm so we had to invest in various filters for use in our production process. Myself and my business partner are very into the local history - we love reading about the island’s written historical accounts and one of the things I discovered was that between 1790 and 1791 there were 157 people caught distilling illegally, and one in every ten was evicted from their croft or holding. We thought this history was fascinating - there were hundreds of years of history of whisky production on the island - and we thought, why has nobody tried to revive that?” With the distillery located on a rural estate, we have to rely on some private services such as water – this means that every summer we are watching the skies to see if it will rain, as we can often run dry, even in Kintyre! Just remember, today’s rain is tomorrow’s gin!

Tyree (the old spelling of Tiree) Gin was created to celebrate the stunning landscape where it is distilled. Produced using Kelp harvested from the icy waters and a range of botanicals from the machair ground inland from the shore of the island combined with juniper, water-mint and angelica, this is a fresh, pure island spirit. Coming home Beinn an Tuirc Distillers, South Loch Gin and Linlithgow Distillery also won multiple taste medals. Working with specialist spirits branding agency, Stranger & Stranger, the ‘Social Distillery’ has created something which is the envy of many. They wanted to produce something which depicts the truly stunning scenery found on the island – and what a job they’ve done! They produced a sample gin using the botanicals we’d sourced and after a couple of tweaks, we finalised the recipe. We then officially launched at Tiree Music Festival 2017. Isle of Bute Gin’s small-batch spirits take inspiration from where it’s made, the quaint Scottish island of Bute, each bottle crafted with care in the heart of Rothesay using a traditional copper still.Gin hasn’t historically been perceived as a Scottish product so it is fantastic to see progressive Scottish distilling and inquisition lead to it becoming popular throughout the world. New Scottish gin distilleries are popping up all of the time with local variations, ingredients or techniques making each and every one unique, just like Scotch whisky distilleries, which are all different. If things continue as they are, then we believe that Scottish Gin will continue to thrive. The distillery's flagship product is the world’s first Oyster Gin, a premium gin made by charging the still with the shells of fresh Scottish oysters. The waters of Scotland’s west coast are famous for their oyster beds and Isle of Bute Gin's come from the beautiful Loch Fyne. The oyster shells add a delicate maritime essence to the spirit – blended with citrus and other botanicals to create a savoury gin which is a perfect pair to seafood and the ideal base for a martini. The ultimate award, Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year, was presented for a second year in a row to North Uist Distillery. They also collected the award for Best New Product of the Year for their Downpour Coast & Croft Gin. The Isle of Tiree lies to the north of Islay and south of Barra and is the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides. In the eighteenth century it was home to ‘no less than fifty distillers’, yet the island’s connection with the Scotch Whisky Industry has long been lost.

Having the gin produced elsewhere but using local ingredients helped fund the renovation of an industrial shed in West Hynish in the southwest of the island and in February 2019, after a break of 217 years, Tiree was once again home to an operational distillery. was a big year for Trail West too as it is our 10th Anniversary. We’re hoping our first headline show in the Barrowlands in Glasgow in September still goes ahead so we’re keeping all of our fingers and toes crossed! The plan is to have a quieter year with the band next year and things should be more manageable then… Hopefully!”The whisky was named after a ship that ran aground off the shores of the island and it has cases of whisky - a story similar to Whisky Galore,” says Ian. We launched that at the Tiree Homecoming and only bottled 230 which all sold out. That was the first step - to publicise the whisky company and to let people know what we were doing.” Starting with gin Picture: Tyree Gin Facebook We got a tasting panel together and there was no shortage of applications”, Ian laughs. “We’ve got a good team of friends who tried it - Daniel and Stuart and even some famous musicians, such as Ian Bayne from Runrig.” Distilled with passion, it launched its first award-winning signature gin, which captures the flavour of the Cairngorms.