At Torabhaig we tend to do things our way, so we took the slightly unusual step of putting together two very different teams of people to get our distillery up and running. The first was a vastly experienced group of consultant brewers, distillers and maltsmen who between them measured more than 200 years of whisky making experience. The second was a team of apprentices, some nine journeymen who would start their voyage of discovery and earn their guild medals at our new distillery. The oversight at each stage of production, from grain and yeast selections to mashing, brewing and distilling has enabled this learning process to be seamless and we have recorded in detail every stage of every distillation since day one.

We believe this was the way for our whiskymakers to become accomplished brewers and distillers, they need to know every stage of production from first hand experience, to understand the sensory nuances as the wash ferments and the vapour runs from the stills, to feel the process, beyond just checking charts and numbers. You’ll also on occasion see them mowing the lawn or driving the draff to the farm next door, this is all part of the duty of care which enforces our sense of pride, it runs beyond clocking on and off shift. These are the nine who are in charge of Torabhaig’s destiny, so much so that each one will in turn make their own different version of our whisky during their journeyman years to back up their learning cycle, each of these whiskies to be released as a special edition once they mature.

Interestingly in these times of change, none of our team have left us to move on, which we take to mean that we’re doing a lot of things right here at Torabhaig, that making whisky here is so much more than just a job.