276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Tyree Gin, 70 cl

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

By 1801, the chamberlain still spoke of "spirits, to which the natives are much addicted." That same year, however, 157 islanders were found guilty of illegal distilling; in addition to a court fine, the new chamberlain, Dr McLaurin, was instructed to evict one in ten offenders as a warning. The Duke went further, demanding that all barley not needed for food should be sent directly to him at Inveraray Castle. Ten years after the legal distilleries had been set up, "none could be found on the island willing to undertake the distilling in a legal way" and by 1802 the duke pulled the plug completely: "The barley to be exported as last year, and no distilling permitted." Beinn an Tuirc Distillers, South Loch Gin and Linlithgow Distillery also won multiple taste medals. The estate was particularly concerned by the stills' voracious peat consumption and The Duke instructed the Tiree chamberlain in 1789: "As you mentioned two licensed stills are to be erected in the island, you should take measures for having both erected so as they may be carried on with coal ... otherways they will soon waste the little fuel that is in the island." Distillers from across Scotland have been selected, with those on the picturesque Hebridean island of Tiree offering up one of the festival’s most far flung gins.

We’ve had a number of obstacles to overcome over the years, in particular when it came to establishing the distillery on the island. As mentioned, our distillery is based in West Hynish in Tiree, which is one of the most remote corners of the island (on an already remote island!). 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.I have a very keen interest in local history and one thing that kept on popping up while doing various research projects on aspects of Tiree’s history was the amount of distillers that operated on the island between the 18th and 19th Centuries (both legally and illicitly!). And now, after eighteen months of contract distilling in London by Thames Distillers. The company is celebrating the release of the first island-distilled batch of Tyree Gin. Sales of the London-distilled gin helped to fund the renovation of an industrial shed in West Hynish in the southwest of the island and a 250-litre G-Still was installed there in late 2018.

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! Our distillery has now been operational for just over a year and continues to go from strength to strength. We had hoped to open to the public and offer tours this year but this has been put on hold for now, like everything else! We feel as though the island’s distilling history isn’t widely known about so this heritage will be an important part of our tours and we are looking forward to sharing this story with locals and visitors to the island once things return to some kind of normal.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 Almost 200 gins - all distilled in Scotland - were blind tasted this year and medals awarded in 11 categories.

The brand is named after George Chinnery, the English painter, who began his career in Dublin, before travelling to China. The bottle is inspired by these two parts of his career – Georgian Dublin and Imperial China. As the first legal distillery on the island for over 200 years, and with so many links to the history of Tiree, what does the future hold?

The results are highly regarded as they are independently audited by a panel of experts and judged live in a rigorously assessed blind tasting event. Mixing a little bit of fun with a little bit of insight, we enjoy a second round of Scottish G&T’s with Scotland’s gin makers and brand owners as we let them ask their peers the questions in our ‘Talking Scottish Gin’ Q&A editorial feature.

Noted for its smoothness and strength (just like its namesake), Whitetail Gin sells to customers including Selfridges and British chef Marco Pierre White. 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. The island of Tiree is the most westerly of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. It is a relatively low-lying island with an area of 7,834 hectares and a population of around 650.

34. ABLEFORTH’S BATHTUB GIN

This link with the music festival continued this year with the bars serving Tyree Gin and launching an exclusive bottling of TMF10 whisky - created to mark the festival’s tenth year. 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?” 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. Every day at the gin school we see creative individuals and guide them, working with hundreds of different botanicals to distil something amazing for them, to suit their own style and palate. Would all the recipes appeal to me, perhaps not, though I’d give most a go, but we all have our go-to styles and if we can help people create something special for them, then that is the joy of being an experience provider! Cairngorm Gin is a handcrafted premium distilled gin, produced in small batches of just 70 bottles in a traditional copper pot still, named Ginger, using a blend of nine botanicals including juniper, cloudberries, elderflower and Caledonian pine, partnered with coriander seed, orris root, sweet orange peel, angelica and kaffir lime, which are all distilled along with fresh water collected from the River Spey.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment