Qualla: Isle of Raasay Distillery

Isle of Raasay Distillery: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The water comes from a well dug in the Iron Age. It rises through volcanic and sandstone rock under the south end of Raasay, carrying minerals that have been ten thousand years in the stone, and it ends up in copper pot stills inside what used to be a Victorian hotel. The Isle of Raasay Distillery has been making whisky since 2017, the first legal operation in the island's history. It is one of the smallest licensed distilleries in Scotland and one of the most spectacularly sited: floor-to-ceiling windows in the stillhouse look directly across the Sound of Raasay to the Cuillin Hills of Skye. On a clear evening the light off the water turns the stainless steel pink.

Isle of Raasay Distillery: From hotel to distillery

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Borodale House sat empty for years before R&B Distillers bought it. The Victorian hotel near the ferry pier on the south-west of the island had been a guesthouse, then a tea room, then nothing. R&B was founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Bill Dobbie and whisky expert Alasdair Day, wi...

Isle of Raasay Distillery: What's in the cask

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Raasay's whisky is made from both peated and unpeated malt, with the proportions blended at maturation. The flagship Isle of Raasay Single Malt was released in 2020, finished in a combination of Tennessee whisky casks, Bordeaux red wine casks, and ex-rye casks. The water from the...

Isle of Raasay Distillery: Visiting

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The distillery opened its visitor centre in January 2018 and was awarded five stars by VisitScotland that June. It is one of the easier serious distilleries to visit, sitting fifteen minutes' walk from the ferry slip at Inverarish, which the Hallaig ferry reaches in about twenty-...

Isle of Raasay Distillery: Why Raasay

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Raasay is fourteen miles long and at most three miles wide, with a population of around 160. It sits between Skye and the Scottish mainland in a sound that was used as the Royal Navy's submarine training ground. The island has the cleared village of Hallaig at its centre, the poe...