Isle of Harris Distillery

This community-focused project led by an Anglo-American musicologist is the first commercial distillery to be built on the island of Harris.

The Isle of Harris distillery officially opened in September 2015, though the story of the Hebridean island’s first commercial distillery begins several years earlier. Musicologist Anderson Bakewell, who owned a property on the neighbouring island of Scarp, was troubled by the dwindling population of Harris, an island he cared deeply about. Despite not being an avid fan of whisky, he sought to build the island’s first distillery in Tarbert, the island’s capital and ferry link to Skye. His plan was to create a business that not only involved the local community but also provided an attractive long-term employment solution for Harris residents. Not long after selecting a site on the main north-south road through Tarbert, Bakewell’s project secured the largest public grant awarded to a food and drink business in Scottish history. Further grants and private investments soon flooded in from all over the world. Upon opening, Isle of Harris distillery employed 10 workers, a number that has since risen to over 20. While the team is adamant it won’t release its first official bottling ‘until it’s ready’, expect to see an NAS expression rolled out in limited quantities around 2020. Until then, the distillery produces and bottles Harris gin, which is made with nine botanicals that ‘capture the elemental nature’ of the island.