The gin embodies the very best in craft production, sourcing botanicals from across the island and nearby areas to create an exceptional gin that lends itself to life on the Scottish isles. 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 There was also a long-standing concern about a rise in drunkenness on the island, which the authorities linked with the number of stills. James Turnbull had reported in his Statistical Account of 1768: "The people drink more than they would do, which is a means of spoiling their morals and keeping them idle." Distilled with passion, it launched its first award-winning signature gin, which captures the flavour of the Cairngorms.

We have no access to three phase power so our still had to be adapted accordingly. We also had to pay for the installation of a new electricity connection to allow us to utilise the power capabilities of the equipment, an additional cost that we hadn’t planned for. Tiree Whisky Company is the producer of Tyree Gin and Hebridean Pink Gin, both of which are handcrafted and bottled on the Inner Hebridean Isle of Tiree. 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. 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. Almost 200 gins - all distilled in Scotland - were blind tasted this year and medals awarded in 11 categories.

Meet the maker

In the build up to TMF 10, Stuart and Daniel - the festival organisers - got in touch with myself and Alain with an idea to mark the anniversary. We decided to source a cask from Speyside, and the whisky went into cask around the same time as plans for the first ever Tiree Music Festival were taking shape. Now, ten years on, about 380 bottles are available to celebrate the milestone,” Ian says. How do the two of you manage to find enough time to run the business, make gin and at the same time touring and playing with your band Trail West? Tyree Gin (40% ABV)includes wild flowers such as eyebright, ladies bedstraw and water mint among its botanicals; all of which are all sustainably sourced from the fertile machair along the island’s coastline. We formed Tiree Whisky Company to preserve and promote the island’s distilling heritage and from that moment on, we began researching the possibility of releasing a local gin. We were put in touch with Thames Distillers Ltd in London and arranged a meeting to provide them with some local Tiree botanicals and kelp. This award-winning gin was the brainchild of two whisky distillery managers who also happened to be gin enthusiasts. Their aim was to create a spirit that would appeal to seasoned gin drinks but also entice a new market of non-gin drinkers and convert them to gin. And so they set about creating a gin that would have subtle fruitiness and a soft creamy finish. Drawing upon their joint experience of over 25 years in the distilling industry, the long experiment began using as much locally grown botanicals as possible.

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 FacebookThis was until island locals, Alian Campbell and Ian Smith formed the Tiree Whisky Company to preserve and promote the island’s whisky heritage. Following on from the success of their first spirit, The Cairnsmuir – a limited edition 19-Year-Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Tyree Gin was launched in 2017. A gin to reflect 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. The Scottish Gin Awards have revealed gin brands which have successfully achieved medal status in 2023, following the awards dinner in Glasgow this month. Tyree Gin truly reflects the landscape in which it is distilled. Kelp harvested from the icy waters provides sweetness as well as coastal salty flavours and floral, grassy and vanilla notes are achieved using a range of botanicals from the machair ground inland from the shore. 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.

28. Land of Saints GIN

As the latter two theories suggest, the economy of Tiree has been based on the production of grain since ancient times. Renowned for fertile and easily worked soil and long growing seasons, the island was unique in the Hebrides. Along with this corn production, Tiree was famous for the production of whisky – made from the island’s plentiful supplies of barley. Each farm on Tiree usually had one still producing whisky, for both local consumption and for export to neighbouring islands and Ireland. Records suggest that there were fifty distillers on the island around 1768, declining to around three by 1793. The sign of a true craft gin is that no two batches will ever be exactly the same, and this can be said of el:gin, a Scottish Gin, distilled in small batches in the northeast of Scotland, each batch distilled with hand-chosen, local botanicals. Noted for its smoothness and strength (just like its namesake), Whitetail Gin sells to customers including Selfridges and British chef Marco Pierre White.