The Basics:
Do I recommend it?: Yes.
Availability: Some specialty retail.
ABV: 46.4%
Presentation: Unchillfiltered and natural color.
General information: Lightly peated.
Bottling type: Proprietary
Character: Fresh and slightly mineralic.
Score: 80/100
The details:
Another very new distillery on a slightly out of the way Hebridean isle: Raasay is a mid-sized island lying in between Skye and the mainland. It probably hosted illegal distilling in times of yore, but had no legal distillery until R&B Distillers, founded by business partners Alisdair Day and Bill Dobbie, built this facility in 2017. Instead, they ended up building the first ever legal distillery on the Isle of Raasay. The first mature stock came available in 2020, becoming the first edition of this core release. Numerous special bottlings have followed with different finishes, peating levels and proof (although always meeting the minimum requirements for an integrity bottling).
The first Raasay bottling hit when I was still suffering under the delusion that I could still reasonably grab the first core bottling from every single new distillery coming online, so I was quite anxious to get my hands on some, however, it sold out pretty quickly from the usual suspects online and I was stuck waiting for it to show up at my local specialty shop (which actually didn’t take quite as long as usual!)
The packing is outrageously cool, with a semi-open box and bottles embossed with fossils and other geologic flotsam of the island. The whisky is a nice–if not extraordinary–essay in a common type from newer Scottish distillers: a lightly peated make with a fresh character, more mineralic than smoky. I don’t expect that it will shake up your world, but if you appreciate a nice coastal inflected Highland malt, you won’t go astray, here.
Isle of Raasy, 46.4% abv
Bottling Information:
Expression: Isle of Raasay
Bottler: Proprietor
Range: Core
Bottle Code: L00806
Presentation: Unchillfiltered and natural color
Details: A mix of peated and unpeated whiskies matured in rye whisky, chinkapin, and Bordeaux casks
Price: $70
Availability: Not widespread yet, but dig around specialty retail and you should turn some up.
Distillery Information:
Region: Highlands
Location: Clachan, Isle of Raasay, Kyleshire
Geography: Coastal
Date Founded: 2017
Owner: R&B Distillers
Website: https://raasaydistillery.com/
Capacity: 940,000
Plant Summary: MASH TUN: Semi-Lauter; WASHBACKS: 6 Stainless steel; STILLS: 2; HEAT SOURCE: Steam ; CONDENSER: Shell and Tube
Total expressions sampled: 1
Overall distillery score: n/a
Tasting notes:
Nose: A light, stoney, slate-like peatiness and freshly sliced fruit. A very gentle ash-like smokiness, while the sliced fruit is underripe kiwi and green apple. A faint whiff of sea air. Some late pineapple notes, becoming more pronounced.
Body: Very soft, quite light.
Palate: Crisp, with peat moreso than smoke and still some fresh fruit, although it’s now more melon-like. Rocky and slightly mossy with a slight saline edge. Altogether pleasant and rather gentle, but nuanced.
Finish: Still some saline notes; sandy, somewhat ashy, drying. Medium length.
Score: 80/100
Who should buy it?: If you enjoy the style of a lot of the newer Highland distilleries–Wolfburn, Ardnamurchan–this won’t go amiss.
Overall thoughts: A well-made, modestly peated coastal dram. It probably won’t completely amaze you, but it’s a really nice whisky.
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Whisky Considered 