Month: October 2025

#66.1 Something new, something old

Toulvaddie distillery: A whisky mystery solved with…pizza!

 

TL; DR: After our trip to the Outer Hebrides was cancelled, we tried our luck driving East, to the Fearn Peninsula. There, we visited another new craft distillery: Toulvaddie. Not our usual tour, but a must-do for the pizza and cocktails lovers! 

If you read our last post, you’ll know our holidays to the Outer Hebrides went down the pooper: we barely managed to visit Tiree distillery, on the Isle of Tiree, but then our next ferries were cancelled because of high wind. Oh well, when we’d booked the trip, we knew this could happen, we’ll just need to wait a few months to regroup and try again. However, in the meanwhile we had to decide what to do with our remaining days off, at least during the weekend.

That Friday we woke up at the campsite in Fort William under a gloomy grey sky: a cold, wet and windy day, not putting us in the best mood for outdoor activities. After breakfast, a shower, and a chat with Justine, Karen and Chris, we decided to split. The two of us and Mr. Vantastic left Fort William eastward, hoping the other coast would bring some luck. While Teresa drove, Gianluigi looked at potential whisky activities to do in the area. There was a new distillery that had been on our radar for a while, but we had not managed to visit: Toulvaddie. One reason for not getting there earlier was that tours are available only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (until a few weeks ago, also on Thursdays). Truth to be told, a few weeks prior we’d tried to plan a visit on our way back from holidays, on a Tuesday. However, the booking system didn’t work, and our queries weren’t replied. After a check on their website, we found out that they do pizza nights on Fridays and Saturdays, so we figured they must have been open (two Sherlocks in action here!). Thus, we decided to drive there and try our luck. Worst case scenario, we’d still get a pizza!

  • It took a while, but we found our way to the distillery.

The distillery is located on the Tarbat peninsula (near Fearn, Easter Ross), to the east side of the A9, roughly between Invergordon and Tain. It is on the site of a former naval airbase (HMS Owl) and while part of the surrounding area has been redeveloped for industrial use mostly, there is still an airfield for small private planes. As a matter of fact, Google Maps sent us straight in the middle of the runaway; the area is quite flat though, and not massively built, so we quickly found our way around the airfield to get to the distillery.

  • Memory of an old airfield.

We arrived there at 2pm, the opening time, while pizza would have been available from 3pm until 8pm (unless sold out). We left the van next to the gate, and we walked in to find a very nice space: on the left, some vegetation and a container (we’ll learn later that’s the temporary warehouse, while waiting to build the permanent one), on the right side a nice garden with a fish pond, chairs and a grill: perfect for summer time! In the meantime, the sun came out (for a while), and it gave a great feel to the whole outdoor area.

  • Such a nice space.

The production is inside the main building, together with the bar in a big open space. As we walked in, we were welcomed by Heather, the distillery owner together with her husband Bobby (who was busy setting up the pizza oven). The production equipment is past the bar area, with the shiny stills almost in the middle of the building. We sat at the bar, and while splitting a tasty Happy Chappy pale ale (from Cromarty Brewing), we started chatting with Heather about their whisky production. Although the distillery was planned way before, they actually started distilling in April 2024, so their spirit is half-way to become a single malt.

  • A nice space inside too.

The distillery is operational from Sunday to Thursday, and production is quite scheduled. They don’t have a mill, but they bring in pre-milled Laureate malted barley from Crisp. Other than saving one stage of production, this allows them to reduce the spark risk, so they can have people inside the building. They usually mash on a Wednesday, in a 0.33 ton mashtun, and then ferment the wort for 5 days in one of the 2,000-litre washbacks. Distillation is usually done on the following Monday (first) and Tuesday (second), in a couple of Hoga stills: the spirit one (the second) is only 500 litres, one of the few that is smaller than the Dornoch distillery’s one! Both stills work with a steam coil, powered by an oil unit, and they are both equipped with a shell and tube condenser. The second distillation cuts are approximately between 70% and 60%. All the casks are filled on site, mostly ex-bourbon barrels, but sherry ones too from time to time. The draff and the pot ale are sold to local farmers. We shared a dram of the newmake spirit (bottled at 63.5%), which was very malty and cereal-y, with the usual green fruits (apple and pear) taking a back sit in this one: nice stuff!

  • Very small Hoga stills.

At that point it was about time to order the pizzas, pepperoni and mushroom+ham, which we happily enjoyed, for Gianluigi while tasting one of their newmake spirit-based cocktails. The idea of using the distillery as a pub and pizzeria to get some cash is a very smart one in our opinion, also because there aren’t many other options in the area. They have plans to build a new permanent pizza oven outside the distillery, so they won’t have to set it up every Friday. Before leaving we signed the guest book, hoping to go back when their single malt will be ready!

  • Happy after pizza and another distillery under our belt.

We took Mr. Vantastic back on the A9, and decided to stay in Inverness for the night. After we found a suitable parking, we visited the Uile Bheist “brewstillery”’s pub, as last time we were there, we hadn’t had time to enjoy it after the production tour. We had a couple of drams there and, completely unplanned, we were rejoined by Karen and Chris: the choice is great and prices are very competitive. To end the night, we decided to pay one final visit at a whisky bar we’d heard a lot about but never been before: the Malt Room! The whisky choice is great there too, but probably because it was a tad too busy, and the general rowdiness of the night (Inverness is rowdy on a Friday night!!), it didn’t feel very cosy. Hopefully next time we’ll visit on a quieter day.

  • Last dram at the Malt Room.

The next morning we woke up and, with no rush, drove south towards Leith. Did we drive straight home? Almost. More on this next week. Until then, slàinte!

Toulvaddie Distillery Tour

Price: £15.00 pp (September 2025)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: a dram of newmake spirit (63.5%)

Target: anyone

Value for money: N/A*
*we didn’t do the tour as advertised on the website so we don’t know. We went in for the pizza on a Friday

Highlights: the garden and the pizza!

Recommended: nice for a pizza/distillery combo

Link: https://www.toulvaddiedistillery.com/home

#65 Tiree distillery

One windy leg of the Hebridean Whisky Festival

 

TL; DR: This September we embarked in an odyssey to attend the Hebridean Whisky Festival. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach most of the distilleries we’d planned to visit due to a storm, but we still managed to visit the island of Tiree and its distillery. A tiny and craft operation, with already two releases under their belt: a single malt and a rye whisky. 

In the last few years, especially since we got Mr. Vantastic, we travelled quite a bit throughout Scotland. However, while we have (roughly) been all over the country, there are mainly two places we haven’t been yet: the Outer Hebrides and Shetland, the latter despite our passion for the namesake crime TV show. This was supposed to change this year though, as together with our friends Justine, Karen and Chris, we decided to go on a campervan holiday to the Outer Hebrides, to attend the Hebridean Whisky Festival. The festival is structured similarly to the Islay and Campbeltown ones, with each distillery having a different open day. The challenge is, obviously, that most distilleries are located on different islands, some of which connected by ferry crossings lasting a few hours. The festival started on the first weekend of September in the inner islands, with Talisker, Torabhaig (both on Skye) and Raasay: as we already visited all three, and not long ago, we skipped this part (follow the links for our great February 2024 trip!). Then, after a break-day wisely set up by the organisation to allow people to travel, it was the Isle of Tiree distillery turn, our first visit.

The Tiree distillery day was on a Tuesday, so we booked a ferry leaving from Oban on the Monday. The weekend before, we decided to avoid whisky stuff for once, but rather climb the tallest mountain in Great Britain: Ben Nevis. We left Leith in the morning, and after a first quick break in Callander to pick up some delicious pies at Mohr Bakery, we arrived at the main visitor car park around 11am. We went up from the easy (but still steep) route: we had an initial doubt whether to go for a more challenging route, but we really didn’t want to be the eejits on the news that injured themselves on a path beyond their capabilities (we are decently fit, but still, we hike about half a dozen times a year, not on mountains). The path was a bit crowded, but the view quite spectacular, except on the top: a thick fog welcomed us.

  • Great view while climbing Ben Nevis…
  • …Not quite the same on top.

We still celebrated the achievement by opening a bottle of Scotch Malt Whisky Society Ben Nevis bought during the pandemic, high abv but delicious nonetheless. The descent was much faster, and afterwards we stayed at the Glen Nevis campsite, just next door. After a nice meal at the Glen Nevis restaurant (with a decent whisky selection too), we slept like rocks!

  • A celebratory dram.

The next day we slowly drove towards Oban, where we’d meet with our friends, just after a fantastic seafood lunch in Port Appin at the Pierhouse Hotel, an auld acquaintance from a few years back.

We met with the others at a car park near the Oyster Inn, 10 minutes away from Oban, as they allowed overnight stays for campervans. Meanwhile, the weather had turned rainy and windy, and rumours were that the next day ferries wouldn’t be able to sail, reinforced by an alert message from CalMac (the ferry’s company). Because of this (and the wind) we struggled to sleep that night, but fortunately, in the morning the ferry sailed: we were much relieved (for now…). It took about four hours to go from Oban to Tiree, and along the sail we spotted Nc’Nean distillery and Tobermory, on a day that turned sunny. As we got off the ferry and drove towards the only campsite, we realised that there isn’t a proper village. The biggest settlement is Scarinish, where the ferry pier is. Also, the island is very flat (the highest hill is 140 meters high, with a radar station (the ‘Golf Ball’) on top of it dominating the landscape. This makes it a paradise for surfers, and we found many of them at the campsite and around the island. After we checked in, we spent the rest of the day exploring the surroundings.

  • Tiree, surfers’ paradise.

The next morning we left the campsite, and after a stop to a very disappointing diner, we drove towards the distillery, in the south-west of the island. We parked the vans in a field nearby that we’d booked for the night via the Tiree Croft Camping Service. It was supposed to be 10 minutes on foot to the distillery, turned out to be about half hour…Fortunately we had plenty of time. The distillery is inside a small, blue warehouse. On the right, in a separate building past a courtyard, there is the visitor centre and bar. It’s very small but very cosy, and since it wasn’t raining (yet), we enjoyed a Tiree gin and tonic on the porch before going back to the distillery for the tour.

  • Waiting for the tour to start.

There, we were served a sample of newmake spirit as a welcome. Ian and Allan, the founders, started the tour talking about the history of distilling in Tiree. The historical records from 1768 report about 50 stills, however they decreased to only three legal stills by 1783, before the final clearance operated by the British government to depopulate the country. Finally, in 1802 distilling was temporarily banned, but between 1814 and 1882 a couple of short-lived distilleries were in operation, too unprofitable to resist. And here comes Tiree Distillery, operational from 2020, aiming to reconnect with the distilling heritage of the island.

  • A tiny distillery.

A very small operation, they bring in pre-milled malted barley (mostly Laureate) and rye from Crisp maltings, which they mash in batches of 100 kg with 400 litres of water into a wooden mashtun which used to be a sherry butt (that was a first for us!). They tried to grow local barley, which was possible but then the challenge was malting, requiring the malting to be shipped off the island and then back. They have four washbacks for the fermentation stage, two made of stainless steel and two of oak, former butts like the mashtun. Fermentation normally lasts 4 to 5 days, but it can go up to 2 weeks for experimental runs. The 6-7%abv wash is then distilled in one of the two wash stills, to get 23-25% low wines, distilled again in the spirit still. The stills are Portuguese Hoga stills with worm-tub condensers. A fourth still is used for the gin (they bring in neutral grain spirit). During the second distillation, the first cut point is 70-74%, made by smell and taste, while the lower one is around 63-64%, with the discarded feints and foreshots redistilled in the following batch. From each distillation they obtain about 60 litres of newmake spirit at 70% – it takes them two runs to fill a quarter cask.

  • Yes, the mashtun is the butt on the front.
  • And yes, the butt on the back is a washback.

The warehouse is in the same building for the moment, with casks mostly sourced from Speyside Cooperage, especially from Heaven Hills distillery in Kentucky. The plan is to have at some point a separate building for maturation. This would solve also the high evaporation they have at the moment, caused by the production heat. We shared a dram of their newest release (£8, £125 for the bottle), the second in total after their first Single Malt release last year (not on sale anymore, but it was sold for £200). This one is a single grain, with 75% rye and 25% barley, aged four years in virgin oak and ex-bourbon casks: one of the best Scottish ryes we tried so far. They also produced a high-corn mash spirit, which is still maturing in the warehouse.

  • Most of the casks filled so far.
  • Second Isle of Tiree distillery release, a rye whisky.

After leaving the distillery and walking back to the vans, we realised the field where we’d parked was too exposed to the wind, so we called the cooperative managing those fields and we were able to swap for another one slightly less exposed. Still no facilities, which left a sour taste as we had paid £15 for one night. At least this one was at a walking distance to one of the very few bar/restaurants on the island. The very cozy Alan Stevenson House is in Hynish, a settlement that used to serve the Skerryvore lighthouse. We walked there to grab a dram, before retiring in our campervans for dinner and for a final dram, all together inside Gladys, Karen and Chris’ campervan, the biggest of the three. When we left the bar, the Tiree Distillery dinner was about to start: we didn’t have tickets for the event (£65), which we regretted a bit because first, they were serving the first single malt release too, impossible to try elsewhere. Second, we didn’t know yet what would happen in the following days.

  • Hynish and its lighthouse’s signal tower.

The day after came with a bad surprise, as our ferry for Barra was cancelled (sad trombone). Instead, we got another one back to Oban, as the day after there was an early ferry from Mallaig to South Uist. If that went ahead, we would have had still time to attend all the other distillery visits of the holiday. That wasn’t the case: in the evening, when we were already in Mallaig, this ferry was also rerouted from Oban (d’oh!), but in the morning that was cancelled too. The last chance would have meant to travel to Uig, on Skye, but there were no spaces for vehicles and there was no assurance that the ferry would sail. So, after a regroup in Mallaig, we decided to drive back to Fort William and abandon the plan. From the campsite we booked we walked to the Ben Nevis distillery, where Hazel, the lead tour guide and whisky IG friend, gave us a warm welcome and some tasty drams. That was a nice consolation.

  • Feeling better after all these setbacks.

While we’re happy that we visited Tiree distillery and to learn about their crafty setup, we were a bit disappointed that we couldn’t make it to the other islands. The distilleries personnel were very understanding and all of our tastings and tours were refunded, and it was the same for the ferry tickets. Unfortunately, when storms happen there’s nothing anyone can do, we just hope to be able to go back soon (and be a bit luckier with the weather).

Stay tuned to learn more about our “plan B”, in a couple of weeks. Until then, slàinte!

Tiree Distillery Open Day Tour

Price: free* (September 2025)

Duration: 45min

Tasting: 15ml of newmake spirit (63.5%)

Distillery Exclusive: on the day, the Tiree Single Grain Rye Whisky (45%, £125)

Target: anyone

Value for money: of course very good, as it was free

Highlights: the cosy setup

Recommended: if you’re already on the island, definitely

*the regular whisky tour is £20, but according to the website there are no tours scheduled in the next 6 months

Link: https://www.tyreegin.com/