As the popularity of gin continues to grow, supermarket and drink shop shelves strain with a seemingly endless choice of bottles and botanicals. There are pink gins, sloe gins, oaked gins, flavoured gins and gins from all over the world.
But you won’t find Isle of Harris Gin among the crowds of brands bustling for customers’ attention. That’s because our island spirit is only available from the place in which it's made.
Every drop is created and bottled here in our small village on the rocky shores of East Loch Tarbert. We distil, fill, label and seal every order by hand and send it to you from the heart of our Outer Hebridean home.
The Harris Gin journey begins in the cold, clear waters of nearby sea-lochs. Our friend and diver Lewis Mackenzie picks fresh fonds of gold-green Sugar kelp in a sustainable harvest of our defining botanical.
This special seaweed is then dried locally before being infused in our spirit alongside 8 other carefully chosen ingredients.
We distil all our gin here in Harris, using a small, brightly burnished copper still nicknamed 'The Dottach', with every step in the skilled hands of seven men and women from our community trained in this craft.
All our beautiful glass bottles are filled by hand here too, with labels carefully applied before the wooden cork stopper is sealed with our distillery’s coordinates, your guarantee of a product with real provenance.
Every order of Isle of Harris Gin comes to the distillery through our online shop, connecting us to all our customers directly. This means we not only ensure the best service and can better share our story, but also create more vital jobs.
We send these orders from our shores to doors all over the UK five days a week, safely secured in our bespoke, eco-friendly packaging cleverly designed to enjoy upon opening.
The next stage of the journey can be a long one by land and sea…
Leaving Tarbert, the road winds northwards through the high hills of Harris, home of the mighty Clisham mountain. High winds and winter snows often provide a real challenge during the darker months.
Onwards, to the large harbour town of Stornoway, a crossing of the temperamental seas of The Minch awaits. This wide stretch of water can quickly turn wild as weather fronts roll in, and even on a good day it promises almost three hours of non-plain sailing.
Arrival at the north-west coastal village of Ullapool gets the next leg of the adventure underway as our Isle of Harris Gin speeds past scenes of shimmering lochs, rolling hills and heathered moorland towards the Highland city of Inverness, our closest distribution hub.
From here, there are still over 150 miles to travel to the big cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and London lies over 560 miles to the south. But, our couriers make quick work of the distances and it won’t be long until delivery to your door is made. We always aim to reach you within five working days and often do so sooner than that.
When your Isle of Harris Gin arrives, we hope you or your chosen recipients will savour the moment and the all-too-brief unboxing to reveal whatever wonderful things lie within.
And, when you finally sit down to sip your Isle of Harris Gin, we trust the extra effort you have invested will all be made worthwhile.
You will have been part of a wonderful journey with us, one that’s only ever from the Isle of Harris.