Torabhaig Club Reserve – Release No.1 4 Years Old 2017

The Club Reserve releases are bottled by Torabhaig for the Peat Elite, the members' club of the Isle of Skye distillery. Torabhaig opened in 2017 as the island's second distillery after Talisker, built by Mossburn Distillers in a restored farmstead at Teangue on Sleat. This is Release No.1, a single cask exclusive to the club.

Distilled in 2017 from heavily peated barley and matured in a first fill Oloroso sherry puncheon, this release pairs the distillery's well tempered peat with rich sherry wood, a combination that would later inform the Cnoc Na Moine chapter of the Legacy Series. It is bottled at its natural cask strength of 60.2 percent, without chill filtration or colour. The heavily peated barley would make a fierce spirit at most distilleries, but Torabhaig's long fermentation and careful cut keep the smoke in check.

On the palate the Oloroso brings dried fruit, raisin and a nutty depth that wraps around the coastal peat smoke, with lemon and a struck flint minerality beneath. At full strength it is rich and powerful, the sherry and smoke well matched. A members' club rarity from Skye's second distillery. The Peat Elite club gives Torabhaig's keenest followers first access to cask strength single casks like this.