Torabhaig Cnoc Na Moine

Cnoc Na Moine is the third release in Torabhaig's Legacy Series, the run of bottlings charting the Skye distillery's journey towards a ten year old single malt. Torabhaig, opened in 2017 by Mossburn Distillers, is the island's second distillery after Talisker. The name, Gaelic for hill of peat, is a hill across the Sound of Sleat on the mainland by Knoydart.

This release marks the distillery's first use of sherry wood. The heavily peated spirit was matured in a combination of Bourbon American oak, Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez casks, giving a darker colour and a richer body than the Bourbon led releases before it. It is bottled at 46 percent without chill filtration or colouring. Torabhaig ferments in Douglas fir washbacks and distils in copper pot stills, the slow approach building the balanced, well tempered peat.

On the palate the sherry brings dried fruit, raisin and a dark sweetness that wraps around the coastal peat smoke, with lemon and a struck flint minerality still showing through. The smoke stays well tempered, balanced against the fruit. The richest chapter of the Legacy Series so far, and a sign of where Torabhaig is heading. It is the first Torabhaig to lean on sherry, a darker, more layered turn from a distillery still finding its range.