Torabhaig and the development of a whisky

Torabhaig Sound of Sleat – The Legacy Series Whisky is the fourth edition in The Legacy Series from Torabhaig Distillery.

The Isle of Skye producer has been charting its journey towards releasing a 10-year-old single malt for the whole world to see. First, there was Torabhaig Legacy 2017 Whisky, followed by Allt Gleann, Cnoc Na Moine, and finally, Sound of Sleat. 

This peated single malt celebrates the island’s Sleat Peninsula with a label design from local artist Ellis O’Connor. It’s aged in a combo of new oak, bourbon, and refill American oak casks, giving it layers with sweet bonfire smoke, maritime salinity, vanilla, and honey.

I tried it recently at a tasting in London hosted by Neil Macleod Mathieson, whisky maker for Mossburn and Torabhaig. He spoke about the development of Torabhaig and how it aims to evolve its signature whisky style. It was very interesting, so I wrote it down. This is that. What he done said. It’s here. Read it. 

Core flavours

Mathieson says the brand, as it develops, will eliminate anything he felt wasn’t a core flavour element to his idea of how the spirit would be. 

“Unfortunately, for everybody else, the design of the stills and the design of the flavour profile belonged to me,” he jokes. Although Torabhiag does have quite a singular approach to manifesting that perspective, through nine distillers, each adding their own approach and expertise. 

Before Torabhaig, Mathieson actually didn’t like peated whisky neat. But his ancestors are from the Scottish islands where peat has been part of daily life for generations, and he knew it was only natural to work with the aromatics familiar to him from childhood. 

“My mother used to take all my clothes off and put them in the washing machine because they heated their house with peat, so you would walk in and immediately everything after an hour was impregnated with the smell of smoke. I first used a peat spade when I was six”. 

Digging into peat and ppm

So, the core product at Torabhaig is a peated whisky. But Mathieson says there are no aromatics that you would get from Laphroaig. There are no heavy, earthy aromas you get from Lagavulin. “Yet we are, by analysis, heavier in peat content and phenolics than both of those whiskeys”. That’s all to do with how it operates its still and makes its spirit cuts, as well as its way of introducing the spirit to the barrels.

“Our interest in the chemistry of the phenolics in peated whisky stems from the fantastic nature of the human sense of smell,” Mathieson explains. “We found by analysis that whiskies with widely different aromatic profiles actually had remarkably similar analytical phenolic levels even between the sub-families of phenol compounds and that the layering in the initial spirit (the wood-contact during ageing and the reduction for bottling or drinking), all made major changes to how each phenolic family is perceived by the consumer”. 

In order to take a step back and understand these differences, Torabhaig chose the analytical route right from the first months of distillation. It found that this guided its cut and wood selection and gave insights into why and what aromas it found in the spirit. 

“We made it a point to share these findings and try to give a little clarity on the phenolic content of the final whisky – and help our consumer understand that the bigger the number, does not necessarily mean the more aromatic the aroma of the whisky”. 

Getting the fundamentals right

Hence, Torabhaig’s peaty identity and phenolic aroma often being at odds with the number we find by analysis. “As we are now approaching the 10yo mark we are also seeing the increase of phenols, particularly guaiacols from lignin breakdown in our first fill barrels, adding to the total phenols rather than maturation leading to a lessening in phenolic strength – and with reduction for bottling and drinking this will allow for more of the burnt ember and earthy aspects of guaiacol to be perceived in the flavour and smell of the whisky,” Mathieson summarises.

In order to get the gentlest vision, various methods of making peated whisky were tried and tested. “The fundamental change that we did during the first 14-16 months was that we moved from 55 ppm (parts per million) barley up to 75 to 85 ppm and also changed our cut on the stills. We took the lower cut, which would allow more aromatics through on the lower peated barleys, and we changed it to higher peated barleys but with a tighter cut, and it seemed to give us a layering that we liked”. That’s where the layering of the flavour profile has sat with Torabhaig for the last three years, and that’s become even more important as it looks to develop the core product: a 10 Year Old. 

“The cut became the final decision to be taken as this would largely dictate the selection of the phenolic compounds and particularly how the major aromatic families of Cresol and Guaiacol would be collected,” Mathieson underlines. “We were looking for a balanced profile with the phenols sitting in harmony with each other… not the piercing medicinal smoke of some whiskies nor the earthy qualities of others. By adjusting the cut and excluding some of the early and late compounds that might heighten some aromas, we have achieved our own distinct core Torabhaig spirit. During our experimental months, we then cut both higher and lower depending on the peating levels of each batch, the barley strain or the yeast type, as each will need minor adjustments to the length of the heart to maximise the flavour we retain”.

Character in the distillery and the spirit

The listed buildings Torabahig is based in bring character but limitations. The stills couldn’t have a wide base like Lagavulin or be tall, like Laphroaig or Glenmorangie. There’s no room for parallel or upwards sloping lyne arms and cooling designs indicated the need for shell and tube copper condensers.  That’s why it was very important in the first couple of years to play with grain, to interact with the malsters, to experiment with yeast, ppm, and cut points. 

Torabhaig still uses three different malsters for different batches because it feels each has its own strengths. Interestingly, Mathieson makes a point of having the highest humidity content when the smoking happens, because that seemed to glue the smoke in better for its distillery. “It probably makes no difference to anybody else’s, but it just worked for us. You only find these things out by sitting there, looking at the spirit all the time, day in, day out,” Mathieson reveals.

Digging into this more, he outlines why this matters. “Each maltster will dry for a different period and from a different initial moisture level in the grain. We have found that these aspects of the maltsters’ work are a core flavour driver when the drying includes peating,” Mathieson says. “It would appear that our own ferments have differing aromatic qualities depending on the humidity levels when the smoking starts, and we put this down to moisture levels affecting the initial absorption of the peat aromatics during the drying period”. 

Of course, the grain harvests differ from year to year, from variety to variety and the retained aromatics from the ear size and length of kilning time. Still, Mathieson feels that, because it is the husk of the barley grain (the lemma and the palea) that absorbs almost all of the smoke, a little higher moisture seems to aid this. 

A journey through casks

When it comes to maturation, Toabhaig works directly with coopers, such as Tonelería Juan Pino of Jerez, to attain sherry casks to very specific standards. No solera, it’s all first-fill or virgin, ordered two years in advance of receiving it. The system means no finishing spirits, everything is aged from scratch. 

First-fill casks are given a quick steam rinse. “We really feel that we don’t need anything left in the barrel, apart from what’s ingrained in the wood,” Mathieson explains. “And that means that we’re never going to be extracting quite as much from our sherry barrels as some of the other houses”. 

Cnoc Na Moine is the first introduction of those sherry casks. “Although we’re very proud of it, it’s too young for the amount of sherry we would want to put into a whiskey to see how we could stretch everybody’s palates, so perhaps we will revisit that at nine or 12 and see how it works,” Mathieson explains. 

Leading with American oak

After laying down a lot of Spanish Oak first, Mathieson says the direction of travel then went towards Quercus Alba, Quercus Rober, Quercus Petraea, Quercus Macranthera, because he didn’t know how Torabhaig would work with the different oaks and the different flavours he would be able to extract. That also meant playing with the toasting and charring levels. 

You can see the exploration through the distillery series. “We’ve trialled a lot of singles. We have rum casks. We have Madeira, Port, White Port, Tawny Port, Cognac, and all sorts of sweet wine casks. At the moment, we are playing with 30,000 barrels of different ages and different wood and different types”. 

But there’s something about the core American wood that Torabhaig wanted to get out of its system before it got to the eight-year-olds and 10-year-olds to see how the complexity of the development through oxygenation had taken place. 

Settling on something they like

You can see this in Sound of Sleat, where Torabhaig has gone back to Quercas Albas solely, with first-fill American oak casks as well as a percentage of refill and virgin. The balance is to find a point where they bring the desired level of oak spice to the whisky but still leave it approachable without subduing it all underneath oak. 

“We like it. It’s the best way to put it,” Mathieson says. Sound of Sleat represents, for him, the easiest way to get to the root of the Torabhaig spirit at its fore. Heavier oaks, like French oak, are more extractive with tannins and wood spices. Those are elements that the distillery can revisit at a later date, perhaps on an older product. 

These deliberations and experiments are all part of the journey to find the sacred flavour profile and eventually establish which will become the Torabhaig core range. Every release smells like Torabhaig, though. We tasted through the three that followed the initial small batch Legacy, and there’s an age progression, there’s a cask progression, but there’s also a DNA that is present, while evolving. 

Torabhaig and the development of a whisky

“We’re testing them on our audience, but we hope at the same time that you’re enjoying them, even though we may never bring them back,” Mathieson says of the previous Legacy Series releases. “We’ve never made more than 100,000 bottles of any particular whiskey. So, once they’re done, they’re done.”

Elsewhere at Mossburn, there will be soon be releases of small batches of its first five-year old single rye whiskies from its Reiver Distillery, plus a series of older blends that have been marrying in Ephemera casks (1000 litre French Oak barrels) that have developed to add “an additional sparkle and structure” to some of its oldest grain and malt blends.

At Torabhaig, the innovative Journeyman Project will release soon, containing its first Distiller’s Selections. This is where each distiller at Torabhaig makes their style of whisky, selecting the barley and yeast types and introducing their own ferment and cut timings. Plus, the Distillery Reserves promises more experimental batches from our first-fill oak series.

But what we can look forward to most is the development of an NAS and 10 and 12-year-old products as it lays down the final barrel streams to achieve an ongoing character for each age. It’s rare to see a distillery share its process with the public so transparently and collaboratively. But it’s an approach that has won many admirers, myself included, precisely because we feel a part of the Torabhaig story. 

We just must remember the enjoy this chapter before getting too excited about what happens next. Enjoy some Torabhaig Sound of Sleat. Remember, once it’s gone, it’s really gone… 

Torabhaig Sound of Sleat – The Legacy Series Whisky tasting note:

Nose: Flamed orange, grilled stone fruits, toffee apple, toasted nuts, with smoked seaweed and tobacco balanced by oaken vanilla and honey.

Palate: Zesty citrus peels and delicate woody spice, sweet, rich smoke, honeyed toast, and vanilla fudge, with subtle wax and a touch of pepper beneath.

Finish: Briny salinity, salted caramel, lingering sweet peat and spice.

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