The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

bite drinks I n a remote corner of the UK, you’ll find the spirit of the Isle of Harris Gin distilled in the small village of Tarbert, located in the west of Scotland. Here, the location of Harris is said to pinch into an isthmus between two sea lochs, the harbour moorings and a local pier just a stone’s throw from the door of the distillery. Whether you’re crossing The Minch by sea or by air, they say all winding roads will eventually lead you to the Isle of Harris distillery from north and south of the Outer Hebrides. Known as ‘The Social Distillery’; the term is an ethos that embraces the generous character of the Isle of Harris and its people. When they opened in September 2015, they celebrated this historic moment by lighting a fire in their hearth for the first time, with three generations of ‘Hearaich’ (the Gaelic name for a person from Harris) adding a fad of peat to the growing blaze. They then threw the biggest ceilidh that the town had ever seen, with friends and family enjoying a night of music, song, and dancing. With the future of Harris at the core of their heart, the distillery does not just work to enrich their homeland and create an enterprise that will thrive for decades and even centuries to come, but to send the magical, elusive spirit of the island out into the world. “There is a deep belief that the island’s natu- ral assets can best be harnessed to address our acute economic problems through ambitious projects like Images courtesy of Grove Communications