CATEGORY: Single Malt Whisky.
COMPANY: Isle of Raasay Hebridean Distillers.
DISTILLERY: Raasay Distillery.
ABV: 46.4% (92.8 proof).
AGE: NAS (No Age Statement).
MASHBILL: 100% Malted Barley.
COLOR: Natural (no coloring), bright gold.
Read in the magazine (rotate your device for a better reading experience):
Michel I. Texier
Non-chill filtered and matured in a unique combination of six different cask types, this signature expression –developed by Master Distiller Alasdair Day– was first released in 2021. As of this year, it is named The Draam.
Two Raasay distillates, peated and unpeated, are separately aged in First Fill Rye American Whiskey, Fresh Chinkapin Oak, and Bordeaux Red Wine casks. The final blend of these six cask types results in a single malt that is elegant, complex, and profound, with a distinctive personality.
The use of new Chinkapin oak casks contributes one of its defining characteristics. After experimenting with different levels of charring and toasting, the distillery opted for heavy charring, believing it would best complement their spirit.
Heavy charring increases the barrel’s internal surface area, allowing more whisky to interact with the wood while naturally developing a darker color. The intense toasting caramelizes the oak’s natural sugars, imparting flavors of sweet caramel and grilled smoked meat to the final distillate.
NOSE: Notes of black and red berries, smoked wood, cinnamon, and sweet spices.
PALATE: Flavors of vanilla, black pepper, dark chocolate, and a lingering peat smoke, balanced with hints of lemongrass and butterscotch.
FINISH: A long, characterful finish –structured and powerful despite being lightly peated– with above-average smokiness and a prolonged sweetness.
COMMENTS: In the words of its Master Distiller:
“We wanted to explore some of the older styles of Hebridean single malts. For instance, Islay whiskies that are no longer dominant, like Bowmore from the 1960s and early 1970s. Those had a balance of smoke and dark fruit flavors –black cherries, perhaps even apricots. This became the inspiration for our lightly peated single malt, with its dark fruit profile, which we now craft on the Hebridean Isle of Raasay.”
The next question we asked was:
“How can we create an exceptional whisky that develops elegance, complexity, and depth early in the maturation process?” At the same time, we considered how this recipe could produce a traditional-aged Scotch single malt (10 years or older).
“Given Scotch whisky’s illustrious blending heritage, conventional wisdom says a distillery should make one style of single malt as efficiently as possible –mature it in oak (typically ex-Bourbon casks) and wait until it’s ready (10, 12, 15, 18 years or more).
But what if you designed a distillery with the flexibility to produce different single malt styles? This approach is more common in other countries –Japan, Taiwan, the U.S., Tasmania– and it’s the philosophy we’ve embraced on the Isle of Raasay.”
Photography: Gilsane García Morais.
Acknowledgments: Dr. Gilton Da Silva Morais, private collection.
