The Isle of Tiree is the farthest West of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. This fertile and remote island, famed for sunshine and stunning scenery, is surrounded by the vast Atlantic Ocean.
Awarded a Gold Award at the Spirits Business Gin Masters 2022 and a Bronze Medal at the International Wine and Spirits Competition 2022, Tyree Gin truly reflects the landscape in which it is distilled. Kelp harvested from the icy waters provides sweetness as well as coastal salty flavours and floral, grassy and vanilla notes are achieved using a range of botanicals from the machair ground inland from the shore.
Combined with juniper, water-mint and angelica, this is a fresh, pure island spirit.
Tyree was a historical form of spelling for the island while the modern spelling of Tiree first appeared on a map produced by John Cowley in 1734 and then again in a map of Scotland by John & Frederic Tallis in 1851.
The last legal distillery in Tiree ceased to operate at the beginning of the nineteenth century and our gin distillery is the first since then.
OUR BOTANICALS
Alongside the core botanicals, the predominant flavour of Tyree Gin is achieved through locally sourced botanicals: Eyebright, Ladies Bedstraw, Water Mint and Angelica collected from the island’s rich and fertile machair ground.
Machair is low-lying arable or grazing land formed near the coast by a combination of soil and sand. This type of land is unique to Scotland and makes up around a quarter of the island.
These machair botanicals together with Kelp from the wild Atlantic Ocean, combine impeccably to create a true taste of Tiree.
THE KELP HARVEST
Our Kelp is sourced from the Wild Atlantic Ocean which surrounds the Isle of Tiree.
These kelp forests are the fourth largest in Scottish waters and this abundance fuelled the island’s kelp industry.
Seaweed has been used from the earliest times as animal fodder, for medicinal use, for human consumption and as a fertiliser for hay and potatoes.
By the 18th Century, kelp was providing an income for locals who burnt it locally to produce alkalis and in 1863, a factory was built in Middleton where the seaweed was used to produce iodine. The factory, named the ‘Glassary’, closed in 1901 and some of its walls were used to build road and runway foundations in the Second World War.
Tyree was a historical form of spelling for the island while the modern spelling of Tiree first appeared on a map produced by John Cowley in 1734 and then again in a map of Scotland by John & Frederic Tallis in 1851. This historic spelling is displayed on a brass plate, which survives from the Seaweed Factory, engraved with 'NORTH BRITISH CHEMICAL CO. LD. TYREE NO. 1'.
The name was officially changed to Tiree in 1889 to avoid confusion with Tyrie in Aberdeenshire.
