Like whisky? This Scottish island should be top of your list

It’s connected to the west coast mainland by a bridge but the Isle of Skye still feels a place apart. Getting its name from an old Norse word for ‘misty isle’, it’s an elemental place, whose character shifts with the latest weather forecast. It has its blockbuster sites, among them the jagged rock pinnacles known as the Old Man of Storr, and colourful fishing villages such as Portree. But to really appreciate the island, you need to simply slow down and observe. To watch shadows drift across bracken-covered moorland. To gaze at sea lochs sparkling in the sunshine, eagles gliding above. To embrace the darkest nights as the Northern Lights skitter across the sky, knowing there’s a dram of whisky waiting by the fire.

The experience

The good people of Skye have been producing Scotch since at least 1830, when its first registered distillery, Talisker, opened in the west of the island. In the rolling, loch-speckled hills of the Sleat Peninsula in the south is a young upstart looking to add to that legacy.

Though it’s only been in full production since 2017, Torabhaig (the ‘bh’ pronounced ‘v’ in Gaelic) feels much more established, so rooted is it in the landscape. It overlooks the dark waters of Knock Bay, with the tumbledown ruins of Knock Castle silhouetted against the sky and the hills of the Knoydart Peninsula visible on the mainland. The two burns (streams) that provide the distillery with spring water are within earshot.

Visitors come for tours that guide them through the process of whisky-making in the converted 19th-century farmstead that now houses the distillery, and end with tutored tastings of Torabhaig’s elegantly peated single malts. Those with more than a passing interest in both Scotch and island culture can discover the whiskies in a more immersive way through Kinloch Lodge. The hotel and restaurant, a short drive north on winding roads across the peninsula, now offers a ‘Sense of Place’ package in collaboration with Torabhaig, drawing on its close relationship with the distillery. In addition to three nights’ half-board accommodation, guests get a Torabhaig tour and tasting, a whisky-themed picnic lunch beneath Knock Castle, a cocktail-making class in the hotel bar and a foraging walk with Kinloch’s resident ghillie, Mitchell Partridge.

The hotel

To call Kinloch Lodge a hotel is do it something of an injustice. Guests receive a welcome here that goes beyond standard hospitality — stepping beneath the impressive antlers hanging over the front door, you’re brought into the lodge’s embrace as if you’re dearly missed family. The natural warmth that’s a mark of a stay is in large part down to owner Isabella Macdonald, and the role her family has played on the island for centuries.

Built in 1676 as a farmhouse for the Macdonald clan, who’ve presided over Skye since the 15th century, the handsome stone building later became a hunting lodge, a public bar and then the family home before Isabella’s parents turned it into a hotel in the 1970s. Isabella spent her childhood exploring the woodland that rises up the hill behind the lodge and swimming in the sea loch that fronts it — as guests do now. A stroll around Loch Na Dal often rewards with sightings of the dolphins and otters that also call this corner of Skye home.

Bedrooms have comfortable, country-house styling and views over the loch, but you’re more likely to spend any time indoors in the convivial sitting room or bar, sitting fireside with a book or cocktail. Family portraits hang on the walls and various heirlooms are on display, including hand-written letters from Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria. However you spend the day, hotfoot it back to the lodge for dinner — a highlight of a stay here since the hotel opened. Chef Jordan Webb creates inventive new menus daily using hyper-local and seasonal produce, from hand-dived scallops to Skye venison.