The Deepest Delights
The perfect botanical for Harris Gin grows up to seven metres under water, so harvesting it is something of a specialist occupation...
BEFORE the team at the Isle Of Harris Distillery began to produce its now-famous gin, they studied a range of botanicals that would distil the essence of the island in a bottle.
After a lengthy research process, the team discovered that one vital ingredient perfectly captured its ethos – sugar kelp. This makes the Isle Of Harris Distillery the only one in the world to use this type of sweet-savoury seaweed in its gin production process.
Sugar kelp, which grows on the seabed and is harvested by hand, was first suggested by ethnobotanist Susanne Masters, a friend of the chairman’s daughter. She was commissioned by the distillery to recommend a number of botanicals that would produce a distinctive- tasting gin.
As a wild swimmer, it was no surprise that Susanne took her research under the water. That’s where she discovered sugar kelp, naturally-sweet seaweed that was traditionally used by Hebridean families in cooking, and to feed livestock.
Simon Erlanger is managing director of the Isle Of Harris Distillery which was recently named the Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year at the Scottish Gin Awards. He explained, “Kelp in general was absolutely central to our island and would’ve been used in the past – but to use sugar kelp in the distilling process was something no one had ever done before.
“Once we discovered it, we got funding to take it to Heriot Watt University to help us develop the overall recipe for the gin. We told them we wanted the gin to be smooth, sophisticated and speak of the island, and that it must include sugar kelp.”
Besides sugar kelp and juniper – the spirit’s essential botanical – seven other ingredients were combined to produce the recipe under test conditions in a laboratory. Six months later, the award-winning Isle of Harris Gin as we know it today was achieved.
MD Simon, who spent his career in international sales and marketing at Glenmorangie before arriving at Isle of Harris Distillery, explained that it was an “incredibly nervous” time. The final gin was bottled – in its famous turquoise-coloured, ridged-glass vessel – and ready only seven days before the grand opening of the distillery in September 2015.
Three years on, the gin’s unique sweet-salt taste – flavoured by the sugar kelp – has won a number of awards, including “favourite Scottish gin” in the Scottish Gin Society’s public survey.
The Isle Of Harris Gin’s overwhelming popularity meant that sugar kelp was very much in demand at the distillery.
So the firm needed to work closely with free diver Lewis Mackenzie, who lives and works on neighbouring Lewis and has been diving for almost three decades.
Lewis hand-harvests this crucial ingredient in the Isle Of Harris Gin distilling process – making him one of the most important people in its production.
Since the opening of the distillery, which recently celebrated its third anniversary, the former commercial scallop diver has been hand-harvesting sugar kelp from the Hebridean seabed.
Because the kelp is growing wild, and being harvested for commercial use, permission had to be