Scotland, Day 8: Handspinner Having Fun, the Old Pier, Tasting at Torabhaig Distillery, Walking Along the Carbost Waterfront, Dinner at Old Inn

September 4, 2025

Another view up the street to our cottage (on the left), in Portree. Here’s a weird thing: we got little help, regarding where to park our car. There were a few spots (like 5 or 6) in front of the hotel, and we got lucky once or twice. But beyond that, there’s no street parking downtown.

While there was some parking by the other cottages (on the road to the NE of the hotel)… those were all reserved for those residents. But we didn’t have any parking of our own, to speak out.

There were some pay lots, which were a ways away and a hassle/pricey. Overall, we ended up getting lucky a few times. And ended up finding some street parking along nearby York Drive.

Again, weird that no one form the hotel could really help us. We asked two or three different people, and most of them were young, said they didn’t have cars, and didn’t know what to suggest for parking.

Lucky we got lucky.

A huge bonus: there was a Co-Op literally around the corner from us. This is peeking around said corner, looking at the incredibly busy street in the early morning.

On our stops today, Liz spent some time at Handspinner Having Fun.

While I browsed briefly, I ended up walking a bit further to explore the old pier at the end of the road. Which, believe it or not, was named Old Pier Road.

It was hard to tell – was this just the result of low tide? Was the boat just naturally in this state, due to the water levels? Or did someone actually abandon said boat?

Trekking a bit more, we arrived at Torabhaig – an incredibly young distillery, despite it being located on grounds that go back to the 1700s/1800s.

Planning began in 2002, the actual renovation work began in 2014, they began distilling in 2017 and began offering whisky for purchase in 2021.

Torabhaig is also only the second licensed distillery on Skye (the first being Talisker, back in 1830).

We got a brief tour, before going in for a quick tasting. Fun bit of trivia: Torabhaig was designed with a removable roof, enabling ease for future cleaning/maintenance of its stills.

From the main building, we then all hopped in a car for a quick drive down to the warehouse. Of course, the rain kicked in to high gear right as we stepped outside… but it ended up making the ride down more of an adventure.

A really cool thing about Torabhaig – they made it a point to hire locals to work at the distillery. And more than that, also made it a point to hire folks who may not have been directly involved in the whisky industry.

Of particular interest, they have a Journeyman’s Series: a program where they set aside one month each year for their distillers to have free reign of the distillery, to work on their own custom recipes.

We set aside one month every year when each of our nine distillers get free rein of the distillery to create their own whisky. They decide on their own unique recipe, the strain of barley, yeast, fermentation length, peat reek (if any), cut points and cask type. Each distiller is in charge during the production of their spirit, and will stay close to the whisky during its maturation. When the whisky is ready to be bottled, it will have their names on it, by which time they will have in effect earned their journeyman’s medals.

Pictured here a cask belonging to Iona McPhie.

Two of the casks that we got to taste. I say “we”, but I got some driver’s drams because I was driving. Sadness.

Our guide, using a Copper Dog to pull out drams. We had a younger group of gents with us on the tour, and the pours she gave them… were massive. I expected them to be on the floor by the time we left.

Looking out at Knock Castle in the distance.

We had a long drive, and arrived at The Old Inn (a place that doesn’t take reservations [from non-guests] for dinner). Liz napped most of the drive, so I had a leisurely time getting us from the distillery to here.

On arriving, we put our names in and started walking around. We walked by Talisker, which seemed to have quite the festive event going on (live music, lots of food tents).

We ended up walking a good while, checking out the Carbost Waterfront. Nothing really remarkable here – just places for boats to tie up, a fairly utilitarian area.

There was a woman who was running back and forth along the road, as we were exploring. Music and the smell of food wafted over to us, from a distance.

We walked by The Three Chimneys at Talisker, which was closed at the time. But lucky for us, we had reservations at the original Three Chimenys soon (tomorrow in fact).