ISLE OF RAASAY DISTILLERY MIXES WITH FENTIMANS FOR THE BOUTIQUE BAR SHOW

Isle of Raasay Distillery is teaming up with premium botanical mixers Fentimans at London’s Boutique Bar Show on the 2nd of October to re-create the classic highball Whisky and Cola serve.

Raasay Distillery will be showcasing Raasay While We Wait Single Malt whisky and pairing it with the Fentimans Curiosity Cola in a new take on this classic serve: Raasay Curiosity. Scotch and soda are a historic pairing but in recent years the serve has been usurped as the effortless bar order by the ubiquitous Gin and Tonic. With the ambition of reviving this classic combination, Raasay Distillery has teamed up with Fentimans – a premium artisanal brand that shares the distillery’s willingness to push the boundaries of traditional whisky serves – in the hope of changing perceptions and bringing back this matchless combination.

The award-winning whisky, Raasay While We Wait balances peatiness with smoothness, making it the perfect introduction for newcomers to peated whisky. It is matured in bourbon barrels and finished in Tuscan Montechiari wine casks which lends dry fruit notes to the spirit. Curiosity Cola is botanically brewed, a technique that is not only healthier and more natural than other cola-production, but gives the mixer a marginal alcohol content of up to 0.5%. Although still considered a soft drink, this slightly alcoholic edge ensures that the herbal sweetness of the soda combines smoothly with the zesty, lightly smoky and red fruit notes of the whisky.

Chris Hoban, Brand Ambassador for Raasay Distillery comments: “While looking for a whisky alternative to the classic G&T we started experimenting with the extensive range from Fentimans because we feel that their story shares our values. We were delighted to discover the pairing of Curiosity Cola with our Raasay While We Wait single malt and Raasay Curiosity is now our go-to long drink for any season.”

Dave Robson, Fentimans Sales Director, adds: “At Fentimans, we are always looking at ways in which we can engage our consumers in different ways. We are pleased to continue working together with Raasay Distillery, their whisky is exceptional and creates a whole new serve with our dark mixer, Curiosity Cola, lightly balancing the peaty Raasay While We Wait.”

Raasay Distillery and Fentimans will be launching Raasay Curiosity on Tuesday 2nd October at the nomadic Boutique Bar Show London which is taking up residency at The BargeHouse on the Southbank, adjacent to the iconic OXO Tower.

NOTES

ISLE OF RAASAY DISTILLERY:

Raasay While We Wait is priced at £52.99 and available to purchase on RaasayDistillery.com and Master of Malt The Isle of Raasay Distillery broke ground in June 2016 and opened in September 2017, becoming the first “legal” distillery on this remote Hebridean island. Co-founded by Scottish entrepreneurs Bill Dobbie and Alasdair Day, Raasay Distillery is designed to produce Scotland’s modern island malt, and catapult Raasay into the global market as Scotland’s newest whisky producing region. Raasay Distillery is proud to be one of the few 100% Scottish-owned Scotch whisky businesses in Scotland. On the site of the Victorian-era Borodale House, formerly the Isle of Raasay Hotel, is a state-of-the-art modern distillery, offering year-round tours and luxury accommodation, with arguably the best view of any distillery in Scotland. The distillery has since received Five-Star Visitor Attraction rating and Four-Star Accommodation rating from VisitScotland for the visitor centre and accommodation respectively. Isle of Raasay Single Malt will be lightly peated and fruity, utilising the best of the island’s natural elements and reflecting Raasay’s rugged natural beauty. Raasay Distillery uses water from an ancient Celtic well located behind Borodale House at every stage of production, from mashing to fermentation, cask reduction and reduction to bottling strength, ensuring that natural flavours from the high content of iron and manganese are retained in the final whisky.

Working with local crofters, Raasay Distillery has successfully grown and harvested barley in a nearby field, the first time that barley has been commercially grown on Raasay in over 40 years. In August 2018, the team successfully produced spirit from the 2017 batch of Raasay barley crop, which will mature into the first ever single malt produced from Raasay grown barley in 2021. While the majority of new whisky distilleries produce gin while waiting for their spirit to mature, the adventurous team at Raasay Distillery decided to concentrate its attention on whisky. The result is an independently bottled single malt – Raasay While We Wait – which has been crafted as an accurate preview of Raasay Distillery’s future core style. Designed as a peaty and fruity single malt, each iteration of Raasay While We Wait has been crafted through the vatting of two malts from a single Highland distillery – heavily peated at 45ppm and unpeated – matured in bourbon barrels and finished in Tuscan Montechiari wine casks.

Raasay Distillery, Borodale House, Isle of Raasay, Kyle IV40 8PB
raasaydistillery.com
Instagram/ Facebook: @raasaydistillery, Twittter: @RaasayWhisky

FENTIMANS:

Fentimans is a family owned business started in 1905 by Thomas Fentiman; it is presently run by Eldon Robson, Thomas Fentimans great, great grandson. Fentimans is the only brewer in the UK to use the time-honoured process of botanical brewing to produce natural, botanically brewed and exquisitely crafted beverages and mixers that have a rich and complex taste. The beverages and mixers are crafted with knowledge and expertise passed on from generation to generation of the family. Only natural ingredients are used to make Fentimans botanically brewed and exquisitely crafted beverages and mixers.

Fentimans was named as the UK’s number one soft drinks brand in The Guild of Fine Food’s Best Brands Survey 2016-17; Fentimans Pink Grapefruit Tonic Water won The Grocer’s “New Product of the Year” award in 2017.
The mixer range comprises of twelve mixers, eleven soft drinks and a selection of pre-mixed alcoholic beverages, as well as craft beer.

www.fentimans.com @fentimansltd

THE BOUTIQUE BAR SHOW:

Promising quality brands on every stand and equality for all exhibitors, the Boutique Bar Show was created and has maintained an ethos that puts the liquid centre stage and provides the perfect platform for new products to showcase themselves to a targeted audience of industry professionals and influential taste makers. Guests will be able to meet over 100 exciting products and producers, enjoy a diverse line up of international speakers and take inspiration and ideas on cocktails from a number of leading London bars who will be partnering with the event.

The Boutique Bar Show exclusively promotes new and high-quality drinks brands to the UK drinks industry. At each event attendees will find interesting products, take inspiration from world leading speakers and develop important new business contacts within the intimate show atmosphere.

Hosted in beautiful buildings around the country the ethos of The Boutique Bar Show is to provide all of the exhibitors with equal size stands to allow the products to take centre stage.
www.boutiquebarshow.com @bbshowuk