Former mushroom grower and trained botanist, Alasdair Day got into whisky fifteen years ago. It's a journey that has taken him from the Hebridean island of Raasay to Campbeltown, and maybe one day to the Borders, he tells Tom Bruce-Gardyne over a virtual drink …

"Obviously, from a work perspective, everything's Raasay these days," says Alasdair Day about a dram to enjoy after work. But to escape the distillery he co-founded in 2014 on the Isle of Raasay, on the leeward side of Skye, he adds - "It might be a Balvenie or a Caol Ila."

Not that he gets much time off with the constant battle to grow the Raasay brand and his business of R&B Distillers in the face of ferocious competition, economic headwinds, US tariffs and crumbling consumer confidence. On our Teams call, he looks weary, and while that's partly down to a cold, it's tough out there, especially for a small independent distiller. 

Before we get on to that, he explains how R&B began. "The family connection goes back to 1820 and a company called J&A Davidson in Coldstream. My great grandfather joined in 1855 and took over the licensed grocer's shop and the whisky blending business."

Credit: Christine Potter

His ancestor could have done for the Borders' town, what Johnnie Walker did for Kilmarnock and the Chivas brothers for Aberdeen. Sadly, the business petered out after the War, but Alasdair, who was then working in the food industry having trained as a botanist, inherited the family cellar book in 2009.

"So, I had this mad idea of recreating my great grandfather's blend," he says of what he named The Tweeddale. By 2013, having quit his old job, he realised it would become unsustainable given the scarcity of affordable, mature malt whisky at the time.

"Companies like Macallan were taking age statements off their whiskies. That's how tight it was," he recalls. "Initially, I thought I would buy newmake spirit, and buy casks, and leave it to mature. But then I realised you could build a small distillery for that amount of money."

Thinking the latter sounded infinitely more exciting, he began pitching his idea for a Borders distillery to the tech entrepreneur Bill Dobbie who co-founded the online dating site Cupid. A relationship blossomed around whisky, but not in the Borders. The 'R' in R&B was to be Raasay which Bill remembered fondly from school holidays there, while the 'B' remains an aspiration.

The view from the stillroom - Raasay

On the island, staring across the water to the Cuillins on Skye, he had to admit it was a stunning location for a distillery. The view is framed in the window of the stillroom where production started in 2017. A Raasay While We Wait spirit was put on the market until the first single malt was ready in 2020.

For the previous 18 months, the whisky could be pre-ordered online, and as the deadline approached people suddenly woke up. "We did a blog, saying there were 67 bottles left, and it just went mad," he says. "We were retailing it at £99, and it was coming up on auction sites at over £480."

By chance, R&B had stumbled into the great 'Covid super-cycle', as it became known, when locked-down consumers with money splurged on high-end spirits. Raasay's core whisky – 'The Draam', first released in 2021, got off to a flying start.

After the party came the hangover. "It's relatively easy to build a distillery. It's much harder to build a brand," says Alasdair, ruefully. "As Bill says, we have to think about sales every minute of every day. I think we're now in 52 markets around the world, and with the competition from 200 year-old distilleries, and 61 new distilleries, it's tough."

By reducing production, the new generation of distillers like Raasay may find things improve next year, at least in cash flow, reckons Duncan McFadzean, CEO of financial advisers Noble & Co who produce a quarterly Whisky Intelligence Report.

"I think it depends how quickly people reacted," says Alasdair. "Some cut production very quickly, some less so, and some have done it in steps, but it takes a long time for that to move through." The cyclical nature of the industry is hard-wired. "It's not unusual in Scotch for overproduction, and then people over correct and produce less."

Like Duncan, he predicts there will be mergers rather than closures among struggling, new distilleries, and says: "If you were one of the investors you don't want to lose money. That's why I think it's going to take a while for all this to unravel because you're going to defend your investment as best you can."  

Instead of 'B' for Borders, it was 'C' for Campbeltown – the region picked for R&B's second distillery in 2019. An old dairy farm was purchased and planted with barley for what was to be a field to bottle distillery like Arbikie in Angus. Plans are currently on hold as he explains. "We have to absolutely focus on Raasay at the moment, and we have to demonstrate to our investors that we are not getting distracted."

Dhurie farm - Campbeltown

Raasay distillery has been a shot of Viagra to the island community, helping to boost the population from the 161 recorded in the 2010 census. "We're now closer to 200," he says proudly. "We employ 40 people at the distillery, and at the restaurant, bar and 10 room hotel. We're about bringing people back to Raasay, and bringing new people to come and live and work here."

Other distilleries also play at being the 'local hero', not least Jura, but having its own hotel makes Raasay pretty unique, and inevitably guests become mini brand ambassadors for the whisky. "The very first people who stayed at the distillery were a couple from Lebanon, and he was a radio DJ," says Alasdair. "It blows me away to think that he was heading back to Lebanon to talk about Raasay."