A NEW whisky is being developed in an unusual location: the Faroe Islands. The owners of Faer Isles Distillery believe the northern islands have the conditions to create something special that can compete with the best Scotch whiskies.

Co-founder and managing director Dánial Hoydal, said: “Our initial idea and vision for our whisky was to utilise the special, very humid, salty and windy climate here.”

The first batches of the whisky have been laid down in casks, with the first bottles expected in 2026. Later this year, the distillery will offer customers the chance to buy a cask or cask share.

The distillery will then continue to store and mature the barrel for up to 10 years. A previous release of casks in 2023 quickly sold out.

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The distillery has taken advice from a Scottish expert, Dr Gordon Steele, a professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a previous director of the Scotch Whisky Research Institute. It also went to established Scottish manufacturers for their copper stills – but they believe they have a special Faroese twist they can add to their whisky production.

Situated in the North Atlantic half-way between Scotland and Iceland, the Faroe Islands have a year-round temperate climate but it comes with a lot of wind and rain in both summer and winter.

That has always meant that food production could be difficult. And, although surrounded by the sea, it was difficult to get salt for preservation, as the lack of sun meant it was difficult to evaporate the water and the lack of trees or other fuel made it hard to boil the water off.

The Faroese developed particular methods of food preservation and maturation and they are applying these to the whisky. Traditionally, meat was stored in an “opnahjallur” or drying house, which had partially open sides, allowing the wind to blow across the food and preserve it in a process called “ræst”. The ocean air is salty enough to preserve food.

It’s a technique that produces a strong, distinctive taste that remains popular and is embraced by top chefs on the islands celebrating the local ingredients of New Nordic Cuisine. Hoydal said the distillery aims to reproduce the process by storing its casks in traditional opnahjallar, allowing them to take on something of the maritime flavour of the islands.

“The whisky gets maximum exposure to the wild North Atlantic,” he said, “which will make it different from other whiskies.”

Although the final whisky is not ready, small bottles of “New Make Spirit” provide a chance to see how the spirit is developing. Drew Hillier, former manager of The Whisky Shop in Inverness, tried a sample and gave a favourable report. “With most New Make Spirit you wouldn’t know where it originated,” he said, “but it definitely has notes of the unusual way they’re storing the barrels.”

Hillier added that it was clear the production process is already influencing the taste, saying: “It’s definitely maritime – quite flavoursome.”

The Faroe Islands had stringent laws around the sale of alcohol until the 1990s, with production and sales strictly controlled. The islands are self-governing but part of the Danish Realm and all spirits used to have to be ordered in from Denmark.

The Faer Isles distillery was only set up in 2019, with support from investors and crowdfunding.

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There is great interest in the new Faroese whisky within the industry and from consumers, with many believing that the climate conditions and storage process could produce something special.

“Maturation is an area where very little innovation is happening in whisky,” Hoydal said. “We have a unique tradition of maturing and curing food here on the islands – and we wanted to apply this to whisky.”