Until the early 2010s, Harris had no legal distillery of its own. Plans were submitted to Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the Western Isles council, in 2011, and the project went forward with a £2.8 million combined grant from the Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Construction began in spring 2014 to designs by John R. Coleman Architects, and the first spirit ran from the stills on 17 December 2015. The location is no accident. Tarbert is the gateway to Harris, the place where the ferry from Skye lands its cars and walkers and tweed buyers. Putting the distillery there meant putting it where the island actually meets the world.

The copper pot stills came from Frilli Impianti in Siena, Italy - Tuscan craftsmanship brewing Hebridean spirit. The distinctive cobalt-blue gin bottles are blown in Yorkshire by the Stolzle Glass Group. And the gin itself takes its character from sugar kelp harvested by a local diver from the sea lochs around Harris. By 2017, more than two tonnes of the seaweed had been collected for production, and the distillery had welcomed over 144,000 visitors and won seventeen awards. Among the visitors that year was Charles, then Prince of Wales, who reportedly quizzed staff about why a Polish drinking glass had ended up in the tasting room. The distillery's first single malt whisky, called The Hearach, was finally released in autumn 2023, after seven years patiently maturing in cask.

The Isle of Harris Distillery was deliberately set up as what its founders called a 'social distillery.' The building employs locals, sources locally where it can, and uses gin profits to fund the long wait for whisky to mature. During the pandemic the distillery sponsored a virtual cèilidh to keep island music going. In July 2021 it launched a refill scheme for those striking blue bottles - bring it back, get it filled, save the glass. In January 2021 plans went in for a new maturation warehouse. On an island where the population has shrunk for generations, the distillery has become a small, stubborn argument that another future is possible: one where Harris does not just send its young people away but builds something that brings them back.