Meet the R&B Team: Bill

Great things come in small batches – like the Tweeddale blended Scotch whisky – and although at R&B we’re making big ambitions happen, our team is the epitome of this idea. We have a core team of three based in Edinburgh’s West End, amid surrounding whisky bars. But our supporting cast span the country, and the world with reach as far as into Taiwan and Tuscany.

Our last team profile checked in with the great-grandson of our whisky heritage, Alasdair Day. We’re all about engineering new approaches, built on time-honoured tradition, so Alasdair needed to join forces with someone who had a stake in something innovative to help grow his pioneering vision.

A site for the Isle of Raasay’s first legal distillery innovative enough?

With Alasdair’s other great-grandfather hailing from the Hebrides, Bill Dobbie adds further to our Raasay connection. The wife of his best friend Iain (our fountain of knowledge on all things Gaelic) came from Raasay, and drawn to this beautiful Isle, Bill bought the then disused hotel Borodale House.

When Bill met Alasdair, the site’s fate became certain. Founder of online dating site, Cupid, Bill now plays a significant part in matchmaking whisky with the lands that Scotch forgot, Raasay and the Borders. Setting the perfect marrying of aspirations to build distilleries in uncommon provenance, Bill and Alasdair agreed they would begin at the top, with Raasay.

Every good relationship involves attributes that complement those of the other, so while Alasdair is our resident whisky ‘expert’, Bill has the business prowess to see us through. Bill has successfully led numerous private equity funded businesses, largely technology based, and he still lends his expertise to a number of company boards. Now, with R&B he’s turning his hand to whisky.