Skye blender ("smugglers den by the Sound of Sleat"), based at . These are marketed using predominantly Gaelic-language labels. The blended whisky branded as "Isle of Skye" is produced not on the island but by the Glengoyne Distillery at Killearn north of Glasgow, though the website of the owners, Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd., boasts a "high proportion of Island malts" and contains advertisements for tourist businesses in the island. There is also an established software presence on Skye, with Portree-based Sitekit having expanded in recent years. Crofting is still important, but although there are about 2,000 crofts on Skye only 100
Skye has been found to date; the place name may be from an earlier, non-Gaelic language. In the Norse sagas Skye is called , for example in the and a skaldic poem in the from c. 1230 contains a line that translates as "the hunger battle-birds were filled in Skye with blood of foemen killed". The island was also referred to by the Norse as (misty isle), or (isle of cloud). The traditional Gaelic name is (the island of Skye), being a more recent and less common spelling. In 1549 Donald Munro, High Dean of the Isles, wrote of "Sky": ""