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
Etymology of Skye isle with the mythic figure of Queen Scáthach. The problems with the proposed Gaelic etymologies can be summed up as follows. Firstly, the Gaelic word for "winged" is "sgiathach" and "sgiathanach" is not attested in Gaelic except in the place name and the ethnonym "Sgiathanach" "person from Skye". Secondly, the recorded pronunciations all point towards a clear preceding the "-ach" ending: , , or . This means the form "Sgiathanach" is very unlikely to be based on the Gaelic plural of "wing" ("sgiathan"), which contains a schwa in the last syllable () and would represent a highly unusual adjectival form