Holyrood Distillery Visit
Not quite “The Lord of the Rings”, but this blog is the final one in the trilogy on Edinburgh’s new distillery, located in the Old Engine Shed, just off the Pleasance in the city’s South Side. As we have previously noted, the Holyrood Distillery is the first new distillery within the city for 100 years, and it sits over the “charmed circle” – the ready supply of excellent water which has served as a source for distilleries and breweries over the centuries. The Holyrood Distillery is now a reality, which is open to the public for tours, and is previewing its wares in the form of fine malt whiskies, gins and gin liqueurs. The malt whiskies being created fall into each of four categories – smoky, spicy, sweet and fruity. Likewise, Holyrood produces four types of gin – pink, spiced, dry and Auld Tam – and four varieties of gin liqueur: blood orange and fennel, rhubarb and black pepper, raspberry and lemon, and apricot and ginger.
Quaichshop took one of the distillery’s very reasonably priced tours, which allowed us to sample Holyrood’s range of gins – single malt whiskies have to wait for a minimum of three years maturation to be worthy of the name.
First stop is testing your sense of smell/taste, more specificially your ability to differentiate between odour types, by sniffing – with mouth open, to facilitate suitable air flows – colour coded stoppered flasks, then answering multiple choice questions on screen. This led on to a view of the gin still hardware, and an explanation of the distillation process. It was interesting to note that the alcohol in Holyrood’s gins is not made on the premises – rather it is bought in as pure spirit. Gin tasting followed, with the party exhibiting quite a wide range of preferences.
On to the whisky distillation hardware, and some information on maturation in various types of whisky barrel. The Spanish oak barrels used for some maturations harked back to our “Links Between Drinks” blog back in October 2018, on our visit to the Lustau Bodega in Jerez de la Frontera. This was followed tasting of a blended whisky, which was scored as virtually universally popular! A final gin liqueur each, then some shopping for Christmas!
Our tour guide was knowledgeable and entertaining, and the walk through was well organised and informative – definitely a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon in December (or any other month)!
