Location and contact details
Location: 19 St Leonard's Ln, Edinburgh EH8 9SH
Visit Type: Vistor Centre
Co-ordinates: 55.943550, -3.178224
Telephone: +44 (0) 131 285 8977
Web: https://www.holyrooddistillery.co.uk/ 
Twitter: Holyrood Distillery (@HolyroodWhisky)Facts and figures
| Location | Edinburgh |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Founder | Rob & Kelly Carpenter and Scot David Robertson |
Opening Hours
Open for tours Thursday, Friday and Saturday
Tours
Holyrood Distillery Tour
£16.80
The Holyrood Distillery Tour is approximately 60 minutes long, and is a fully guided and immersive experience of the entire distillery. You will be introduced to a world of flavour, testing how well you taste, getting hands-on with botanicals, learning about both malt whisky and gin production, and enjoying our spirit samples along the way.
Holyrood Gin Experience
£25
The Holyrood Gin Experience is approximately 60 minutes long, and is led by an expert guide. You will be introduced to the process behind gin distillation, to the world of flavour-packed botanicals, and to the particular approach of Holyrood in the production of our own gins and gin liqeuers. You will also enjoy opportunities to sample from the gin and liqueur range.
Holyrood Whisky Experience
£25
The Holyrood Whisky Experience is approximately 60 minutes long, and is led by an expert guide. The experience takes place in the whisky distillery and maturation room, where you will be introduced to the world of single malt whisky, but particularly to the process, ingredients and equipment used in Holyrood’s approach to single malt whisky production. You will also enjoy opportunities to sample from their specially selected whisky range.
Review: Holyrood Whisky Experience (18:00 on 10/08/2019)
Price: £25
I have visited a few distilleries which have not been open long (such as Powerscourt), but Holyrood was the first I have visited before they have started distilling. They opened for tours in late July 2019 and we attneded a tour on the 10th August. They had been planning to have started distillation before this date, but there was a slight delay.
The distillery is in the heart of Edinburgh is a listed building. There is no parking on site althought there is public car parks located nearby (which are not exactly cheap; we paid about £8.4 for four hours which gave us time for a meal at Rigatoni's before the tour).
At the start of the tour you go up two flights of stairs (I did catch site of a lift) and start the tour stood on walkway above the stills (which are very tall). You are introduced to the ethos behind the distillery which is to be experimental and taste driven.
We then passed through the gin teaching room and down some stairs into the main room. This room contains all of the onsite equiment; the barley and milling takes place offsite, but is explained well.
There are four tastings of whisky as part of the tour with the first at this point; it is of an 8 year old single grain whisky.
Next the mashing and fermenting is described and you get to look into the equipment; the second tasting is of the Glen Scotia Double Cask.
Next the distillation process is described and you get to look at the stills (the second tallest in Scotland).
Finally we stepped into a reproduction dunnage style warehouse where the final two tastings take place; these are of the 12 year old GlenDronach and 16 year old Lagavulin.
The tour at Holyrood was both informative and enjoyable; the guide obviously has an interest in whisky and this came through. The process is well covered as well as the ways Holyrood plan to experiment.
One of our party was the designated driver and at the end of the tour the guide sorted out some drivers ports for him to take away his samples.
