Whisky City Edinburgh
Issue 161 | Whisky Magazine 29The site is small and not ideal for
a distillery, hence our vertical
design, but the location is great
to reduce the risk of loss of entire
production runs in the event of fire.
“We’ve also got the idea of eventually
creating an Edinburgh Whisky Trail,
when all three full-scale distilleries are
operating,” he adds.
The third of those three is Port of
Leith Distillery, which is due to be
constructed on a site close to The
Royal Yacht Britannia, berthed at
Ocean Terminal.
It is the work of wine merchant Ian
Stirling and accountant Patrick Fletcher,
childhood friends from Edinburgh, and
will be Scotland’s first vertical distillery,
with milling and mashing taking place
on the top floor, leading down through
fermentation to distilling, which takes
place on the ground floor.
According to Ian Stirling, “We set
out to build a modern distillery, a
memorable piece of architecture.
"The site is small and not ideal for
a distillery, hence our vertical design,
but the location is great, next to The
Royal Yacht Britannia. Tourism will be
so important in the early years, until we
have whisky to sell.
"There will be a restaurant and bar at
the top of the distillery.”
It has taken seven years to reach the
stage where construction can begin, but
Stirling – who has a great passion for
Leith’s distilling heritage and started
proceedings by launching a Port of Leith
Oloroso sherry – declares, “We hope
to get onto the site in June and it’s an
18-months build, so we should be open
before the end of 2020.
"We aim to eventually produce
400,000lpa per year as well as
welcoming tens of thousands of visitors
through the door.”
Meanwhile, Innovate UK is funding a
two-year programme of research into
yeast and fermentation practices, being
undertaken for Port of Leith by Victoria
Muir-Taylor, formerly of Edinburgh’s
Stewart Brewing and Glasgow Distillery.
“We will let other distillers have access
to the research, it will be there for
anyone to use,” notes Ian Stirling.
Just as John Crabbie & Co. is operatinga pilot distillery at Granton, so Port of
Leith has its Tower Street Stillhouse
in Leith, where gin is currently being
produced, and Stirling explains that, “It
is also going to be hosting our whisky
development programme.”
David Brown of Crabbie’s declares
that, “We want to put Edinburgh firmly
back on the Scotch whisky map.” Witha dynamic revival in malt whisky
distillation, plus the existing ‘five-star
visitor attraction’ that is the Scotch
Whisky Experience on the Royal Mile
and the forthcoming, lavish, multi-
million-pounds seven-floor Johnnie
Walker visitor experience on Princes
Street, that ambition seems certain to
be satisfied.026-029-Edinburgh-WM161.indd 29 27/06/2019 12:27