Edinburgh Gin Distillery

The city of Edinburgh and port of Leith have had an illustrious history of producing, importing and exporting gin that dates back to the first gin ‘craze’ of the 1700s.

Dutch Genever flowed through Leith via The Netherlands, as well as luxury spices and ingredients, so it’s no surprise that Edinburgh soon had a taste for juniper-based spirit. By 1777, alongside eight legitimate distilleries, there were almost 400 unregistered stills across the capital as the ‘gin craze’ took off.

In the early 1800s, Scotsman Robert Stein developed the forerunner to Coffey’s now-famed column stills, allowing continuous production. This allowed distillers to move away from traditional pot stills and produce spirit more efficiently.

Scottish distillers were soon exporting neutral grain spirit to London via Leith – and the modern London Dry style gin as we know it today was born. It’s this spirit of invention and innovation that guides what we do today, in our modern distilleries in the Scottish capital.