First look at new Edinburgh gin distillery that has roof terrace and cocktail bar with spectacular views

I’ve never visited a distillery as box fresh as Edinburgh Gin’s.

I’m the first journalist through its doors, before this attraction opens to the public on Friday December 6.

Inside, it’s as pristine as new snow. The copper stills - visible through the window onto East Market Street - have been polished until luminescent.

This multi-million-pound project has been something of a stealth operation. Well, in my book anyway. I knew nothing of the opening until now, even though the carbon neutral distillery is huge, with two-storeys that sit on the corner like the bow of a ship.

This is a worthy home for such an established brand, as a pioneer in the Scottish gin boom of the 2010s. They’ve upsized from previous homes on Rutland Street and Leith’s Biscuit Factory.

Today, I’m taking a tour with distillery ambassador, Lucy Naughton, who is as enthusiastically fizzy as tonic. “I’ve got the best job ever,” she says.

Every good whisky or gin brand is about the visitor centre now, and they’ll be offering a number of show-rounds, including a Decadent Duo: Gin and Chocolate Pairing, £35pp, and a Mix and Muddle Cocktail Class, £50pp.

We’re going for The Classic Tour and Tasting, £28pp, and the experience starts on the ground floor, with a colourful video introduction to the brand, which was set up by Alex and Jane Nicol back in 2010 and is now owned by Ian Macleod Distillers.

I’ve been to plenty of gin and whisky distillery tours, and I get the impression they want this to be fun. The graphics are bright and punchy, and it’s a far cry from any po-faced educational video. That idea is compounded when we move through to the Flavour Arch.

It’s like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory - not the rubbish Glaswegian debacle, but the good one. Their technicolour and curvy obelisks fill this red brick high-ceilinged room, with a mural at one end.

The Flavour Arch | Contributed

This space was once used as railway storage and may have even provided a temporary home for a Bertram Mills Circus elephant on tour in the Fifties. More recently, it was an axe-throwing centre.

Now, we get to discover Edinburgh Gin’s botanicals.

“Have a wee munch,” says Naughton, as she offers a tray of juniper berries - this drink’s most essential ingredient, along with grain neutral spirit.

At Edinburgh Gin, they currently import them from Italy and North Macedonia, since Scottish ones, though native and plentiful in the Highlands, are weedy.

“We use both - the North Macedonian is sweeter, and goes into Classic. The Italian goes into Cannonball Gin and our Seaside Gin,” Naughton says.

However, according to her, there is an established plant at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, should you be desperate to try local produce.

I want to say yum, as I crunch my way through both varieties of berry, but I can’t.

This area also features the earthy angelica, and orris root - used in Chanel No.5 as well as gin - chamomile, grains of paradise, freeze-dried raspberries, coriander seeds, elderflower, liquorice, which adds an element of sweetness without sugar, and other ingredients, for us to sniff and fondle.

There’s also an area that covers the brand’s history, with older packaging,

There are some familiar bottles, like the Seaside Gin and the Rhubarb and Ginger Gin, which is one of their most popular and familiar varieties. They chose the rhubarb ingredient as it was brought to the UK in the Eighteenth century by Dr James Mounsey, who had smuggled seeds from Russia and grew them in a Leith Walk garden.

We also get to smell a new experimental creation. It smells creamy and sweet. Cardamom, it turns out.

Apparently, Edinburgh Gin also once made a salt and sauce flavour and a marmalade sandwich version. The latter involved putting butter through one of their old stills, and, according to Naughton, the equipment never recovered.

“It was heartbreaking,” she says.

Speaking of stills, it's hard to ignore them in this room, where they glow behind me.

There are three - the two big 2000 litre versions are Lina and Annie, who are named for two of the first female gardeners at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, which was once situated near this site. The wee one will be used for experimentation and is called Matilda, after head distiller Dave Wilkinson’s dog.

The stills | Contributed

We find out about the distillation process, but my eye is drawn to the upstairs bar, which will be open to the public daily and looks onto the stills and East Market Street.

Before I visit that area, there is a sampling session in their first floor Juniper Room, with juniper berries etched onto the glass windows and shelves of paraphernalia. These include a portrait of Seventeenth-century Edinburgh doctor Georgius Cleghorn, who, Naughton tells us, studied the effects of malaria-beating quinine, which was eventually added to tonic (then a mixture of gin, lime, water and sugar to make it more palatable).

Naughton says she worked in another distillery, before this, and the lights used to flicker whenever she mentioned Cleghorn’s name. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be haunting her here, though his eyes are following me round the room.

Perhaps he’s jealous that I have four tots of gin in front of me.

These include the Classic, the peppery Edinburgh Botanics Gin, Rhubarb and Ginger, and Mulled Gin Liqueur, which Lucy recommends in hot chocolate, Prosecco or warmed cider.

We experiment with different serves with each gin, adding garnishes like lemon, orange and basil, as well as Fevertree’s tonics and ginger beer.

I don’t finish them all, as my inaugural visit will culminate in a Frozen Martini Flight, £15pp, in the swanky bar.

The Edinburgh Gin bar | Contributed

There will also be a rooftop terrace, where they’re growing plants that may be used in a future product, but this area is still off limits.

The bar’s manager Nick Caputo pours me a Rose Gibson, Sherry Martini and a House Martini and tells us about the drinks menu. It will focus on these drinks, as well as other gin-based serves like gimlets, negronis and the Garibaldi, which contains their own ‘fluffy’ orange juice.

There will also be food, including cheese and charcuterie platters with wares from IJ Mellis and East Coast Cured.

Before I head off, I exit through the gift shop, which features Edinburgh Gin scented candles and diffusers, the entire boozy range and other cool merch.

In here, it feels a bit like the calm before the storm. I predict it’s going to be VERY busy here soon.

The Edinburgh Gin Distillery at The Arches, Arch 16, The Arches, East Market St, Edinburgh www.edinburghgin.com