People are sometimes surprised that the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland is also where our gin is made, by hand, in the same small stillhouse under the castle. Stirling Gin came first, and it is still distilled on site, in a copper still, in batches small enough that I know every one.
The method is not complicated, but it is ours. We steep and distil our botanicals so the character comes through clean rather than muddy, and the result is a gin that tastes of where it is from. There is no secret to good gin beyond good botanicals, a copper still and someone paying attention. The attention is the part you cannot buy in.
The best way to understand any of that is to make gin yourself, which is exactly what you can do here. At our Gin School you work at a copper still of your own, choose your own botanicals from the bench, distil your own batch, and leave with a full bottle of a gin that exists nowhere else, with your name on the label. It takes an afternoon. You do not need to know anything about distilling when you arrive. By the time you leave you will understand, from your own hands, why one gin tastes different from the next.
There are gin experiences dotted around Scotland, and plenty in Edinburgh. What makes ours worth the trip to Stirling is that you are doing it inside a working distillery, three minutes below the castle, with the people who make the real thing just across the room. You are not in a hired room with a kit. You are where the gin is actually made.
If you have ever wanted to make your own gin in Scotland, make it somewhere the craft is real. Come and distil a bottle with us. You can book Gin School on our experiences page.
Hugo McCann is Head of Production at Stirling Distillery, the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland, in the Old Smiddy beneath Stirling Castle. He distils the gin and the new make by hand. Stirling Distillery is family run.
