Our story
Spirit, brought back to the rock
For 170 years, no one made whisky in Stirling. Then a husband and wife, an old blacksmith's forge and a 2.4 litre still changed that. This is how it happened.
Visit the distilleryHow it started
It began with a gift, not a gift shop
June and Cameron McCann ran an art gallery and gift shop in Stirling. While hosting a local gin festival, they noticed something odd: nobody in the city actually made gin. For a place with this much history, that felt wrong.
So on their 26th wedding anniversary, 28 October 2015, they didn't buy a gift. They made one, distilling their first batch of Stirling Gin in a 2.4 litre copper still they named Jinty. Roughly fifty recipe tweaks later, they had it: six botanicals, with Stirlingshire nettles and basil sitting alongside the juniper.
Six botanicals. Two you won't expect.
Foraged from Stirlingshire and balanced over dozens of test runs.
The journey
Two centuries on the castle rock
From the city's first stills to the whisky maturing today.
Stirling's first distillery
Whisky flows legally on the castle rock for the first time. For a few short decades, Stirling earns its place on Scotland's spirits map.
The stills fall silent
The original distillery closes, and whisky vanishes from Stirling. The city's spirits story goes quiet for more than 170 years.
The Old Smiddy is built
A blacksmith's forge rises on Lower Castlehill, in the shadow of the castle. It will sit empty for years before it finds its true purpose.
One bottle, one anniversary
June and Cameron distil the first ever bottle of Stirling Gin in a 2.4 litre still called Jinty. A single experimental batch lights the fuse.
From kitchen still to a name
Demand outgrows Jinty. A larger still, Flora, named after June's mother, takes over at 170 bottles a run. Stirling Gin becomes a name people seek out.
Stirling's first legal distillery opens
The Old Smiddy is brought back to life. Found derelict, with no floor, power or water, it's rebuilt around gleaming copper stills behind its restored 1888 frontage, and the doors open to visitors.
Sons of Scotland
An independent bottling range turns attention back to whisky, a first glimpse of the character Stirling could one day call its own.
Whisky runs again
Mash is brewed for Stirling's own whisky for the first time since 1852. The stills on the rock are no longer an idea. They're working.
The first cask is filled
A single barrel is rolled into the dunnage warehouse. For the first time in generations, Stirling has its own whisky quietly maturing in wood.
Best Scottish New Make in the world
Our new make spirit is named Best Scottish New Make Spirit at the World Whiskies Awards, proof of what's maturing in the casks.
Scotland's smallest whisky distillery
Fewer than 20,000 litres a year, every drop made, bottled and labelled by hand at The Old Smiddy, with the stills on one side and the castle on the other.
The first Stirling single malt
The first whisky distilled here is released, the moment a city's 19th-century story finally finds its modern chapter.
A home with history
The right building on the right rock
When Stirling Gin needed a permanent home, June and Cameron chose The Old Smiddy, a building whose past matched their own. They kept its 1888 stone frontage intact and rebuilt the inside as a working distillery, with copper stills, bespoke windows and warm wood throughout.
Today it's both a modern distillery and a continuation of Stirling's past, every drop made on the same rock where the city's spirits story began.
Recognition
Small distillery, serious spirit
Best Scottish New Make
2025, for the spirit now maturing into our first single malt.
Visitor Attraction of the Year
2023, recognising the experience we've built at The Old Smiddy.
Stocked across Scotland
From the distillery door to Co-op shelves nationwide.
Be part of it
See where it's made
Step inside The Old Smiddy beneath Stirling Castle for a tour, a tasting or our gin school, and taste the spirits writing the city's next chapter.
