Sky’s the limit – a year in the life of Port of Leith distillery
Still life: Anna Lou Larkin at Port of Leith. Photograph by Simon Messer
It’s a cloud-busting marvel of engineering and the UK’s first vertical distillery. As Port of Leith celebrates a year open to the public, ‘Diplomatic Division’ team member Anna Lou Larkin reveals the highs, woes and thrills of life inside the wonderful whisky tower-block
Photographs by Alix McIntosh
At Port of Leith Distillery, everyone is greeted with the cheeky neon proclamation “Thank Goodness You’re Here”. It’s a disarmingly honest reminder of the company’s reliance on tourism and a welcome sight to anyone who has fought through the insistent Edinburgh mizzle to get there. As a tour guide arriving on a busy Saturday shift, it can also read as a cry for help.
Port of Leith Distillery is Edinburgh’s shiny new vertical spirit factory, and the passion project of lifelong Edinburgh friends Ian Stirling and Paddy Fletcher, who moved to London in their 20s (Fletcher to pursue a career in finance and Stirling entering the wine trade) and returned to Scotland’s capital to fulfil their ambition. It is also the place I have worked as a tour guide since defecting back to Scotland from London in May.
Scotch mist: Drone footage captures the view across Edinburgh from the Leith docks
The story is enticing: two old school pals whose whisky obsession leads them to pursue their dream of building a Single Malt distillery in the heart of Leith, the city’s historic harbour. “Leith was emerging, a bit like Shoreditch in London, as this really cool, hip area with great food and a really strong identity and a neighbourhood culture,” Fletcher reflected last year. “For us, putting whisky back into the heart of that was really important.”
Blue sky thinkers: ‘We built up out of necessity’ say co-founders Paddy Fletcher and Ian Stirling, with Port of Leith distillery in the background
With tales of enthusiastic and entirely, ahem, legal experimentation with whisky production in their London back garden – their neighbour guessed they were brewing beer – it makes for an engaging narrative. Even when you have to tell it every day. Described by its structural engineer as a building that “wants to fall down”, Port of Leith distillery is 40 metres tall and the UK’s first “vertical” distillery. But that’s not half the tale.
This sky-high fantasy cost upwards of £15 million to build and neatly spans nine floors including all the stages of whisky making (bar the last), a shop and a very swish bar. Unlike most whisky distilleries, at Port of Leith production flows down from milling on the fourth floor, through mashing on the third. Distillation takes place on the first floor. The shop and bar are perched on the top. Maturation of the spirit is currently situated in the Kingdom of Fife, in a bonded warehouse in Glenrothes.
Everyone’s a VIP!
A warm Port of Leith welcome
After years of wrangling, construction on Port of Leith began in 2019 with that towering vision rooted in the financial constraints of its urban location. If you can’t build out, build up. “Paddy and I never set out to make a vertical distillery. That would be mad, and we wouldn’t encourage anyone else to do it,” Stirling acknowledged. “But because of the small site….we ended up designing and building this incredible piece of architecture.” Still, the views from up there are stunning.
‘This sky-high fantasy cost upwards of £15 million to build and neatly spans nine floors including all the stages of whisky production’
From the stills you can see across to the low rolls of Fife as it hugs the Firth of Forth and from the shop on the sixth floor the distinctive spans of the Forth Rail Bridge become apparent. The resourceful Bex from retail worked out that the furthest point visible from here is probably the Dumbarnie Links Nature Reserve towards Elie, though my personal favourite sight remains the Antony Gormley statue perched silently at the end of the old pier directly below us.
Building a dream: From desolate dock to soaring tower of whisky, the construction in pictures…
Port of Leith opened to the public in October 2023 and production started in February this year. With those landmark 12 months under our belts, and our first spirit meditating in casks until (probably) 2032, I started to reflect on what life had been like inside Leith’s assertively upright duplo block for the people who keep it standing.
October/November 2023: ‘Stressed oot our nuts’
As a relatively new blow-in, these early days are still entrenched in legend for me. I hear that when Port of Leith first opened, the energy was intense and the anticipation intoxicating. Basically, everyone was, to use local parlance, stressed oot their nuts.
This understandable strain was tempered by that pure clean excitement that comes with embarking on such an enormous journey. Bolstered by the infectious energy of two optimistic CEOs and the perseverance of a hard-working team who really wanted to be there, Ian and Paddy’s mantra – “We focus on things we love” – was being put into action.
Copper look at that!
The gorgeous first floor stills with their ‘perfectly up-lit bottoms’
The abiding impression of those early days is this raw excitement. That noise of something beginning, reminiscent of switching the mill on at the start of the grain’s journey down through the building. The main parts of this whisky canvas were in place – the mill, the mash tun, the washbacks and the stills – but some finishing touches – a daub here, a splash of colour there - were needed to complete the picture.
Everywhere was clatter and commotion and the whole team was mucking in to get things going: cleaning public spaces, moving furniture, and working out what all the strange noises in the building were.
‘It is not unusual to start your shift sounding like a Disney princess and finish up growling the tour script like Tom Waits’
A distillery tour guide is a bit like a whisky-wielding adult babysitter, keeping the general public quiet with storytime and telling them why it might be a bad idea to put their heads in the wash still. When the building work is only just rumbling to completion and the single malt itself is still just a twinkle in the founders’ eyes, these parameters shift and if a bar stool needs taking up three floors, you take it.
Getting down to business: Port of Leith opened to visitors in October 2023
The wearing of Hi Vis jackets and hard hats at this stage is an enduring memory. Hard hats whilst doing tours, hard hats during wine training. Hard hats when you’re eating your sandwiches. And hard hats when my colleague Leo led a rendition of “We Will Rock You” as staff members carted bar furniture up the stairs when the lift was broken. I heard that loud cheers echoed through the place when the team finally got to shed those jackets and hats.
Despite all the buzzing energy at this point, the tour guide team didn’t actually have to deal with the mill itself as production hadn’t started yet. For the avoidance of doubt, it is the loudest thing in the whole building and a pretty selfish scene partner. It is not unusual to start your shift sounding like a Disney princess and finish up growling the tour script like Tom Waits.
Tour guide wisdom: Adults as well as children have a tendency to place heads and hands where they ought not to
I’d say this clamorous cutie is only marginally more difficult to deal with than the general public, and I’m not here to complain about a distillery sounding like a distillery.
Mind you, you’d be hard pushed to find a tour guide that didn’t have something to say about the general public. Luckily, whisky folk have the inbuilt patience required for serious people wrangling. Visitors often fit into one of three categories: whisky lovers, the whisky curious, and my personal favourite, whisky tolerators.
You can spot the whisky tolerators from a mile away. Dragged along by an enthusiastic partner, they will laugh politely at your jokes before finding the first opportunity to sit down and get out their phones. There are also the intrepid explorers, who basically just want to touch stuff. What is lovely with the Edinburgh footfall is that you often find people who have never been to a distillery before and it can be a real privilege to lead this powerful initiation.
December 2023: Chilly? Not in that fetching gilet!
Adeline, one of 10 guides in the Diplomatic Division, brings a ray of sunshine to a distillery tour
Christmas brought many guests, a very tastefully decorated tree, and a real sense of “Maybe this is actually going to work?” Spending winter in a distillery before anything starts moving, however, you do notice just how much you rely on production itself to keep you warm. It was like an ice box in there. Luckily the uniform includes a fetching POL gilet in businesslike black and orange which saw us right through that freezing New Year.
January-February 2024
It was very cold.
March 2024: Smells like Leith spirit
‘Like an art gallery but with whisky’: Drink in the views at the chic bar
Production started in February and in March the first barrels were filled with Port of Leith spirit. This is when things started to get toasty. And fragrant. Guide Izzy Irvine describes “the first day it smelled like a distillery” as her favourite memory. “Before, it was like being in an art gallery but then I was reminded of bread. I’m gluten intolerant so I thought to myself, at least I can always smell it.”
April/May 2024: Life in the Diplomatic Division is never dull
In April everyone started to find their feet, learning the important things such as the exact force with which to push open the staff door, or the right time of day to ask the retail staff to examine their tasting stock (for the record it’s 19.01 precisely, just after the last tour has set off).
‘If you needed a friend to make stock takes more interesting by counting out loudly in the opposite direction, then Simon was happy to oblige’
By early summer things were really bubbling and a lively fermentation was afoot. I arrived in May, of course, and if this makes me the yeast then I’ll take it. The first thing I noticed when I started was the kindness of the other guides. Well, the first thing I noticed was the view, but the kindness ran it a close second. If you didn’t feel up to doing a tour, there was someone else to take it, if you needed a laugh, there was a colleague on hand with a joke. If you needed a friend to make stock takes more interesting by counting out loudly in the opposite direction, then Simon was happy to oblige.
I never trust any business that describes themselves as a family but I had certainly found a lovely gang of co-workers. There are currently 12 guides in the aptly named Diplomatic Division, all from different backgrounds: teachers, journalists, recovering actors…it’s a disparate gang of whisky freaks.
June-July 2024: All hail the Flying Washbacks!
In July the coffee machine arrived in the staffroom. Biscuit Division was initiated and everyone was enjoying the blue skies. We were caffeinated, sugared up, and ready to deal with even the most troublesome intrepid explorer.
Hands will tend to wander once they sense the presence of a shiny stainless steel washback. You tell a child something is hot and the first thing they do is touch it. You tell an adult and, yes, it’s exactly the same thing. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to touch them though, they’re magic. Port of Leith is the only distillery in the world whose gravity-defying washbacks are fitted into the structure of the building itself and as such appear to float majestically over the stills. They are made of stainless steel for easy cleaning, temperature control, and industrial chic aesthetic. See how they fly!
Shining wonders: there are seven 7500-litre washbacks on the third floor
There are seven 7500-litre washbacks altogether, each vying for attention on the third floor with the 1.5 tonne semi-lauter mash tun (also very shiny) before attempting to pull focus from the stills on the 1st floor with their perfectly up-lit bottoms. The stills themselves, from Speyside Copper Works, remain defiantly unpolished and bear the weathering from the early days of construction before the windows were installed.
August 2024: Silly season comes to Leith
August. AKA high season for intrepid explorers. Festival month is when everyone and their auntie wants to be in Edinburgh, and nobody wants to be in Leith. We stayed busy regardless and with the festival came chaotic vibes and a disproportionate number of confused visitors thinking we were a Royal Yacht. “Is this where we go for the Britannia boat?” No, but stick around and I’ll pour you a dram instead.
‘Is this the Royal Yacht Britannia?’ Port of Leith gets its fair share of confused tourists in summer
You learn what you’re made of once you’ve ticked off that first hectic summer. You find the good stuff and you distil it. I am in no doubt that the good stuff at Port of Leith is the team itself and trying to make the most of this is where we are now. We have new staff members, we are focusing on our whisky learning, and everyone has finally got their gilet.
Living the high life: Scenes from the bar, shop and boardroom
October and beyond: Where’s the whisky, then?
You cannot rely on being new and shiny forever. At some point, there has to be whisky. While we are looking at 2032 for the first release, something may happen before those eight years are up. I hope so. I love showing people our trial new make spirits in tastings, the nippy sweetie from the Norwegian Voss Kweik yeast strain, and the earthy viscosity murmuring of ale from the Belgian BE-256 strain. The single grain Table Whisky is also a bit of an institution with its vanilla, ripe stone fruits and baking spice, accompanied by just enough kerosene to let you know you’re alive. That moment when we can finally share some Port of Leith Distillery Single Malt will be a different sort of magic altogether.
‘Conductor of the Port of Leith orchestra’: Head of Whisky, Vaibhav Sood
And what is this single malt going to taste like? I spoke to Head of Whisky, Vaibhav Sood, described by Ian as “a very exciting conductor of the Port of Leith Orchestra.”
I learn that they are looking for something which speaks of the distillery itself: “We’ve invested so much time and effort into creating this distillery, we want to make sure that when the whisky comes out, it’s made in the distillery.”
By creating a medium to heavy spirit, Vaibhav says, the spirit character should be retained and not overwhelmed by cask influence. Vaibhav shows me new make samples, along with a cask sample after three months in a Sherry cask. The most recent spirit is nutty, oily and reminds me pleasingly of aged parmesan. The cask sample is already showing sultana and spiced biscuit and gives a hint of what could be to come. Sherry and ex-Bourbon casks have been filled and there are plans to explore Port and other wine casks.
Spirit it away: Visitors can taste and take away samples of the distillery’s new make spirit which includes the ‘nippy sweetie’ from the Norwegian Voss Kweik yeast strain
The use of wine casks chimes nicely with Leith’s history as a vital import hub for wines and these casks are sourced directly from producers. The partnerships with sherry producer Bodegas Baron and port producer Martha’s Estate ensure the best casks for maturation as well as some delicious ports and sherries under our label. This did mean that some difficult reconnaissance missions to Portugal and Spain were necessary but luckily Ian and Paddy were happy to take one for the team.
While innovation is a focus, Vaibhav is aware that making whisky is more important than endlessly geeking out for no reason: “We are not a research facility and at the end of the day we want to create whisky that people will love.”
Port of Leith welcomed over 100,000 human visitors (plus some furry friends) to tours in their first year
In the Diplomatic Division, we will continue to learn from each other and be surprised at the public’s desire to touch really hot metal objects. After welcoming over 100,000 visitors to tours, events and that swish bar in our first year, we have found the joy here. And joy is what Ian and Paddy are about. Like the malt working its way through a vertical distillery, this joy has to come from the top. But it can only be distilled and released to the world by the hard work of a team.
At Port of Leith Distillery, the team makes it. Thank goodness you’re here.
The Only Way is Up: Paddy and Ian patiently await their first Port of Leith whisky
