Height of Arrows Gin Tasting Experience at Holyrood Distillery

21:00
November 16, 2022

PR invite // All thoughts and opinions are, of course, my own.

Most of the times when I’ve been to Holyrood Distillery before, the focus has been whisky, which makes sense considering they started up with the intention to make whisky. But as their whisky matured they have also created different gins and are now launching the Height of Arrows Gin Tasting Experience to showcase them!

D E T A I L S

You’ll find tickets here.

Duration – 1.5h

Price – £35/pp

Location – Holyrood Distillery

The Tour

Holyrood Distillery has fairly recently undergone renovations so if you’ve done the gin tour before and remember quite colourful details and sensory tests, it’s all different now. The tour starts in a room that is reminiscent of a cool and quite dark living room where we got to enjoy a Holyrood version of a Bee’s Knee’s whilst learning about the history of both gin and also Holyrood Distillery. We had Elsie as our tour guide and she’s brilliant so if you get her then you are certainly in for a treat as she really knows her stuff and has a great sense of storytelling.

The tour continues as you step over the bridge which is suspended right on top of the whisky stills which live on the floor below, so you definitely have a great photo opportunity here. Next door is the lab where the property gin tasting takes place. You go through all four expressions, which I’ve written more about further down, and also get the chance to experiment with creating your “perfect” serves with each of them using tonic water or ginger beer as well as different garnishes like star anise, rosemary, orange peel or grapefruit. I personally have a weakness for grapefruit with gin and tonic…

But that’s not all, following your tasting you get to really shake it up (literally) as you make your own Southside cocktail – which also is a really easy serve to recreate at home.

If you like gin this is a great experience where you get to try it both neat and in different serves and would definitely be a fun event together with friends.

The Height of Arrows Gins

The gins are all part of the Heigh of Arrows series and there’s currently four expressions, but more gins might be added in the future as their experimentation continues. The names comes from the original name for Arthur’s Seat “Ard-na-said” which means just Heigh of Arrows as the volcano is the height that an archer can send an arrow and it is said that they used to compete in who could send an arrow above and beyond the top.

Height of Arrows (43%)

Made with juniper, sea salt from Isle of Skye and beeswax from Edinburgh Honey Co. A lovely smooth gin which is lovely with both tonic and neat.

Height of Arrows Funk (43%)

Made with fermented juniper berries. Probably my favourite out of the tasting and it had a kombucha like sweetness that I didn’t find in the others.

(Currently sold out when we visited)

Height of Arrows Heavy (46%)

Made with roasted juniper, which extracts bigger and more robust flavours. This is an Old Tom style gin as a small addition of sugar has been added after distillation, for balance. This was my second favourite as it has a lovely texture.

Height of Arrows Bright (48%)

This is like a concentrated version of the core Height of Arrows but over three times the amount of juniper has been used to really bring out the botanical flavour.