Pickering’s Gin – Summerhall Distillery | Scotland Off the Beaten Track

📌 Old Town, City of Edinburgh
★★★

Edinburgh‘s Southside district is home to Pickering’s, a tiny 2013 startup based in a former animal hospital-now-turned-major arts centre – err, really. The distillery, also known as Summerhall, runs wonderfully casual “gin jollies” (they’re way too cool to call them tours) at all hours including weekends and evenings. The short history of the company is remarkable: basically, flowering from a seemingly unlikely partnership between a butler and a construction worker into a fully-fledged brand in three years. But with just two compact rooms to see and only a handful of staff on the payroll this is still certainly a small-scale operation. An introductory gin and tonic as well as a triple tasting to finish up no doubt makes it a popular jaunt for university students round the corner – though quite an expensive one.