Liverpool Gin Distillery
One of the UK’s newest distilleries, owned by industry giant Halewood, that makes itsgin with organically grown botanicals. It also does a rose petal and a Valencian orange gin. The four floors of the Grade II-listed building – a former bank – include a working distillery, a make-your-own-gin lab, two bars (one focuses on rum and whisky) and a bartender training school. Visitors can learn about the history of gin, design their own recipe and distil and name their own bottle at the lab. Prices range from £22 for a distillery tour to £65 for the tour, tasting and gin lab experience.
• liverpoolgindistillery.com
The Lakes Distillery
Given that the Lake District is just over the border from Scotland, it’s not much of a stretch to see why whisky is made here, and this distillery, on the north shore of Bassenthwaite Lake, does it in style. While waiting for its own whisky to mature, it has developed some innovative products, including Steel Bonnets, the world’s first blend of English and Scottish malt whisky. The award-winning distillery tours and tastings start at £12.50 and feature a video – with spectacular aerial footage – of the journey from the source of the River Derwent to the distillery. A Meet the Alpacas tour (£12 adult, £6 child) is available for younger members of the family who might not be quite so enthralled by staring at stills.
• Setmurthy, Cumbria, lakesdistillery.com
Cotswolds Distillery
One of the first of the new wave of English whisky makers, Cotswolds Distillery was founded by former US currency trader Daniel Szor, who fell in love with the area when he bought a weekend home there. On a four-acre farm, it produces an award-winning malt made from local barley, and a lavender-infused gin – as well as spirits such as an absinthe and a barrel-aged Dutch-style genever. There are 90-minute tours and tastings (£10pp) that run three times a day; no high heels or under-eights they say, which is probably wise. Drivers get miniature samples to take away.
• Shipston-on-Stour, cotswoldsdistillery.com
Lindores Abbey Distillery, Fife
Believed to be the earliest site of distillation in Scotland, Lindores was set up on the site of the ruined 12th-century abbey. In 1494 it was recorded that Friar John Cor of Lindores Abbey paid duty on eight bolls of malt (roughly enough to make 400 bottles of whisky), in order to make aqua vitae for King James IV of Scotland. The distillery recreates this early form of whisky, which, like a gin, is infused with botanicals: cleavers (goosegrass), lemon verbena and sweet cicely, all grown in the abbey gardens. A distillery tour and tasting costs £12.50, while the £75 apothecary tour introduces visitors to the different herbs, spices and spirit essences from which they can make their own aqua vitae. You can also walk round the ruined abbey, on the banks of the River Tay.
• Abbey Road, Newburgh, Fife, lindoresabbeydistillery.com
The Macallan, Highlands
The Macallan has been around for a good while but, having spent £140m on its lavish new Speyside whisky distillery, it merits a repeat visit. Designed by the architects who created Heathrow Terminal 5 (make of that what you will), it’s set into a slope on the huge Easter Elchies estate and is topped with a grass- and wildflower-covered roof (there’s a video of it on the website). The Six Pillars tour costs £15 – rather less than the £2,700 you’d pay for its Macallan Master of Photography: Magnum Edition. This “experience” celebrating the opening of the new distillery includes a tour, a limited edition bottle of single malt and signed prints from six Magnum photographers.
• Easter Elchies, Craigellachie, Moray, themacallan.com
Salcombe Distilling Co, Devon
Former sailing instructors Angus Lugsdin and Howard Davies have cleverly ridden the gin boom, setting up their distillery in one of the most prosperous parts of south Devon, the coastal town of Salcombe. Unlike many distilleries now,this one is all about the gin, including an upmarket gin school where visitors can distill their own spirit in a mini copper pot still, bottle it in a personalised bottle and learn how to serve it in the distillery bar (for £100 or £150 if two share a bottle). It also provides a gin delivery service that drops off its award-winning Start Point to visiting yachts should you be in the Abramovich class. You can even visit the distillery by boat.
• salcombegin.com
Cambridge Gin Laboratory
This is a centrally located tasting centre and event space run by the innovative Cambridge Distillery, which started off making bespoke gins for restaurants and other organisations: I remember drinking a pea gin at the local Pint Shop. It also produces a truffle gin, a Japanese gin with botanicals from Japan and a £220 Anty gin made from red wood ants – in collaboration with the Nordic Food Lab. Events range from a gin masterclass teaching how to appreciate gin (£30) to a molecular cocktail evening (Saturdays only, £60) to a self-explanatory blend your own gin session (£130).
• cambridgeginlab.co.uk
Psychopomp Microdistillery, Bristol
This Bristol micro distillery (a psychopomp is the guiding spirit in Greek mythology) makes a range of unusual spirits, including a seasonal range of limited edition gins, currently including one flavoured with quince, orange and chipotle named after the Aztec god of fire, Xolotl. It also has a new distillery (not yet open to the public) that focuses on other spirits, such as oak-aged absinthe, aquavit and a coffee digestif, which varies according to the beans. As well as microdistillery tours and tastings (£30) and distil your own gin sessions on Saturday afternoons (£110), there are regular distillers’ table cocktail evenings with themes such as Roald Dahl and Eurovision.
• microdistillery.co.uk
Aber Falls, Snowdonia
The first distillery to open in north Wales since the early 1900s is still developing its tourism side – a new visitor centre opened last month – but the stunning location on the edge of Snowdonia national park, close to the eponymous waterfall, is hard to beat. Set up to make whisky (which won’t be available till 2020), the distillery is one of only four in Wales. The 19th-century building was previously a slate works, and a margarine factory during the world wars. While it waits for the whisky to mature a range of small batch and flavoured gins (and liqueurs including a rhubarb and ginger and orange marmalade gin) have been produced. Distillery tours are available Thursday to Sunday, £8pp.
• Abergwyngregyn, aberfallsdistillery.com
East London Liquor Company
This is not the only distillery in London (there’s Beefeater and more recently Sipsmith and The London Distillery Company on the Bermondsey Beer Mile, among others) but it is the first in east London for more than 100 years. The East London Liquor Company occupies the appropriately gritty location of a former glue factory in Bow Wharf, where it produces a 100% British wheat vodka, three London dry-style gins and a just-released London Rye whisky. The spirit of gin tour and tasting costs £35, the whisky lover’s one £45 (both Fridays and Saturdays only) or there’s a distillery tasting experience (£15 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays). There’s a pizza restaurant and bar on site, too.
• eastlondonliquorcompany.com
