My peek behind the scenes at Pickering’s Gin
As the Scottish Gin Society is the lead sponsor of the inaugural Scottish Gin Awards, 14th September, I was lucky enough to gate crash the filming of their finalist’s video with Marcus Pickering at the Pickering’s Gin distillery at Edinburgh’s Summerhall.
Pickering’s gin is the invention of gin-loving friends and business partners Marcus Pickering and Matthew Gammell, who set out to create a small-batch gin distillery in the strangest of all places in Edinburgh.
The Pickering’s distillery is part of Summerhall arts venue and it used to be part of the old animal hospital – The Dick Vet. This labour of love is now a fully functioning gin distillery, producing several craft gins, including Pickering’s, Navy Strength and Pickering’s Original 1947 as well as a range of special editions. Oh, and the baubles of course.
I honestly could not stop smiling as we passed by the airstream that was getting readied for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and went round the back to the former small animals hospital.
We were lucky enough to see the new bottles of limited edition Tattoo Gin that were being wax sealed by hand; and the Bombay Birthday Batch Fringe Gin, celebrating 70 years’ of the Fringe. The Birthday gin is especially exciting as this run was distilled precisely to their original Bombay recipe that was written down 17th July 1947.
And, yes, there were some baubles there!
Alison Higgins, The Scottish Gin Society Brand Ambassador
Find out more about Pickering’s gin tours here
