Port of Leith Distillery

Port of Leith Distillery, Scotland’s only vertical distillery is a building born out of Leith’s industrial heritage and history of whisky making. The building is placed on the water’s edge proudly overlooking the port with panoramic views of the city and forth. Designed by Threesixty Architecture the building spans nine storeys and the journey inside is like no other distillery.

You flow through the building like the spirit itself, following the whisky process from the mash tun on the upper floors down to gleaming copper stills on the waters edge. While most distilleries today offer tours, the majority have had to adapt their ‘visitor experience’ around the existing process and plant. As a modern, new build distillery, Port of Leith offers the opportunity to create a building where the relationship between public and process is deliberate and designed around a unique vertical, gravity-led production.

Throughout the building a series of views frame each different process element, creating a constant relationship between the distilling process and the surrounding context. The considered approach to framing views and movement through the building continues beyond the distillery to the tasting areas, shop, and rooftop restaurant taking advantage of long views across the Firth of Forth to Fife, the busy port of Leith, and across to the new Queensferry Crossing to the west.