Holyrood is a young distillery with an unusually old building beneath it. Opened in 2019 in Edinburgh’s former St Leonard’s railway goods shed, it brought single malt production back to the centre of the city for the first time in nearly a century. The setting matters: this is not a remote glen or coastal village, but a working urban distillery at the foot of Arthur’s Seat, shaped as much by Edinburgh’s brewing and scientific traditions as by Scotch whisky convention.

Founded by Rob and Kelly Carpenter with whisky consultant David Robertson, Holyrood has built its identity around flavour-led experimentation. Rather than relying solely on familiar malt whisky routines, it explores specialty malts, heritage barley, varied yeast strains, and different cask approaches. That makes its whisky feel closer to a conversation between brewing and distilling, with the mash tun as important to the story as the stills.

Its first single malt, Arrival, appeared in 2023, a neatly named nod to the building’s railway past. Later releases have continued to underline Holyrood’s experimental streak, including expressions focused on peated malt, specialty malt, and yeast-driven character. The distillery also produces gin and liqueurs, but whisky is the more ambitious project: a modern Lowland malt that treats tradition not as a cage, but as a set of tools. Still young, still defining itself, Holyrood is already one of the more interesting signs that Edinburgh’s whisky story is no longer confined to blending houses, bottlers, and history books.