Specialty retail, maybe.

Recommended

For the details…

One of the surprising things about the Scotch whisky industry is that, until quite recently, neither of Scotland’s two major cities had a malt distillery. With the recent boom in the industry, all that has changed, of course, but Holyrood, founded in 2019, was the first distillery to be built in Edinburgh in 100 years.

The distillery, founded by Rob and Kelly Carpenter, lies in the heart of the city and takes its name from Holyroodhouse, the royal palace in Edinburgh. Like many new distilleries, Holyrood has released a variety of other spirits as they waited for their whisky to mature.

This inaugural release from Holyrood, dubbed “Arrival,” was released to rather little fanfare in early October 2023. I picked up a bottle, alongside the much pricier inaugural release from Diageo’s “death star” distillery at Roseisle. 

Given the proliferation of new distilleries in Scotland, and my urge to try at least one whisky from every distillery, I’ve had a lot of very young whisky from very new distilleries in recent years, and I can’t say I’ve been as immediately impressed with one as I was with this lovely Holyrood, a whisky that tastes significantly older than the distillery where it was made. It’s lovely stuff that has a dried fruit and tobacco character that suggests some good sherry casks in the mix. Now, being “immediately impressed” doesn’t mean that this is absolutely the best whisky I’ve tasted from one of Scotland’s many new players–there are a lot of young whiskies out there that really, really grow on you–but this stuff lit up some happy places on my nose and palate right off the bat. It’s a really good, and surprisingly mature young whisky.

Holyrood Arrival 46.1% abv

Nose: Intensely fruity and lightly spicy. The fruits are dried–prunes, currants, and dried apricot, with a hint of candied orange peel. Fresh mango shisha. Tobacco coming to the fore.

Body: Light to medium, very slightly chewy.

Palate: Very much as you’d expect from the nose, with tons of dried fruit, the currants to the fore now. Then a slight hint of a sweetish pastry, perhaps a berry-filled Danish. The berry becomes more prominent now–berry compote. Then damp pipe tobacco and very light spice, perhaps clove.

Finish: Rather long, with tobacco, prune and blackberry.

Score: 90/100

Who should buy it?: Anyone who enjoys good whisky!

Overall thoughts: Excellent stuff. Given that the distillery is only about 4 years old at this point, this is obviously very, very young whisky, but its youth is well-masked by some deft maturation. 

Bottling Information:

Expression: Holyrood Arrival 46.1% abv

Bottler: Proprietor

Range: n/a

Bottle Code: n/a

Presentation: Unspecified

Details: Inaugural release

Price: $65

Availability: Hard to say. It showed up at numerous specialty retailers in the UK when it was released in early October, but is likely sold out at most now. You can probably find it at auction.

Distillery Information:

Region: Lowlands

Location: Edinburgh

Geography: Inland

Date Founded: 2019

Owner: Holyrood Distillery Co

Website: https://www.holyrooddistillery.co.uk/

Capacity: 250,000

Plant Summary: n/a

Total expressions sampled: 1

Overall distillery score: n/a
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