We’re taking a first look today at two newer Lowland distilleries in Scotland: Annandale and Holyrood. Both are still relatively small compared with the industry’s long-established heavyweights, but each has already built up a fair amount of output through official releases and, in some cases, independent bottlings. Today, though, I’m staying on the official side with an Annandale 2016 Man O’Words and Holyrood Pitch.
Annandale Distillery
Annandale is a Lowland distillery in Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, founded in 1836 and revived in 2014 after almost a century of silence. The modern distillery was restored by Professor David Thomson and Teresa Church, who bought the site in 2007 and remain the driving force behind the business.
What makes Annandale especially interesting is the way its rebirth was shaped by Dr Jim Swan. Thomson and Swan had known each other for years, and after the purchase of the site, Swan helped design the production brief and the plant itself, including the twin spirit-still concept that gives Annandale its distinctive layout. The distillery says this setup was chosen to maximise copper contact and help deliver a clean but characterful spirit, while also allowing the same plant to make both peated and unpeated whisky.
In terms of size, Annandale is generally described as a small-to-medium distillery, with an annual production of about 250,000 to 260,000 litres of pure alcohol, which could double if they were working two shifts. They use a 2.5-tonne semi-lauter mash tun, three wooden washbacks of 12,000 litres each, a 12,000-litre wash still, and two 4,000-litre spirit stills.
The current whisky range is built around two styles: the unpeated Man O’ Words and the peated Man O’ Sword. Annandale also places a strong emphasis on single-cask releases and cask-strength bottlings, which has helped it build a clear identity quickly despite being a relaunched distillery rather than a continuous one.
Annandale 2016 Man O’ Words – Founders’ Selection (2024) Review
This bottling belongs to Annandale Distillery’s Founders’ Selection — the range of single-cask releases hand-selected by co-owner Professor David Thomson, showcasing the individual character of specific casks from the revived Lowland distillery rather than a blended house vatting. Cask #810 was distilled in 2016 under the unpeated Man O’Words name, honouring Robert Burns, who worked as an exciseman in nearby Annan.
This Annandale 2016 was bottled at natural cask strength – 60.0% ABV, at natural colour, non-chill-filtered. This cask #810’s outturn was undisclosed, and this release is sold out.
Colour:
White wine.
Nose:
Neat: Creamy malt leads, with ginger, cloves, and allspice building a warm baking-spice backbone, rounded out by floral honey. Buttery shortbread, vanilla, and light orchard fruit — apple and pear — with caramelised sugar, joined by bright grapefruit hints. Ripe berries add a fruity lift, while soft oak spices round out the aroma with warmth and gentle depth.
With water: Reduction brings out more vanilla warmth alongside a slight citrus edge, rounding out the sweeter, creamier elements that sit under the raw alcohol at full strength.
Palate:
Neat: Oaky vanilla dominates the arrival, joined by poached apple and a further wave of black and red berries as well as warm spice echoing the nose’s ginger and cloves. The mouthfeel is viscous, with caramel sweetness, almonds and a nutty hazelnut note. The 60% ABV gives the whisky a firm, assertive structure, quite balanced despite the high ABV. There is a slight plankish note from the wood, but restrained enough not to be too disturbing.
With water: Water softens the initial heat and reveals a creamy, velvety mouthfeel, with mint mingling alongside the existing vanilla and spice notes
Finish:
Warm and rounded, with a subtle buttery character carrying through, and a lingering fruity sweetness of green apples and oranges, wood and spices.
Comments:
This Annandale 2016 ex-bourbon Man O’Words is a very good introduction to the distillery for me. It has clear character, good presence and a pleasing balance, with the alcohol well integrated and no marked sense of youth. The result is a really enjoyable whisky, with a soft fruity creaminess that works very well.
Rating: 6.5/10
Holyrood Distillery
Holyrood Distillery is a Lowland whisky and gin distillery in central Edinburgh, opened in 2019 in a restored former railway goods shed near Holyrood Park. It was the first working single malt distillery in Edinburgh in nearly a century, and it quickly set itself apart by making innovation part of its identity rather than just a marketing angle.
The distillery was founded by Rob Carpenter, Kelly Carpenter, and David Robertson, with the project funded through a mix of private investment and support from the Scottish National Investment Bank. The building itself dates back to the 19th century and previously served the St Leonards railway goods station, which gives the site a strong industrial heritage backdrop.
Holyrood is small, with a production capacity of around 250,000 litres annually, depending maybe on how the figure is framed. It uses one wash still and one spirit still, but its whisky programme is unusually experimental: the team has worked with multiple barley varieties, different yeasts, and several flavour-led spirit styles rather than a single fixed house recipe.
The first single malt arrived in 2023, making Holyrood a very young whisky producer in age terms, but one that has already established a distinctive, urban, flavour-driven profile.
Holyrood Pitch (2025) Review
Pitch is the fourth release in Holyrood Distillery’s Founding Series and marks the conclusion of that experimental range, launched in March 2025 by the Edinburgh-based distillery known for its “what if…?” approach to whisky-making. Where the previous Founding Series releases (Arrival, Embra, Ambir) each isolated a single flavour-driving factor, Pitch pushes further into unconventional territory by combining 84% Scotch pot still distiller’s malt with 16% brown malt — a speciality malt typically reserved for dark porter beers, chosen specifically for the roasted, chocolatey depth it brings to the mash. The name itself is a brewing term, referring to the moment yeast is “pitched” into the wort. Fermentation uses a three-way yeast blend: standard distiller’s yeast alongside two red-wine yeast strains, Toro Nero and Pepe Nero, chosen to amplify the chocolatey malt notes while contributing fruity accents rarely seen in Scotch. I guess this time the use of these malts and yeasts is really something new in Scotch whisky, unlike the usual “We matured our whisky in some stupid unused before obscure wine from wherever!” we can see from other distilleries, and I find that refreshing.
The Holyrood Pitch matured in Spanish Oloroso sherry hogsheads, before being bottled at 49.4% ABV, with its natural colour, non-chill-filtered, without an age statement. Expect to pay from €60 in Europe and £63 in the UK for a bottle.
Colour:
Chestnut.
Nose:
Neat: A powerful, immediate wave of hazelnut dominates. Chocolate, plum, blackcurrant and honey follow. Caramelised banana, semi-sweet chocolate chips, sour-apple sweets, orange peel, soy sauce, and even blue cheese, alongside coffee bitters, oak, and fig, with a tiramisu-like aroma.
Palate:
Neat: Chocolate builds into an escalating wave of hazelnut, with slightly lower quality and grainy milk chocolate, something between Ferrero Rocher and milk chocolate fake cigarettes. A subtle sourness develops over time, reminiscent of balsamic vinegar, which probably comes from the Oloroso cask maturation. The texture is mouth-coating and silky, carrying the chocolate and nut notes. Powdered ginger, orange jelly and peaches feature alongside stewed red fruit and a spicy green pepper kick.
Finish:
Dominated by hazelnuts and cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles, raisins, sweetened coffee (it makes me think of the horrendous coffee they served in north Vietnam), pastry, and pleasant oak spice with a pinch of tobacco , with a medium length overall.
Comments:
This Holyrood still feels a little rough around the edges, which is not surprising for a young whisky, but it clearly shows potential. With more time, continued practice in cask selection and a bit more maturity, it could become a very good Lowland whisky. I did find the chocolate and especially the (bad) coffee notes less convincing here, and those elements did pull the score down.
Rating: 5.5/10
Bottle pictures stolen from my friends at Whiskybase, as usual 😉