Think of Edinburgh and the city’s striking gothic architecture, sleek townhouses, and curving cobbled streets spring to mind. New Town elegance, the tourist bustle of the Royal Mile, and the dramatic backdrop of Arthur’s Seat. Leith, with its timeworn warehouses and waterways, isn’t always top of the location list, yet its vibrant history of commerce underpins much of the whisky industry. It is here in the late 1700s that wine, port, and sherry imports were landed. Blenders soon set up shop — names from Haig and Vat 69 to Bonnington were all created here at some point. There is good reason why Woven Whisky, one of the newest names on the blended whisky block, found its home in Leith.
“It has to be forward facing as opposed to nostalgia facing,” explains Peter Allison, one of the Woven co-founders, from his Leith studio. It’s a mid-February day, and winter sunlight floods through the warehouse window, illuminating the tiny 6m x 3m space. The Biscuit Factory that houses the part blending lab, part office, part flavour imaginarium is rustic, industrial, and angular. But a vividly creative community nests within the steel girders. Woven’s neighbours include fellow distillers Edinburgh Gin and Old Poison Distillery,
