Why This Harvest Matters
A run of unseasonably bright Scottish sunshine has brought our garden into fragrant overdrive—lavender spikes are flowering a full month early, bees are buzzing, and the drying room smells like Provence.
Every bottle of Secret Garden Lavender Gin begins right here, and this year’s harvest is bursting with the floral oils we can’t wait for you to taste.
1 · Seedlings to Lavender Hedges
We have always grown lavender at the Distillery Garden using rows of lavender to surround our Edinburgh garden beds as living hedges. The lavender shelters the herbs and botanicals we use in our small-batch gin but just as importantly it is a source of food for our Garden bees as well as perfuming the garden.
Fun fact: A single mature plant can yield up to 200 fragrant stems, enough for two bottles of gin.
2 · Harvest Time: Scissors & Sunshine
Most seasons we harvest late July through to September but this years unusually warm spring has meant all hands on deck now.
When the purple buds are plump but not yet brown, our team hand‑cuts the stems in the cool morning hours to lock in volatile oils. The bunches are bundled within minutes and taken straight to the drying room.
Hand-harvesting is part of our sustainable ethos for without stripping a plant bare, we leave plenty of flowers for the abundant wildlife in the Garden.
3 · Gentle Drying in Our Drying Rooms
Inside one of two temperature‑controlled drying rooms at the Distillery, the lavender air‑dries for 48-96 hours in a constant 37C. This slow drying preserves colour and camphor‑sweet aromas while preventing mould—a crucial step in our seed‑to‑sip promise of quality and traceability.
Gentle drying allows us to store the lavender for up to five years so that we can produce our premium hand-crafted Lavender Gin outwith the growing season.
Fun fact: the gin is so popular we use up each years harvest the following year.
4 · Distilling the Essence: Copper Meets Lavender
Once papery‑dry, the flowers meet our 300‑litre copper pot still along with juniper, coriander, and a whisper of winter savory and angelica from the adjoining beds.
The distillation captures pure lavender top notes and then is diluted with distilled lavender water made in our smaller still. The result? A gin that blooms in the glass.
5 · Sip & Experiment: Lavender in the Glass
Once bottled, our Lavender Gin is more than just a pretty pour - it’s a flavour ripe for experimentation.
Its floral complexity elevates gin cocktail classics like the Gin Sour, French 75, and Collins - all easy to make at home, while its gentle herbaceousness adds depth to summer spritzes and creative infusions.
Whether crystal-clear or colour-shifting violet, every size invites a new way to sip the season.
Colour magic:
Our 70 cl flagship Lavender gin is crystal‑clear, while the 20 cl & 5 cl expressions steep with hollyhock petals for a natural violet hue that turns blush pink with tonic or lemonade.
Our Lavender Gin is truly a seed-to-sip marvel from our Edinburgh Distillery Garden.
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