Eden Mill

Last week I was in Scotland on holiday and visited St Andrews. We were booked onto a gin tasting tour at Eden Mill and was surprised when we arrived that the distillery and brewery is actually in the the former Guardbridge Paper Mill, which until 2008 many of you would have known as Curtis Fine Paper.

The Fife-based Eden Brewery became Scotland’s first combined brewery and distillery in 2014, when they branched out into making Scotch Whisky and Gin. The move also represented a slight twist in history as before becoming the Guardbridge mill making paper, the mill was a distillery owned by the Haig family, called the Seggie Distillery between 1810 and 1860.


Guardbridge Paper Mill - early 20th century?

The former paper mill buildings which now house the Eden Mill Distillery and Brewery.

The mill clock, which still works...

Inside the distillery, the former paper mill offices are now tasting rooms and administration offices.

Many of the original mill fittings and fixtures in this listed building are still in place.

As Scotland's first single-site distillery and brewery, making gin, whisky and beer, Eden Mill spirit is created by distillers in copper pot-stills and exhibits a wide range of flavours from botanicals sourced from the local area, as well as from around the world - and I tasted all of them, courtesy of our excellent and knowledgeable guide.

I've previously written about other paper mills which are now being used for other uses, including one owned by Google as a data centre:

https://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/from-paper-to-data.html

..and one used as a shopping centre:
https://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/from-paper-mill-to-shopping-mall.html

I hope Eden Mills continues to expand and utilise more of the former mill site ...just so long as they can retain their craft heritage and hand made ethos.
https://www.edenmill.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.08.2017

 

...the last time I visited Curtis Fine Papers, Guardbridge Mill was in 1997 to see the paper being made for the Boots annual report, which I shall write about on my next "job from the past" post tomorrow!