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Isabel Irvine

Isabel Irvine

Tour guide at Port of Leith Distillery, freelance writer, and artist who co-runs Lochs & Fens homeware.

Jul 28, 2026

18:06
So can you tell me a wee bit about why Leith's such an important landmark when it comes to the history of whisky?
18:12
Leith is a landmark in the kind of entire story of the import export of wines and spirits.
18:18
If you go back to the 1100s, the kind of abbots of Holyrood Abbey, they were having their religious wines, let's say, rolled up the hill from the port up to Holyrood for the abbots and the monks.
18:30
You come to the 1500s, Mary Queen of Scots came back from exile in France.
18:34
She brought her French court, they landed at the shore.
18:37
They loved their wines, their claret, so the wine market really expanded.
18:42
Things took a bit of a hit after that with the Napoleonic Wars and the kind of virus of the vines in Europe.

7 MINS LATER

25:43
And so if you could travel back to a particular time and place in Leith and see a certain scene related to whisky or wine or gin, what would that be? What would you like to witness?

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