Scotland: Diageo to Develop Multi-Million Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh

The British beverage producer Diageo, who also produces the well-known Johnnie Walker whiskey brand, is developing a new retail and entertainment experience for whiskey enthusiasts. After a construction pause of three months, due to the government‘s Covid-19 guidelines, construction works of the “Johnnie Walker Princes Street“ building in Edinburgh have now been picked up again.

The new whiskey experience world, which is set to celebrate its opening in summer 2021, will offer visitors a multi-sensory, immersive visitor experience across three floors, guiding them through the 200 year history of Johnnie Walker. An event space and a roof top bar will be part of the visitor center as well as a retail shop on the street level. Furthermore, Diageo‘s “Learning for Life“ training academy, which creates training and employment opportunities in the hospitality industry for unemployed people, will get its own rooms in the building.

Johnnie Walker Princes Street is part of an over 200 million euros investment (185 million pound sterling) which also includes the tranformation of Diageo’s twelve distilleries throughout Scotland into visitor experiences and the reopening of two iconic distilleries in Port Ellen und Brora. With this project, Diageo aims at strengthening the Scotch whiskey and tourism industry. Ewan Andrew, Global President Supply Chain & Procurement at Diageo, comments: “The investment we are making in Johnnie Walker Princes Street and our whiskey distilleries in rural communities throughout Scotland will not only help us emerge stronger from this crisis, we believe it will make a major contribution to the recovery in Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole.“ (eap)