Where the magic happens: Visiting the Hendrick’s Gin Palace in Girvan
An audience with Lesley Gracie, the mastermind behind Hendrick’s Gin. Photo credits: Evgeniya Tsoneva.
One might expect a frantic rabbit with a pocket watch and a coffee spoon to dash around the corner any minute. Or perhaps a madman in a hat. Neither appears, of course—but the hosts who greet us on this sunny late-May afternoon near the Scottish town of Girvan are no less wondrous.
Entry through the grand iron gates of the Hendrick’s Gin Palace is by invitation only, extended personally by the brand’s mastermind, Lesley Gracie. Before anyone sets foot inside these sacred halls of gin, she takes the time to observe closely—who, exactly, is seeking entry here?
Once through the gates and into the beautifully landscaped garden on the William Grant & Sons estate, the view opens onto the distillery palace itself—a glasshouse-inspired structure that looks straight out of a Victorian dream. Lesley Gracie, a petite figure of about 1.60 meters with silver hair cascading nearly to the floor, and an unnamed turtle companion, are just two of the many whimsical details that make this place so unusual and utterly enchanting.
Indeed, it feels as though one has stepped into a new version of Alice in Wonderland. The signature Hendrick’s aesthetic—a blend of Victorian curiosity and Art Déco eccentricity—has been brought to life here with exquisite precision by the architects at Michael Laird. The black-and-white checkerboard floor, twin glasshouses filled with tropical and Mediterranean plants, a gramophone and an old apothecary case, and a welcoming tea bar are just the first few delights that catch the eye.
At the heart of this extraordinary building lies the distillery itself. Beneath elaborately crafted skylights stand towering copper stills from different decades, where the essence of Hendrick’s comes to life through two distinct distillation methods.
Which botanicals join the traditional cast—juniper, angelica root, coriander—is entirely up to Lesley. In her fully equipped lab, the trained chemist experiments with tropical, Mediterranean, and local plants cultivated right here in the gin palace’s glasshouses. Once she’s perfected a new blend, the required ingredients are sourced from select producers around the globe.
Talking to Lesley—or simply observing her at work—one quickly senses a woman who has seen much, learned deeply, and knows precisely what she’s doing. Among the curiosities in her personal Cabinet of Curiosities lies a small-batch gin distilled deep within the Venezuelan rainforest. It’s from this vast knowledge of essences and aromas, and her unerring sense for the extraordinary, that the famously unusual Hendrick’s creations emerge:
The original classic, infused with unmistakable notes of cucumber and rose. The extravagant “Orbium”. The floral “Midsummer Solstice”. The smooth “Lunar”, the fruity “Amazonia”, and the maritime newcomer “Neptunia.”Each of them springs from Lesley Gracie’s imagination and expertise—each an embodiment of the brand’s fantastical charm.
Later that day, we’re invited to a tasting session inside a small, vintage-style lecture hall. There, we gain deeper insight into the structure and evolution of Hendrick’s gin before the dedicated kitchen team rounds off the evening with a sumptuous Scottish dinner.
To finish, we step into the elevator—naturally, designed in full Hendrick’s style, complete with a cucumber phone and a zeppelin floating in a cloud-painted sky—and ascend to the elegant in-house bar. Here, the talented bartenders of Nauticus Bar Edinburgh await, ready to showcase their craft and close this most curious of days in true Hendrick’s fashion.
