ABOUT

Holyrood Distillery is a pioneering modern distillery, located in the heart of Edinburgh. In 2023 they launched their inaugural single malt whisky, Arrival, the Scottish Capital's first single malt in over a hundred years. The name Arrival is Inspired by Holyrood Distillery's iconic location in the former Innocent Railway terminal.

To celebrate the launch, Bright Side Studios was commissioned to transform the listed building into an immersive brand storytelling experience, celebrating the history and heritage of the distillery's inaugural whisky, and the craftsmanship of the distilling process that produced it. The launch would create many rich and highly shareable moments and materials for social media and PR.

Like the whisky, pioneering techniques were used, weaving the visual storytelling into the bricks and mortar of the listed building. Archives of historic photography and video were explored and utilised as well as custom-made animation and film. Projection mapping and holographic projection techniques, as well as lighting and sound design, were used to bring this unique brand story to vivid life.

“Created in the heart of Edinburgh’s historic Old Town, in the shadow of Salisbury Crags, the whisky is distilled in a refurbished engine shed, once part of the terminus of the Innocent Railway. Just as the distillery is a part of Edinburgh, our city and its people, heritage, and culture are what we draw inspiration from every day... Arrival embodies this story so far as whisky makers and marks the beginning of a journey of progression, innovation, and experimentation.” 
Rob Carpenter, founder of Holyrood Distillery.

The immersive visual storytelling was designed to flow around the distillery, with visitors moving freely between the different areas. Four distinct layers of the story and also four key areas within the distillery were selected, each transformed with immersive projection, sound, and light for the launch event. Each area was linked by lighting and music to ensure the audience's immersion in the story was seamless.

The four chapters to Arrival's story that we identified as key to the launch were Heritage, Speciality, Yeast, and People.

In the Heritage area, we used projection mapping techniques to create an immersive environment, mapping the content to the historic stone walls and using the window recesses to feature key elements from the archive footage. The effect was reminiscent of a train, with its windows and carriages. We used archive footage of the last train journey from the Innocent Railway and archive photography and documents, including train tickets, letters, and maps, bringing these to life using parallax animation. We also used archive materials donated by Hugh Leckie & Sons, who had their coal yard on the site, supplying the coal that propelled the trains around the country, right up until the last steam train left the terminal.

The Speciality area was located in the distilleries spirits laboratory, a space full of specialty ingredients and tools for creating unique flavours. Here a 25ft floor projection was created, burning the bottle into the ground beneath the visitor's feet and bringing the ingredients to life within the bottle. We used lighting to enhance features in the room and had the ingredients, used in Arrival's distilling process, within the space so that visitors could smell and touch the ingredients in combination with the animated, illusionary visual storytelling.

We used the Still Room to tell the story of the Yeast, the ingredient that begins the whisky’s fermentation process. The copper stills, pipes, and metal mash tuns create a beautiful, interesting, and theatrical space, to which we added projection and light to animate the space with this magical ingredient. Using custom lighting, reminiscent of water to flow over the cills and then projecting a huge abstract animation of the golden Yeast, which flowed over the wall and copper stills.

The Cask Room is the space that was selected to tell the story of the people, who are the foundation of the distillery and Arrivals production. Filming the distillery's staff on a green screen, and then using the sweeping golden liquid, and other key brand assets, a unique holographic film was created, delivering a stunning, illusionary brand experience, with the people at its center. 

The launch was created not only with the story, experience, and brand in mind but also with the shareability of the brand and visuals on social media and via PR, to deliver a big hit for the launch event. Holyrood Distillery's inaugural whisky, 'Arrival', sold its number one bottle for £8,000 during its official launch, and Arrival sold out in all other retailers within the week of launch.