We would highly recommend distillery tours when visiting somewhere known for a specific spirit. We have found them to be highlight experiences on our holidays, especially with older teenagers and adult children in the group.
Distillery tours are the most visited experience within spirits tourism, an industry that has grown significantly over the past decade. The craft spirits movement has driven greater consumer interest in provenance and production, and visitor infrastructure has developed in regions that previously had very little. It’s also a premium experience that is completely different from buying a bottle in a shop.
There is real nuance between different spirit types, and understanding before you make the visit significantly more rewarding. This guide covers whisky, rum, vodka, gin, tequila, mezcal and absinthe, with the best destinations for each and what to expect from the visit.
We would highly recommend distillery tours when visiting somewhere known for a specific spirit. We have found them to be highlight experiences on our holidays, especially with older teenagers and adult children in the group.
Distillery tours are the most visited experience within spirits tourism, an industry that has grown significantly over the past decade. The craft spirits movement has driven greater consumer interest in provenance and production, and visitor infrastructure has developed in regions that previously had very little. It’s also a premium experience that is completely different from buying a bottle in a shop.
There is real nuance between different spirit types, and understanding before you make the visit significantly more rewarding. This guide covers whisky, rum, vodka, gin, tequila, mezcal and absinthe, with the best destinations for each and what to expect from the visit.
This guide sits within the Food and Drink Experiences hub, which is part of the wider Experiences section of the Love Travel Planning Platinum Roadmap.
The global spirits tourism market is growing over 10% annually, with distillery visits now accounting for a significant share of rural and cultural tourism in Scotland, Kentucky, Barbados, Mexico and Japan. Scotland alone welcomed over 2.2 million distillery visitors in 2023 (Scotch Whisky Association Figures 2023 | IWSR Drinks Market Analysis 2024).
When it comes to planning a distillery tour, the most important decision you have to make is if it suits your group. Distillery tours are best suited to adults, solo travellers, couples, groups of friends and families with teenagers who are eighteen or above. Most distillery tours involve tasting alcohol, so the group composition matters in a way it does not for other holiday activities.
Most cities across the world have distilleries, whether large heritage operations or smaller craft producers. The best way to find what is available at your destination is to search by spirit type on GetYourGuide before you travel. Try searching Whisky Distillery Tour in Edinburgh or Rum Distillery Barbados, and check verified options with recent reviews and current availability. If you’re visiting a specific brand, try booking directly through their website.
Some distillery tours are two hour guided visits combining a production tour with a tasting. Some are full-day experiences covering multiple producers in a region. Some are self-guided, usually at distilleries that are not actively producing but have preserved their equipment as heritage.
It’s worth noting, some distilleries may not be suitable for people with mobility issues, as they may be in older buildings with lots of stairs. Also, the more popular spirit brands will book up in peak seasons, so make sure you get in early.
A distillery is a working industrial facility, not a museum. Once you have been on a few tours you realise that planning one is slightly different from booking a city gallery or historic walking route, here are three things to plan before:
Because you will likely be drinking spirits on the tour, it’s wise to seek a taxi or public transport to and from the location. Don’t risk drink driving under any circumstance. This is one of the reasons why using a tour operator is so common with spirit distillery tours, as they will pick you up and drop you off at your accommodation.
Distilleries are heavy industrial sites, and most will enforce a strict footwear rule – no flip-flops and crocs! Ideally, you want to wear well-worn flat trainers or walking boots with a rubber grip sole.
If you’re wanting to visit to see the production, you should make sure you don’t visit in a silent season. This is when the distillery is in a phase of deep cleaning, equipment maintenance and staff holidays, usually in the late summer.
Whisky tourism is worth it wherever the spirit is deeply embedded in the landscape and culture of a place, and Scotland is the undisputed global centre of whisky.
Whisky is made by fermenting a grain mash, usually malted barley in Scotland, distilling it twice in copper pot stills and ageing it in oak casks for a minimum of three years, and usually much longer. The character of the final whisky is shaped by the water source, the local peat, the shape of the still and the type of cask, which is why a whisky from Islay tastes different from one made fifty miles away in Speyside, even though they use similar methods.
Within Scotland, the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides holds mythological status among whisky enthusiasts. Nine active distilleries on one small island, each producing a distinct style shaped by local peat, local water, and centuries of tradition. Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Bowmore and Bruichladduch are among the most recognisable names in single malt.
The coastal path that connects the three distilleries south of Port Ellen, Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg, is one of the most rewarding short walks in Scotland regardless of your interest in whisky.
Accessible by a short ferry crossing from Islay, Jura is a single-distillery island with a quieter, more remote character than its neighbour. Its association with George Orwell, who wrote 1984 at the farmhouse of Barnhill at the island’s northern tip, adds another layer of attractiveness.
The Jura distillery procure a gentler, less separated style than most of its Islay neighbours, making it a good contrast visit for anyone doing several days of heavily peated whisky.
Speyside in the north-east Highlands is home to the highest concentration of distilleries in Scotland, including Glenfiddich, Macallan, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. The Speyside style is characteristically lighter and more fruit-forward than Islay, with vanilla, honey and dried fruit notes that make it more approachable for visitors new to single malt.
The Scottish Whisky Experience in Edinburgh is worth doing before heading to Islay, as it covers all five of Scotland’s whisky producing regions and gives you the vocabulary and context that makes a regional visit more interesting.
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail connects over forty distilleries across the state, from Marker’s Mark at Loretto to Buffalo Trace in Frankfort and Woodford Reserve near Versailles. Bourbon must be made from at least 51% corn mash and aged in new charred oak barrels, giving it its characteristic vanilla and caramel sweetness, completely different to Scottish whisky.
Tennessee whiskey tourism, led by the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, draws over a quarter of a million visitors a year. The distinction between Tennessee whiskey and bourbon is the Lincoln County Process of charcoal filtering before barrel ageing, which gives Jack Daniel’s its distinct character.
Japanese whisky tourism is growing rapidly, with distilleries at Yamazaki near Osaka, Hakushu in the Japanese Alps and Yoichi in Hokkaido all offering tours that combine exceptional whisky with extraordinary landscape. Japanese whisky uses Scottish production methods but expresses them differently – the use of mizunara oak casks, the specific water sources and the meticulous attention to blending have created a style that is distinctly Japanese.
Demand for tour places at the major Japanese distilleries has outstripped supply in recent years, making advance booking more important here than almost anywhere else in whisky tourism.
Yes, and Barbados is our first recommendation for rum tourism. Rum is made by fermenting and distilling sugarcane juice or molasses, then ageing in oak barrels. The variation in style between a light Cuban rum, a heavy Jamaican pot still rum, and a grassy Martinique agricole rum reflects differences in raw material, production method and terrier of the sugarcane itself. That diversity is what makes rum tourism interesting, across multiple destinations rather than repetitive.
Barbados is widely regarded as the birthplace of rum and has the most developed distillery tourism infrastructure in the Caribbean. Mount Gay, the oldest rum distillery in the world at over 330 years old, is the most established visitor experience and a logical first stop.
Foursquare Distillery in St Philip, run by Richard Seale and producing rums under the Doorly’s label among others, has become one of the most critically acclaimed independent rum producers in the world. The distillery visits here are tried and tested from our own experience – excellent fun and informative about high-quality pot and column still blending works.
St Nicholas Abbey in the Scotland District is one of the most extraordinary heritage distillery experiences anywhere in the world. A Jacobean plantation great house dating from around 1658, still producing rum on a small heritage pot still, offering tours that combine the history of Barbadian plantation life with genuine distillery craft. The building alone is worth the visit.
For a smaller, more personal experience, craft producers such as Perkins and Sons represent the growing independent end of the Barbadian rum scene, and offer visits that feel very different from the larger commercial operations.
Jamaica’s Appleton Estate in the Nassau Valley is one of the most visited rum distilleries in the world, set in a landscape of limestone hills and sugarcane that is visually extraordinary in its own right. The Jamaican pot still tradition produces heavy, funky rums that are entirely distinct from the lighter Caribbean styles.
Martinique has its own Appellation d’Origine Controlee for agricole rum, made from fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses, with distilleries including Rhum Clement and J.M across the island. The agricole style is worth specifically seeking out for anyone who has only encountered molasses-based rums.
Havana Club in Cuba offers a production tour with obvious historical and cultural context. We have not yet published a personal rum tourism guide but it is a category we are actively planning to cover.
If you are in Eastern Europe on a city break, a vodka distillery visit is well worth adding. Vodka is made by fermenting a grain or potato base, distilling to a very high alcohol content and filtering repeatedly – the skill lies in achieving smoothness and character through process rather than through aged complexity, which makes the production tour a different kind of experience from whisky or rum. There is less to see in terms of ageing casks and long maturation, but the precision of the distillation and filtration process is fascinating in its own right.
Poland has the strongest claim to being the spiritual home of vodka and has developed a thoughtful tourism scene around it. Krakow’s Wodka Bar is one of the most celebrated, with over 100 Polish vodkas by the glass.
Warsaw has dedicated vodka bars serving dozens of regional varieties alongside distillery visits in the city and surrounding countryside. The Polish Vodka Museum in Warsaw covers the history and production with enough depth to make it a dedicated visit.
Russia, Scandinavia and the Baltic states all have strong aquavit and vodka traditions with growing visitor infrastructure. In Sweden, the Absolut distillery in Ahus in Skane offers tours that cover the full production process from Swedish winter wheat to bottling.
In Finland, Kyro Distillery in Isokyro produces rye whisky and gin alongside their rye vodka, and has developed a visitor experience that reflects the Finnish concept of Juhannus, the midsummer celebration, in everything from the building design to the tasting format.
For visitors to Iceland, the Viking Wold Brennivin experience near Reykjavik offers an introduction to the Scandinavian aquavit tradition in a country that approaches spirits tourism with characteristic directness.
There are three more spirits that have developed tourism experiences that are distinctive enough to plan a visit around; gin, mezcal (tequilla) and absinthe.
Gin is made by redistilling a neutral grain spirit with botanicals, most importantly juniper. The character of any given gin reflects the botanicals the distiller has chosen, which is why the category ranges so widely from the classic London dry style to contemporary gins flavoured with local botanicals from the distilleries own land.
Slingsby Gin in Harrogate used to use Yorkshire ingredients including Harrogate spring water, rhubarb from the Rhubarb Triangle, and sweet cicely from the Dales – however the company was bought out of administration in March 2026 by Brightside Spirits. While the brand survived and you can still buy gin online, they permanently closed their physical retail and tasting experience store in Harrogate.
There are other brands like Harrogate Tipple and Cooper King Distillery, which follow similar principles, and are still worth a visit.
London has over 30 gin distilleries, with Spismith in Chiswick, Beefeater at Kennington, and the City of London Distillery among those offering well-regarded tours. In Scotland, Edinburgh Gin, Pickering’s in Summerhall and The Botanist on Islay show different approaches to Scottish botanicals.
Mezcal is the parent category for all agave-based spirits, and tequila is one of its denominations. Tequila can only legally be produced in the state of Jalisco and a handful of neighbouring Mexican states, and can only be made from the blue Weber agave.
Mezcal tourism in Oaxaca is the most culturally immersive agave spirits experience available. Traditional mezcal is made by roasting agave hearts in underground earthen pits before fermenting and distilling, which gives the spirit its distinctive smoky character and connects it deeply to the landscape and the indigenous Zapotec communities that have produced it for centuries.
For tequila specifically, the Cuervo Express train from Guadalajara to the town of Tequila in Jalisco is one of the most enjoyable distillery tourism experiences in Mexico, combining the journey with a tour of the Jose Cuervo La Rojena distillery, the oldest active distillery in Latin America. Casa Herradura and Patron both offer well-developed visitor experiences.
Absinthe is a high-alcohol anise-flaboured spirit made from wormwood, green anise and fennel, historically produced in the Val-de-Travers valley in Switzerland and the Pontarlier region of France. Banned across much of the world in the early twentieth century on largely exaggerated claims about the effects of thujone in wormwood, its revival since the early 2000s has been accompanied by a renaissance in craft production.
The Pontralier area of the French Jura has the highest concentration of absinthe distilleries in the world, with several offering visitor experiences that cover both the traditional distillation methods and the social history of the spirit’s rise, prohibition and return.
The Maison de l’Absinthe museum in Motiers in the Val de Travers covers the full story in detail. For visitors to the Czech Republic, Bohemian-style absinthe production in Prague has produced a small but interesting distillery tourism scene in the old town.
The best distillery tours combine fascinating production, generous tastings and a setting that reflects the spirit’s heritage, and the global pick rotates between Scotland, Ireland, Japan, Kentucky and Tennessee. Whisky tourism is a serious business now, with Scottish distilleries welcoming around 2 million visitors in 2022, according to the Scottish Whisky Association. Our pick of the most visited and most highly rated tours in the world:
Usually yes, but there are some limits. Most distilleries in Scotland, Ireland and the US welcome under-18s on the production tour itself, which is the educational part, but you must be 18 in the UK or 21 in the US to take part in any tasting.
A few distilleries set a minimum age of around 8 or 12 for safety reasons, since tours involve hot vessels, open stills and slippery floors. Some smaller or more exclusive distilleries are strictly 18 plus, so always check the booking page before you turn up with the family.
It varies enormously, and the honest answer is that older distilleries can be challenging. Many of the most famous Scottish distilleries are housed in working Victorian buildings with steep stairs, narrow walkways and uneven cobbled yards, which can make full access difficult for wheelchair users or anyone with limited mobility.
The newer purpose-built visitor centres a different story. The Macallan, Glenmorangie, and Lindores Abbey have invested heavily in step-free routes, lifts and accessible tastings.
Yes, and the production tour is arguably the most interesting part anyway. Watching the process from mashing through fermentation, distillation and maturation is fascinating, and most guides are skilled storytellers rather than just pourers.
Almost every major distillery now offers a driver’s dram or take-home miniature in place of the tasting, so you do not lose out on the final flight. Many also offer non-alcoholic alternatives such as local soft drinks, hot chocolate or distillery branded coffee. A handful, particularly newer experience centres, run dedicated heritage or production-only tours at a lower price point for visitors who would rather skip the tasting altogether.
Layered, practical and warm, with closed-toe shoes as the non-negotiable. Production areas are working industrial sites, so most distilleries require closed shoes for safety reasons and some might turn you away for flip-flops.
Inside the still house you will encounter some temperature swings, with still rooms often hot and humid while warehouses and dunnage cellars can be chilly even in summer – but might be a welcome coolness.
Avoid strong perfume or aftershave on tasting days, since it dulls your nose and can interfere with other guests’ tastings.
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