Leith-based brewery Pilot has created a new spirit from one of its biggest beers, Peach Melba Sour.

The new Peach Melba Spirit Drink is a distillation of Pilot’s best-selling beer, with peach and raspberry purees, additional sliced peaches and vanilla. 

The product is the first venture into the spirits market for the brewery, best known for its avant-garde range of beer including Leith Lager, IPAndarin and Blønd.

The team at Pilot devised the concept and, with the help of the team at Holyrood Distillery, distilled the new Peach Melba Spirit Drink.

Matt Johnson from Pilot Beer, said: “We’ve been planning this for a while.  We wanted to create something special and as Peach Melba Sour is one of our most popular beers, we thought it would be really interesting to spread our wings a bit and create a spirit that captures the essence of the original beer.

“We always like to surprise our customers with something new, so we gave the amazing team at Holyrood Distillery a shout as they have a very similar mindset to us. Like Pilot, they are based locally and are not afraid to experiment and explore new methods. The team at Holyrood has been incredible and this has been a real collaborative effort. Our background is obviously beer and we’re not moving away from that, but we wanted to try something a bit different.

“As we discovered, there’s a world of difference between creating beers and creating spirits and Holyrood’s level of expertise is phenomenal.

“The drink itself is a flavoursome, aromatic spirit drink with a huge hit of peach, raspberry and vanilla undertones and a whisper of new-make-ey character, bringing a subtle complexity to it.”

He continued: “It has been a labour of love, but we’ve really created something a bit special that absolutely encompasses Pilot’s ethos of fun. Everything we do is fun.

“What’s the point, otherwise? The team at Holyrood Distillery have made this project an absolute pleasure to work on and we’re really looking forward to seeing what else we can cook up with them.”

The new Peach Melba Spirit Drink is now on sale (from 28th November 2024) and Pilot hopes that there will be more collaborations in the future.

Johnson said: “The drinks market is a fast-moving one. We must adapt to customers’ ever-changing tastes, without losing focus on our core brand. Two local companies working together is good for the industry, the city and ultimately it provides more choice for our customers.”