Diageo unveils new Johnnie Walker visitor centre plan for Edinburgh

Drinks giant Diageo is to build a new whisky visitor centre in Edinburgh and upgrade facilities in its existing network of 12 distilleries as part of a £150 million investment.The centrepiece of the three-year investment will be a new state-of-the-art Johnnie Walker immersive visitor experience based in Edinburgh.The city was chosen as the preferred location for the Johnnie Walker investment because of the capital’s particularly strong tourism growth.The building in Edinburgh will become a new hub for Diageo’s business in Scotland linking to wider social investment and creating opportunities in the hospitality sector for young unemployed people, through increased investment in the company’s Learning for Life programme.Multi-million pound infrastructure investment will also be made across Diageo’s 12 malt whisky distillery visitor centres with a focus on the ‘Four Corners distilleries’ – Glenkinchie, Caol Ila, Clynelish and Cardhu.Diageo’s other visitor distilleries: Lagavulin, Talisker, Glen Ord, Oban, Dalwhinnie, Blair Athol, Cragganmore and Royal Lochnagar, will also see investment to support the growth of single malt Scotch whisky. This is in addition to the £35 million already committed to re-open the ‘lost distilleries’ of Port Ellen and Brora, taking Diageo’s network of distilleries with specialist visitor experiences in Scotland to 14.