Award-winning events company No.18, and the organisers of the popular Gin Fayre events, have confirmed the first Edinburgh event as part of International Scottish Gin Day (ISGD) 2019, a day established to raise the profile of Scottish Gin and showcase Scotland as a visitor destination.

The Gin Fayre presents International Scottish Gin Day 2019 will take place in the prestigious Mansfield Traquair on Saturday 3rd August, which coincides with the opening weekend of the famous Fringe Festival. Having recently appointed a new Scotland Events Manager, Finlay Cowe, the team at No.18 wanted a venue that was the perfect fit for the day. After visiting and reviewing a number of sites across the capital, the team found the ideal, central venue, described as “Edinburgh’s Sistene Chapel”.

This is the first large scale event confirmed as part of ISGD 2019, with more events to be announced in the coming weeks and months. International Scottish Gin Day was established by us, The Gin Cooperative, the business behind the world’s largest dedicated Scottish Gin website, to help celebrate and promote Scottish Gin to a global audience. Just over a year old, we’ve seen our online Scottish Gin directory grow significantly and website traffic increase dramatically since launch, reaffirming that the interest in Scottish Gin continues.

Jasmine Wheelhouse, founder and director of No.18 and The Gin Fayre said “We’re absolutely thrilled to be hosting such a large scale event in Edinburgh. We believe that this particular Gin Fayre event will bring a whole host of benefits to Edinburgh, including tourism and increased commercial opportunities. We are incredibly honoured to work with an amazing array of Scottish Gin producers and we hope that through the work we’re doing with International Scottish Gin Day, we can continue to boost their profile and really fly the flag for Scottish Gin.”

Natalie Reid, co-founder of The Gin Cooperative and International Scottish Gin Day said, “We wanted to create a day that would help share the story of Scottish Gin. We’ve given participants free rein to create their own events to suit their needs. As soon as we announced our intentions last year to make Saturday 3rd of August International Scottish Gin Day, Jasmine contacted us to see how she could be involved. With a proven track record of putting on really great gin events, we knew Jasmine and her team would be able to organise something great as part of ISGD 2019. Having seen the venue that Jasmine and Finlay have secured, we’re very excited.

“The fact that ISGD 2019 lands on the opening weekend of the Edinburgh Fringe isn’t by chance either. We wanted to try and capture the attention of some of the global visitors who visit Scotland each year to attend the fringe and holiday here. Scotland has a brilliant opportunity to be a world leading destination for food and drink and there’s no reason why Scottish Gin can’t have a starring role.”

Early bird tickets are now available online at a discounted price of £17 here.

There are a variety of events currently being discussed including some really exciting international collaborations with some of the world’s best bars, gin bars and cocktail bars. So far, we had confirmed participants from Melbourne, Barcelona, Hong-Kong, San Francisco, London, New York and of course Edinburgh.

It’s predicted that ISGD 2019 will bring a variety of benefits to the participants taking part including commercial opportunities, collaborations and new business development opportunities. With a predicted global reach of over 100 million people across the world seeing ISGD content between the initial soft launch in September 2018 and the day itself and right up until the end of 2019, ISGD is predicated to become an annual celebration of Scotland’s gin makers and gin brands.