The Secret Garden Distillery wins IWSC 2025 UK Gin Producer Trophy

Two sisters, 600 botanical varieties and a radical vision of what gin can become - The Secret Garden Distillery claims the IWSC's UK Gin Producer Trophy. 

Not every distillery begins in a garden. Fewer still are run by two sisters in their twenties, who inherited copper stills and a rambling botanical collection on the edge of Edinburgh and decided to re-imagine what gin could mean. Yet that is the story of Imogen and Isobel Armstrong, and of The Secret Garden Distillery, now awarded the IWSC 2025 UK Gin Producer Trophy. 

Walk through the gates of their Pentland Hills site and the difference is immediate. Beds of herbs, flowers and wild plants crowd the paths, a living catalogue of more than 600 botanical varieties. Each plant is picked by hand, portions left untouched to feed bees and birds. This is not farming at industrial scale - it is closer to horticulture, carried out with the patience of gardeners who see the long game in soil, seed and season.

That philosophy shapes everything the sisters do. The distillery has cut its carbon emissions by nearly a third in three years, runs closed-loop water systems on its own borehole, and aims for net zero by 2026. Their bottles are heavy with symbolism as much as recycled glass: embossed moon gates and corks carved to mimic a gardener’s dibber, gestures that remind the drinker that nature is both source and story. 

Their Pinot Noir gin - grapes grown and fermented on site 0 took ten months from vine to glass. Limited-edition vermouths now sit alongside gin, seasonal experiments born from the same soil. Perhaps just as significant is who is making it all happen. In a spirits industry still dominated by men, The Secret Garden is 75% female-led at senior level, with partnerships such as Buy Women Built foregrounding diversity as part of their ethos. As their bottles reach new shelves in France and Germany, the values of sustainability and inclusion travel as easily as the gin itself. 

Remarkably, in a year of achievement for the Edinburgh based distillery, they were also named the winner of the IWSC Redesign and Rebrand Design award for their striking new bottles.  

Winning the IWSC UK Gin Producer Trophy, then, feels less like a coronation and more like a confirmation.  

Congratulations to The Secret Garden Distillery.