The Illicit Whisky Experience

Step into the story of Northumberland's Illicit whisky making at Ad Gefrin, an immersive guided experience that unfolds entirely on site, bringing together landscape, legend, and modern craft in one carefully curated journey.

Through sound, imagery, and storytelling, guests are drawn into the world of illicit whisky-making, when spirit was produced in secret across the Northumberland hills and moved quietly along the old drovers' roads, shaped by ingenuity, necessity, and defiance.

As the experience unfolds, guests move through a series of spaces within Ad Gefrin, where past and present are woven together. The story reveals how local communities once worked with hidden stills, how whisky was transported under the cover of darkness, and how the landscape itself played a vital role in protecting its makers.

Along the way, guests experience three whisky moments that trace the full journey of the spirit. It begins with a tasting of new make spirit — clear, bold, and unaged — offering a raw insight into whisky at its earliest stage, directly from the still. The journey continues with Tácnbora,  a carefully crafted blended whisky, introduced as our single malt rests and matures in cask, representing the first chapter in Northumberland's modern whisky journey. Finally, the experience concludes in Bēodern, our restaurant, with a final dram, a celebratory pour drawn from special editions and selected whiskies from our range, served with a ram's horn which the smugglers would have used. Here, guests also enjoy a simple "Drovers Dish" an onion dish* inspired by the food carried along historic routes, sustenance for long journeys, designed for life on the move. It is a moment that echoes how whisky would once have been shared in smugglers inns and gatherings along the road, bringing people together in warmth and story.

From hidden stills to modern distillation. From secrecy to celebration. From rebellion to revival.

This is Northumberland's whisky journey, brought to life at Ad Gefrin.

Tours are the last Friday of every month.