1881 Distillery is based in the historic Peebles Hydro Hotel in the picturesque Scottish Borders town. The hotel has a long association with tennis and in the 1920s Peebles Hydro had more tennis courts than Wimbledon. During the many tennis touraments hosted at the hotel gin and tonic was a popular tipple with the crowds so the hotel decided to create a range of gins using local botanicals and natural spring water to celebrate its past. The plan was to build the distillery in the old tennis pavilion but it became clear that this was not big enough to house all the equipment. Therefore, production was moved to the main hotel and the distillery was named after the year the Peebles Hydropathic Hotel was first opened.