A distillery in the attic
In July 2026 the building took on a new job. The Spirit of Bristol now makes gin on the top floor.
Quay Head House has been offices, a squat, a restaurant and a bar. In the summer of 2026 it became a distillery too.
The Spirit of Bristol, an award-winning local distillery run by head distiller Pete Lumber, made the building its first permanent home. The Milk Thistle Distillery opened on the top floor on 15 July 2026, offering guided tastings, tours, private experiences and gin blending sessions, along with a gin and vodka created especially for the building.
It is a fitting chapter for an old quayside building. Bristol’s docks handled huge quantities of imported wines and spirits, and blending was once a dockside trade here.
Watch this space
We will be sharing more about the distillery and what is happening in the rest of the building as it develops. In the meantime, if you visited the attic in any of its earlier lives, we would like to know what it was like.
Share a memory of the top floor.
Sources: TheBusinessDesk, Top 50 cocktail bar and award-winning distillery unite in Bristol