The Society keeps two houses, and anyone over 18 can walk into Queen Street for the range while the Vaults in Leith is the members' door a local uses. The distilleries pour their own, and the Port of Leith bar stands eight floors up behind glass. The Johnnie Walker rooftop on Princes Street is worth the trip for the view, and it wants a reservation. A Southside bar has taken the national whisky-bar title three years running. Read the gantry before you order anything, and buy the bottle at Cadenhead's on the Canongate.
Whisky bars.
The rooms, best first
- Tipsy Midgie Whisky Barverified
The Scottish Bar & Pub Awards made it Whisky Bar of the Year in 2023, and the SLTN Awards gave it their whisky-bar title in 2024 and again in 2025. That is three wins in three years from two different bodies.
- The Port of Leith Distilleryverified
The whisky bar is the eighth floor of nine behind full-height glass, pouring the house Table Whisky and the distillery's own sherry.
- The Mother Superiorverified
Shortlisted for Whisky Bar of the Year in 2025, and the shelf is bought cask strength off Islay.
- The Scotch Malt Whisky Societyverified
The Society bottles single casks at cask strength and codes each one by flavor, and Kaleidoscope pours more than 200 of them a month.
- Athletic Armsverified
Named Whisky Bar of the Year in 2025, with a standing list of 42 poured in 35ml Scots measures.
- Nauticusverified
The menu is arranged by Leith's trading history, and the whisky chapter is the one to read first.
- Cadenhead's Whisky Shopverified
This is a shop and not a bar, and it is one of three on earth selling the Authentic Collection single cask at cask strength.
- The Bow Barverified
The gantry holds more than 400 single malts, and the pub fills its own casks on top of that.
- The Abbeyverified
Flights are built by region, age, decade or single distillery, off more than seven hundred bottles and the pub's own casks.
- Canny Mansverified
Over 250 whiskies on a bright red gantry, in a bar the city's drinkers have argued about for generations.
- The Devil's Advocateverified
The dram list is the reason the drinks trade sends people down the close to this one.
- Johnnie Walker Princes Streetverified
The Explorers' Bothy Bar holds 150 rare bottlings drawn from Diageo's 28 Scottish distilleries, and the cellar tasting pulls whisky straight from the cask.
- Holyrood Distilleryverified
A working single malt distillery whose tour pours new make spirit and runs a flight of different new makes.
- The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaultsverified
The building the Society bought in 1983 and still pours from, open to members and three guests each, which is the local's door rather than the New Town one.
- The Black Catverified
An Ardbeg embassy, and a special Croftengea bottling was released to mark the bar's thirteenth anniversary.
- The Last Word Saloonverified
The list runs past a hundred bottles and flights are built to order rather than sold as fixed sets.