Johnnie Walker Princes Street
Mr Lyan Studio set the brief for the rooftop cocktail list, and Scott Smith of Blank Plate Creative runs the kitchen underneath it.4
Why go
The building is the old House of Fraser store on Princes Street, and Diageo turned it into the flagship for the world's best-selling Scotch. City planners cleared a seven-storey scheme in 2019 inside a GBP 150m company investment across its Scotch visitor sites, and the projection put on it at the time was a GBP 135m lift in Edinburgh tourist spend.2 Cristina Diezhandino, then Diageo's global Scotch whisky director, named the benchmark out loud: she expected the same level of interest as the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, which takes 1.71m visitors a year.2 The city's tourism office counted eight floors when it wrote the place up in 2025.3
The top floor is 1820, and it is a cocktail bar before it is anything else. The bar states its own brief plainly: it is built on the belief that great flavours can transport you around the world,
and the menu takes something familiar somewhere new,
with the team citing a roller-disco in Manila, a fire festival in Valencia and a Tokyo izakaya.4 Smith cooks a changing list of share plates off Scottish seasonal produce, seven days, and the terrace opens onto the Castle when the weather allows.4 Coffee runs in the morning and the kitchen carries through to dinner.3
The whisky sits one room over. The Explorers' Bothy Bar holds 150 rare and unusual bottlings drawn from Diageo's 28 Scottish distilleries, which is the deepest pour in the building and the reason a whisky drinker rides to the top floor.1 That room now trades as private hire, and the way in is the guided tasting held there.4 One step further down the building there is a private cellar where you draw the whisky out of the cask yourself.5
Order this / avoid
- Order: a booked table at 1820. The venue takes reservations up to three months out and asks for a GBP 5 deposit a head, which comes off the bill.4
- Order: the Luxury Cask Draw Tasting if you already drink whisky. Six drams, ninety minutes, GBP 150, and you pull them from the cask in the cellar.5
- Order: the chocolate pairing if you are bringing someone who does not. Four rare whiskies against four handmade chocolates from Iain Burnett, one hour, GBP 75.5
- Avoid: turning up at the Explorers' Bothy Bar expecting a bar. The venue says it
is currently private hire only,
and the GBP 45 Collection tasting is the only route into that room.4 - Avoid: finishing a tour and hoping for a rooftop table. The venue will try and tells you to book instead.4
What locals & experts say
- The List's Eat & Drink 365 TipList puts the case in one sentence, and it is the same call Jeff makes:
While the lower floors of the Johnnie Walker Princes Street visitor experience offer a well-choreographed and engaging intro to whisky, it's the top floor bars that will capture the interest of any whisky fan.
Its instruction follows:If you're a stranger to whisky, work up through the floors; if not, hit the lift button to the top floor and skip to the good bit.
1 - Forever Edinburgh, the city's tourism office (2025), files 1820 among the city's rooftop bars for its
panoramic views of Edinburgh and the hills beyond.
3 That is a destination-marketing page, so read it for the room and not as a review. - Nobody approved here has reviewed it. Two writers have enumerated where to drink whisky in this city and neither names these bars: Felipe Schrieberg's Forbes guide of 15 June 2025 runs Kaleidoscope, the Bow Bar, the Ensign Ewart, Cask & Vine and The Lost Close, with this building appearing only as his lead photograph,8 and Rosalind Erskine's nine best whisky bars for The Scotsman, 31 July 2025, runs Kaleidoscope, Teuchter's Landing, Usquabae, The Canny Man's, Amber, Whiski, Whiski Rooms, The Bow Bar and Tipsy Midgie.9 Both lists were read in full on 11 August 2026. The List's TipList does name the Bothy Bar, so the record here is split rather than silent.
Good to know
- The door: 145 Princes Street EH2 4BL, at the Hope Street corner. The venue describes itself as West End and the street is the New Town's southern edge, so it sits on the join. The List prints 45 Princes Street, which nothing else corroborates.6
- A second registered premises trades under the same name at 2 Hope Street EH2 4DB, listed as the Johnnie Walker Experience Kiosk. It holds its own hygiene record and is not this door.6
- The experience ladder: GBP 30 for ninety minutes and three cocktails matched to your own flavor answers, GBP 45 for an hour and six pours in the Bothy, GBP 75 for the chocolate pairing, GBP 150 for the cask draw. Any booking takes 10 per cent off the shop.5
- Terrace: outdoor tables go first come, first served, and the venue will note a preference without guaranteeing one. Inside seating is assured.4
- Dress: smart casual, with fancy dress refused.4
- Hours: the venue publishes none on its own site and points at a Google listing instead. Check before you go.4
- Getting there: fifteen minutes on foot from either Haymarket or Waverley, or thirty minutes by tram or Airlink from the airport.5
- The five-star line is TripAdvisor's, and this database does not read TripAdvisor as an opinion source, so it earns nothing here. The venue also claims a World Travel Awards title for three years running; that body has not been tested against this registry's rules, so the claim is recorded as the venue's own and carries no weight.5
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 13 March 2024, with no re-inspection pending as of 11 August 2026. That is a pass rather than a finding, and it is about two and a half years old.6
Jeff's take (his words)
His words arrived in conversation (2026-08-11): "johnnie walker experience; my view is good for tourists, but rooftop bar is worth it; reservation recommended." He put the same building on his short list of Edinburgh whisky stops the same day, in conversation (2026-08-11): "the rooftop bar at the johnnie walker experience, port of leith or holyrood distillery. don't miss the cadenhead whisky shop." Both lines are his own, first-hand.
Verdict
could-visit — Jeff's own reading and the only published judgment agree, which is unusual enough to decide the rung on its own. The lower floors are a well-made whisky attraction for people who do not yet drink whisky, and the top of the building is where the drinking happens. What is up there is real: Mr Lyan Studio set the cocktail brief, Scott Smith of Blank Plate Creative runs a seven-day kitchen behind it, and the terrace looks straight at the Castle. The whisky case is thinner than the room suggests, because what Diageo pours here is Diageo's, and the one genuinely scarce thing on the price list is the GBP 150 cask draw in the cellar. Set against Holyrood, which pours new make you cannot buy, and Port of Leith, which built a distillery under its own rooftop bar, this is the tourist's version of the same evening. Two of the three whisky writers who have enumerated where to drink in this city leave it out entirely. Go up, book the table, and do not mistake the ticket for the dram.