The Black Cat
A special bottling of heavily peated Croftengea marked the bar's thirteenth anniversary, and the emptied Pedro Ximenez wood behind it went on to age the owner's own apple spirit.4
Why go
Chris and Zuzana Miles took the lease in 2011 and built the room around Scottish drink: more than a hundred Scotch whiskies by SLTN's count, poured in taster flights, and Scottish beer on draught and in the fridge.4 The bar is an Ardbeg embassy, which is a standing relationship with the Islay distillery and puts special edition bottlings on this gantry that most bars never see, and there are independent bottlings alongside them.1 The two cask lines both change and there is no regular beer on either, with Bellfield of Edinburgh, Loch Lomond of Dumbarton and Spey Valley of Keith the brewers CAMRA's branch found in rotation.2 Miles started behind bars during his student days in Glasgow and worked venues in Australia and Prague, where he met Zuzana, before this room was his own.4 His reason for making a spirit at all is on the record: As a barman I think you want to own your own bar, and then you want to do your own spirit.
4
The music runs four nights. Folk sessions play Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from half nine until half twelve, and Sunday afternoons from four until seven.2 Many of those sessions are open, so players walk in with fiddles and bodhrans and join.5
It is one small room, with a mirror running wall to wall and a suspended gantry over one of the tables.2 The premises traded as Filthy McNasties before this. The doors stay open until 1am seven days, which SLTN's reporter noted puts it an hour past several of its neighbours.4
Order this / avoid
- Order: a flight. The branch record describes the format plainly:
An extensive range of malt whiskies may be sampled in taster 'flights'.
2 - Order: whichever cask is on, and ask what the other one was yesterday. Two lines, no regulars, all small Scottish brewers.
- Order: Pochle Geal if it is on the back bar. It is Miles's own apple eau de vie at 44.5 per cent, double-distilled off a cider ferment, and the PX cask from the bar's anniversary Croftengea went into the ageing programme behind it.4
- Avoid: the Tuesday quiz if you are not playing. The branch's own note is that non-participants may be asked to sit outside.2
What locals & experts say
- The List's Eat & Drink 365 guide (2025) puts it on a nine-strong Edinburgh whisky list and lands the judgment in one sentence:
Claiming to be the only independent public house on Rose Street, the modest size of this one-roomed pub belies its heft as a whisky bar.
1 The guide writes the Rose Street line as the pub's own claim, and nobody has checked it. - Andy Gregory, The Scotsman, on where it sits among its neighbours:
Arguably the jewel in the crown of Rose Street's west end hub is The Black Cat. Since opening in 2011, they have fast gained the approval of punters and critics alike.
5 His piece is dated 2016 and updated 2023, so read it for the room and the sessions. - CAMRA Edinburgh & South East Scotland, branch survey walked 19 January 2026, on what the sessions do to the place:
This friendly pub is a lively place to visit, especially when folk musicians arrive.
2 - The city's own masthead whisky list passes it over. Rosalind Erskine's nine best whisky bars in Edinburgh, published in The Scotsman in July 2025, does not include it, while The List's guide does.6 That disagreement is worth knowing before you plan a night around the gantry.
Good to know
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme records a Pass for these premises from a City of Edinburgh inspection on 10 May 2012, which is fourteen years and three months ago. Three separate searches of the hygiene register on 4 August 2026 confirm nothing newer exists under any name at this address. The bar serves hot meals, so nothing on that record speaks to today's kitchen.7
- Hours: 11am to 1am, seven days. The branch record notes the licence is likely to run to 3am through August.3
- Booking: none taken. Walk in.
- Price: nobody publishes a price here, for a dram, a pint or a plate. Read the board.
- Food: the bar serves hot meals and admits children until 8pm if they are eating. No menu or dish name is published anywhere.2
- Website: the pub owns theblackcatbar.com and it serves a dead Flash object, which has rendered nothing in any browser since Flash was retired at the end of 2020. CAMRA's own record says there is no website. The Facebook page is the live channel, and The List links to it from its own entry on the bar.1
- Access: two shallow steps at the door, level access to the bar itself, and no accessible toilet. Close tables make it hard to move when it is busy.2
- Sites: the same owner now runs three rooms and this is only one of them. The Penny Black on Leith Street opened in October 2024 and Folly Spirit Labs is the cocktail basement under it. Neither is on Rose Street and neither shares this bar's record. The Rose & Crown next door at 170 is a different business again, and its sibling is the Shoogly Peg further along the street.
- Getting there: Rose Street between Princes Street and George Street, 130 m from the bus routes, 400 m from the Princes Street tram stop and 900 m from Waverley.2
Verdict
could-visit — A whisky-led public bar that does one thing well and has real evidence of a buyer paying attention: two changing casks with zero regulars from small Scottish brewers, malts poured in taster flights, a special Croftengea bottling released for its own thirteenth birthday whose emptied Pedro Ximenez cask then went into the owner's apple eau de vie, and Ardbeg embassy standing with special-edition Islay bottlings on The List's account. That is depth and evolution both, so it clears listed comfortably. It does not clear the detour, and the Edinburgh comparators are the reason. should-visit in this city is the Athletic Arms with Whisky Bar of the Year 2025 and 700 to 800 malts at a fixed 42, the Bow Bar, and the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The best figure anyone has published for this back bar is SLTN's soft more than a hundred Scotch whiskies from 2024, which is a seventh of that field, and no bottle count exists anywhere. There is no award that survives pinning: the DRAM new-bar finalist placing carries no year and no roster, and the city's own masthead whisky list passed the bar over in 2025 while The List's guide included it. The folk programme is genuine, four nights with sessions open to players who walk in with fiddles, but Sandy Bell's is the city's folk room and it is a few minutes away. So: go if you are on Rose Street, and go on a session night, which is when the room is actually worth the trip.