The Last Word Saloon
The whisky list runs past a hundred bottles and the flights are built to order, which is what this room has that its owners' better-known bar does not.
Why go
Jason Scott and Mike Aikman founded it in 2012, four years after opening Bramble in the New Town, and split the two rooms by spirit: gin in the basement on Queen Street, whisky down here in Stockbridge.2 The bar builds flights around what you want rather than selling fixed sets, and the whisky menu carries its own revision date, which is a small tell that the list is worked rather than printed once. The cocktail card is led by a rebuild of the drink the bar takes its name from. The room sits on St Stephen Street, the same street as Moss, at the bottom of the hill from the New Town.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Last Word Revisited. Keith Davidson gives the build:
Beefeater gin, clarified Chartreuse, Maraschino and lime oleo saccharum.
1 - Order: a whisky flight, and say what you are after. That is the service the list exists for.
- Avoid: planning to eat here. No kitchen is on record, and the bar's own suggestions all assume dinner happened elsewhere.
What locals & experts say
- Keith Davidson, Time Out (2016): the fullest published judgment on this bar, and it opens by ranking it below its own stablemate.
Much more of a neighbourhood venue than its stablemate, The Last Word has less of the twilight mystique of Bramble but feels more accessible, with friendly staff, a wall-mounted squirrel (modest by the standards of most hunting trophies) and no shortage of expertise in the mixology stakes.
1 - What it has not won: this bar holds no award in any of the three Scottish award rosters this project caches.
- On Jeff's note: his list records this as a top pick from a local bartender. The one published piece that could have supplied that bartender, in which four named Edinburgh practitioners recommend other people's bars, was read in full and does not mention this venue. The note is his own and stays that way.
Good to know
- Timing: open daily, to 1am. An aggregator claims a Tuesday closure; the venue's own page and Time Out both say seven days.
- Booking: walk in. Tables can be requested by email, and no reservation policy is published, so treat a table as a favor rather than a plan.
- Price: cocktails around £10 to £13.50.
- Food: none on record.
- Getting there: 44 St Stephen Street in Stockbridge, about 689 metres downhill from the Assembly Rooms on George Street. The walk back is the same distance uphill.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 20 November 2018. Seven years old, so it is a record rather than a current statement about the premises.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "A top pick from local bartender"
- Rec via: a local bartender, unnamed. This was checked against the one Edinburgh piece in which named bartenders recommend other people's bars, and this venue is not in it, so the recommendation is his own and nothing published stands behind it.
Verdict
could-visit — The whisky room of the three bars Jason Scott and Mike Aikman run in this city, founded 2012, with a list past a hundred bottles and flights built to order rather than sold as fixed sets. That is the reason to make the walk down to Stockbridge, and it is a real point of difference from the gin-led basement they run in the New Town. The cocktail side is capable and the house drink is a rebuild of the classic the bar is named for, using clarified Chartreuse and a lime oleo saccharum. What keeps it at could-visit is the published record. One bylined review exists, from 2016, and its verdict places this room below its own stablemate; the bar holds no award in any Scottish roster, missed the UK Top 50 its sibling made in 2025, and is left out of a Difford's Edinburgh roundup that finds space for ten other bars. It is a good neighborhood bar with deep stock, and the evidence supports exactly that.