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Whisky
in Edinburgh.

It’s 20:55 in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh

Whisky in the capital.

Edinburgh is a fine place to learn about whisky. Take a tour at the top of the Royal Mile and sit among one of the world's biggest collections, or visit the members' rooms of a famous whisky society in Leith. There's a distillery under Salisbury Crags making its own spirit, and a gin distillery in the railway arches. Many bars stock rare malts too. Choose a good one, and ask the bartender.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults→
The Scotch Whisky Experience→
Edinburgh Gin Distillery→
Holyrood Distillery→
Did you know20 hours ago

The 3,384 bottles at the Scotch Whisky Experience were gathered over 35 years by one collector, Claive Vidiz.

The collection began in the 1970s, when a business colleague gave him six single malts. Diageo bought the collection in October 2006, and it has stood in these cases on the Royal Mile since May 2009.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
Distillery of the day19 hours ago

Edinburgh Gin Distillery.

Edinburgh Gin's distillery under the old railway arches of East Market Street, opened in December 2024, with tours, a bar and a roof terrace.

Read about it
Did you know18 hours ago

Before it taught visitors about whisky, the building of the Scotch Whisky Experience on Edinburgh's Castlehill trained the city's bakers.

It opened in 1888 as Castlehill School, built for 800 children. As people moved out of the Old Town its roll fell to 293, and it closed in 1951. On 19 January 1954 it opened again as a bakery school for the apprentices of the city's baking trade, and ran until about 1970. Since 1988 the same rooms have been teaching about whisky instead.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
Did you know18 hours ago

By 1920, a hundred years after John Walker opened his grocer's shop in Kilmarnock, Johnnie Walker was sold in 120 countries.

A wall at Johnnie Walker Princes Street in Edinburgh picks out one of them, Brazil, which appears in the firm's own book of 1920. Today the whisky is drunk in more than 180 countries, and Johnnie Walker is the biggest whisky brand in the world.

See Johnnie Walker Princes Street · Edinburgh
Lunch17 hours agoEdinburgh56 North500 yardsEdinburghConsiderit600 yardsEdinburgh101 Bakery700 yards

Lunch near Holyrood Distillery.

The three closest tables: 56 North, Considerit and 101 Bakery.

See Holyrood Distillery
Did you know16 hours ago

About 70 per cent of the collection at the Scotch Whisky Experience is blended whisky, and about 30 per cent malt.

Claive Vidiz built the collection in São Paulo, where he worked in pharmaceuticals, from the 1970s to around 2000.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
From our guide16 hours ago

Johnnie Walker Experience.

Time for a dram. This quality Princes Street venue offers various whisky-based experiences, including tours, cellar tastings, archive visits and live music performances.

See the place
Did you know15 hours ago

The man who founded Cadenhead's, Scotland's oldest independent whisky bottler, was better known in his day as a poet.

William Cadenhead took over an Aberdeen wine and spirit business in 1858, and throughout the Victorian years he was a local poet of renown. It was his nephew, Robert Duthie, who built the firm's name for single malt and for Demerara rum, until one day he was run over by a tram while crossing the road. The firm carries on, with a shop on Edinburgh's Royal Mile among others.

See Cadenhead's · Edinburgh
True or false14 hours ago

True or false: Johnnie Walker was a real man, a grocer in Kilmarnock.

Did you know14 hours ago

The two oldest bottles at the Scotch Whisky Experience are a Buchanan's from 1897 and a Dewar's thought to be from 1904 or 1905.

The placard in this film marks them out. Not far off in the same collection is the Dimple Pinch of 1969 in its silver casing, among the first special editions of Scotch ever released.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
From The Best of EdinburghThe Best of Edinburgh13 hours agoEdinburghThe Real Mary King's CloseAttractionEdinburghScottish Poetry LibraryAttractionEdinburghThe Banshee LabyrinthRestaurant

Activities & Experiences in Edinburgh

Things to do in Edinburgh, from the Real Mary King's Close and the Blair Street vaults to whisky tastings, ghost bus tours and readings at the Scottish Poetry Library.

Read the story
Did you know12 hours ago

By the end of 2024 Johnnie Walker Princes Street in Edinburgh had welcomed a million visitors from 141 countries.

It opened in 2021 in the West End of the city, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. By 1920, a hundred years after John Walker opened his grocer's shop in Kilmarnock, the whisky was sold in 120 countries. In three years here, visitors came from 141.

See Johnnie Walker Princes Street · Edinburgh