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Whisky bars
in Edinburgh.

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Edinburgh

Rare malts on the Royal Mile.

For whisky lovers, two places in Edinburgh stand out. At the top of the Royal Mile, tours and tastings run around a glowing vault holding one of the world's great whisky collections. In Leith, the members' rooms of a famous whisky society sit in an old wine vault, with bottlings you won't find elsewhere. Both are friendly to beginners. Take your time over a dram.

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Did you know18 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
Did you know16 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
Lunch14 hours agoEdinburghHeron200 yardsEdinburghBittersweet Leith200 yardsEdinburghRazzo300 yards

Lunch near The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults.

The three closest tables: Heron, Bittersweet Leith and Razzo.

See The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults
Did you know12 hours ago

The cellars beneath The Vaults in Leith are thought to date from before 1200.

They hold a rare fungus, found only in Europe's oldest wine cellars, that came over with claret from Bordeaux long before Society whisky filled the rooms above.

See The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults · Edinburgh
Did you know10 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
Did you know8 hours ago

The great collection of old bottles at the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh began with six bottles given as a present in Brazil.

In the 1970s a business colleague from Scotland visited Claive Vidiz in Brazil and brought him six single malts: Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, The Macallan and Strathisla. Bottles like those were hard to find outside Scotland then, so he kept them sealed. Those six were the start of a collection that grew into thousands, and they are still together on a shelf on Castlehill.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
Did you know6 hours ago

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society's five founding members bought The Vaults for £50,000.

Four of them put in £10,000 each, and the founder, Pip Hills, gave his share as time and architectural work. The Society has been at home behind this plaque since 1983.

See The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults · Edinburgh
Did you know4 hours ago

The King of Kings on the Scotch Whisky Experience's shelves was blended in Leith by James Munro & Son.

The firm, based on Constitution Street in 1914, ran Dalwhinnie distillery for its American owners until 1919. King of Kings, sold in a dumpy short-necked bottle, was the most lasting of its blends.

See The Scotch Whisky Experience · Edinburgh
Did you know5 minutes ago

When Pip Hills first tasted whisky drawn straight from the cask in the 1970s, the experts told him no one would want it, so he started the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Leith.

In those days the whisky trade thought spirit at full cask strength too quirky and challenging for delicate palates. Hills shared his discovery anyway, and watched word of mouth spread. In 1983 he and his friends formed the Society, starting out in a historic but dilapidated building in Leith, the Vaults. It still seeks out whisky in its purest form, and still gives every bottling a curious name.

See The Scotch Malt Whisky Society - The Vaults · Edinburgh
Did you knowJust now

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

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