Most gin bars sell the spirit. Heads & Tales makes it. Two copper stills sit behind the bar, and the gin and tonic in your hand was distilled a few feet from where you are standing.
The name is a distiller's term. The heads and the tails are the first and last cuts of a spirit run, the parts a distiller discards to keep only the clean heart. A gin bar that takes its name from the cut is telling you what it cares about before you order.
The room
Heads & Tales opened in 2014 in the basement of the Rutland Hotel, at the west end of Princes Street, and it doubles as the working home of Edinburgh Gin. According to Time Out, two stills named Flora and Caledonia run by day and stand behind the bar by night, so the room smells faintly of juniper and warm copper. The space is low and stone-walled, lit for conversation rather than display, the kind of basement you find only because someone told you it was there. It earns its place among Edinburgh's hidden gems on the strength of that working still alone.
The still is not set dressing. Gin is a redistillation of a neutral spirit with juniper and botanicals, and the heads-and-tails cut the bar is named for is the moment a distiller decides what stays in the bottle and what gets thrown away. Watching Flora and Caledonia run is watching that decision happen, a rarer thing to drink beside than a wall of bottles.
It also changes how the menu reads. When the base spirit is made on site, a gin and tonic stops being a default order and becomes the house statement, the drink the room is built to prove. The cocktails follow from there, leaning on the distillery's own botanicals rather than borrowing someone else's.
What to order
Start with a gin and tonic built from the house spirit, because the shortest distance between a still and a glass is the whole reason to come. The bar keeps more than eighty gins, so the second round is the moment to ask the bartender to pour something you cannot buy at home. The cocktail list runs to around twenty originals, most of them gin-led and seasonal, and the kitchen sends out Scottish charcuterie, smoked fish and cheese to keep a long sitting honest. For a true sense of the place, book the distillery experience that pairs the tour with tastings drawn straight from Flora and Caledonia.
Who it is for
Heads & Tales is for the curious drinker who wants to taste the process, not just the product. It suits a slow date, a small group willing to work through a flight, and anyone who finds the theatre of a still more interesting than a view. For more of the city's quiet rooms, the speakeasy behind the bookcase at Panda & Sons and the carnival cocktails at Hoot the Redeemer make a natural trail. All three reward a drinker who would rather learn something than simply be seen.
Best time to go
The bar opens at 5pm and closes at 1am from Sunday through Thursday, stretching to 3am on Friday and Saturday, and it stays shut on Mondays, so plan around that. Early evening is best for the still, when the bartenders have time to talk through the gins before the room fills. Map the rest of the night with our Edinburgh guide or the global hidden gems collection.
Sources
Reporting for this profile draws on the bar's official website, its Time Out listing, and its Tripadvisor profile.
