The Best Bars in Edinburgh Right Now

The Bon Vivant on Thistle Street has been serving the best cocktails in Edinburgh's New Town since 2010. The bar operates as a neighbourhood spot during the day and a serious cocktail destination in the evenings, with a rotating menu that covers both classics and house originals. The bar staff are competent without being showy, the Scottish gin selection is among the best in the city, and the small plates are good enough to make a meal of. Reservations recommended at weekends.

Order: Gin and tonic made with a Scottish gin from the house collection. Ask for a recommendation.

Royal Mile whisky bars range from excellent to shameless tourist traps. Whiski falls firmly in the excellent category with a selection of over 300 Scottish whiskies organised by region and distillery, a staff that can guide you through any of them with genuine knowledge, and a tasting room available for private hire when you want to go deeper than the bar allows. The haggis croquettes are the best bar snack in Edinburgh. The whisky flights are well constructed and honest about what makes each selection interesting.

Order: A Highland single malt flight, chosen by the staff based on your experience level

Housed in a converted Victorian pump house on Advocates Close, the Devil's Advocate does craft beer and whisky in a room that is worth visiting for the architecture alone. The pump house machinery is preserved behind glass and the vaulted brick ceiling creates an atmosphere that no designed bar can manufacture. The beer selection runs 20 taps with a Scottish microbrewery focus, and the whisky list covers 150 labels with an emphasis on independent bottlings.

Order: A Scottish craft ale from the tap list, whatever arrived most recently

The cocktail bar at The Principal Edinburgh George Street Hotel is the most contemporary cocktail operation in the city. The programme has been built around Scottish botanicals and spirits with a level of local provenance commitment that most bars only gesture toward. The building dates from 1881, the cocktails from a bartending team that trained in London and Dublin, and the combination works better than it has any right to. The bar opens at noon and the afternoon session is quiet enough to have a proper conversation with the bartender.

Order: The Edinburgh Sour, made with Arbikie whisky and Douglas fir cordial

Entered through a working barbershop on Queen Street, Panda and Sons is Edinburgh's best known hidden bar and the one that set the template for the style in Scotland. The concealed entrance still draws a reaction from first-time visitors, and the cocktail list makes good on the promise of the staging. The menu is built around a different global city each season with cocktails that explore the drinking culture of each location. The current season's focus is Tokyo, and the Japanese influence on the list is handled with more knowledge than most Western bars manage.

Order: The seasonal headline cocktail, whatever the current city focus dictates

The bar attached to the Port of Leith Distillery on Commercial Street opened in 2023 and immediately became the most interesting place to drink in Leith. The whisky is still maturing, but the gin program is already exceptional and the cocktail list uses the distillery's spirits with a creativity that shows what happens when the bartender has direct access to the production side of the building. The harbour view from the upper floor is the best free spectacle in Edinburgh.

Order: Port of Leith gin, served in whatever format the staff currently recommend

A Leith institution on Constitution Street that has been serving the neighbourhood since the 1960s. The Compass does not try to be anything it is not: the beer is cold, the whisky is from the optic, and the clientele is the working population of Leith at the end of a shift. The reason to visit is not the drinks but the room itself, which is one of the last surviving examples of the pre-gentrification Leith bar in its natural state. It closes at 11pm and it will not apologise for that.

Order: Tennent's lager from the tap, served at the right pressure

The Edinburgh branch of the Cold Town brewery's tap room is on the Grassmarket with castle views from the outdoor terrace that are impossible to improve on when the weather cooperates. The beer is brewed in Dunbar and transported daily. The tap list runs 12 Cold Town beers plus 4 guests, and the quality is consistent in a way that Edinburgh craft beer has not always managed. The terrace fills fast on any afternoon above 15 degrees. Come before 5pm or expect to stand.

Order: Cold Town Gold lager, the one they should be most proud of

A small cocktail bar on Queen Street that punches above its size with a menu that changes monthly and a staff-to-guest ratio that allows for proper service in a city where that is rarer than it should be. Lucky Liquor Co. does not have a visible sign outside, which is either annoying or charming depending on whether you know it is there. The bar seats 24 and the energy on a Wednesday evening, when the crowd is regulars rather than weekenders, is among the most pleasant in Edinburgh.

Order: The current house special, whatever it is. It changes monthly and they are proud of it.

A proper Scottish ale house on Haymarket Terrace that treats cask ale with the seriousness it deserves. The cask selection runs 8 lines with a weekly changing roster focused on Scottish regional breweries, and the cellar management is the best in Edinburgh: every pint arrives at the correct temperature, with the correct condition, which is a standard that more than half the city's ale pubs consistently fail. The room is traditional, the prices are fair, and the Sunday afternoon session is as good a way to spend an afternoon as Edinburgh offers.

Order: Ask for the cellar team's current cask recommendation. They have a view and they share it.