Editorial
A great whisky bar is built around the back-bar shelves, not the cocktail menu. Eight hundred bottles minimum. A staff who can talk through Islay peat, high-rye Bourbon, and Japanese Yamazaki without becoming smug. A list that makes you reach for something you'd never have ordered. The 20 below all qualify. From Tokyo's Campbelltoun Loch (where rare Yamazaki sells out monthly) to Edinburgh's Bow Bar (the Old Town's quietest dram), these are the rooms where whisky actually gets discussed, not just poured.
Each entry below is a a look at the best 10 bars in that city — picked by editors who live there.
Forget the cocktail list. The best whisky bars work because of what's open behind the bar tonight, not what's still sealed. The 20 above all do that. Campbelltoun Loch and The Auld Alliance represent the rare-Scotch end. Black Rock and Milroy's the new wave. Edinburgh and Glasgow the Scottish heartland. The American entries the Bourbon and rye revival. Pick the room that matches the dram you want.
Spirits Specialist — craft beer, whisky, anything fermented or aged.
One email every week. The bars our editors are recommending right now, across 60 cities worldwide.