A barrel ride through the making of whisky, and the largest collection of unopened Scotch in the world at the end of it.
Occupying the old Castlehill School at the top of the Royal Mile, this is the most visited whisky attraction in Scotland, and it is unapologetically an introduction rather than a specialist experience.
The tour
It opens with a ride in a moving barrel car through a dramatisation of the production process — malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation — narrated by the ghost of a blender. It is theatrical and it is aimed at people who do not know what a wash still is, and on those terms it works.
You then get a guided sensory session on the regions: Lowland, Highland, Speyside, Islay and Campbeltown, with scratch cards for the aromas, before choosing a dram from the region you like the smell of. Higher tiers of ticket include four drams instead of one, blends versus single malts, or a food pairing.
The collection
The end of the tour is the reason to go even if the barrel ride is not for you. The Diageo Claive Vidiz Collection is the largest collection of Scotch whisky in the world — around 3,384 unopened bottles, assembled over 35 years by a Brazilian collector and bought by Diageo in 2006 on condition it stayed in Scotland.
It fills a room floor to ceiling and it is genuinely startling.
The bar
The Amber restaurant and whisky bar is open to non-visitors, holds several hundred bottles, and does proper food. You can walk in for a dram without doing the tour at all, which many people do not realise.
Where else to drink whisky in Edinburgh
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society on Queen Street bottles single casks at cask strength under numbered codes rather than distillery names, and non-members can usually visit the bar. The Bow Bar on Victoria Street has around 300 malts and a proper Edinburgh pub interior. Kay’s Bar in the New Town, The Canny Man’s in Morningside and Whiski Rooms near the Royal Mile all do it well.
For a working distillery in the city, Holyrood Distillery opened in 2019 in a former railway building and runs tours; Port of Leith Distillery is a vertical distillery on the waterfront with a bar at the top and a view over the Forth.
Practicalities
Book online, which is cheaper than the door. Under-18s can do the tour without the tasting. Allow ninety minutes for the standard tour and rather longer for the tasting tiers.
Bottles bought here can be shipped, which is worth considering against airline liquid rules.
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