The 8 Best Gin Bars in Edinburgh (2026)

The Edinburgh Gin Distillery and Bar is the obvious starting point, and it earns the top spot rather than just claiming it by being first to market. It occupies a restored, listed set of arches five minutes' walk from Waverley, and reviewers consistently single out named experiences rather than a generic 'tour': the classic gin tour and tasting, and a sensory Aroma Alchemy class that one reviewer said won over a guest who doesn't even like gin. The two small Leith distilleries below score higher on a few hundred reviews each, but at 4.9 across more than 1,300 reviews, it's the most consistently proven of the eight.

The bar itself doesn't require a tour booking, so it's a legitimate walk-in stop for a gin drink even if you skip the distillery experience. Edinburgh Gin doesn't publish its tour prices as readable text on its own site, so book direct through edinburghgin.com and check the current rate there rather than trusting a number here.

Heads & Tales is the West End's hidden gin bar, and I mean hidden literally: the entrance is a small staircase down beside The Huxley, easy to walk straight past even with signage outside. Inside it's a cosy basement with a genuinely large gin selection, and reviewers consistently mention staff who'll help you pick rather than hand you a list and walk off. The touch that comes up repeatedly is the complimentary curry popcorn served alongside drinks, a small thing that says more about the place than most of the decor does.

It gets loud when larger groups are in, and it's closed on Mondays. It's also not step-free, which is worth knowing before you book a table for a group with mixed mobility. Go for the gin list and the halloumi sticks; book ahead for anything more than a couple of people.

56 North is where Southside's gin scene actually gets made, not just poured. South Loch Distillery runs on two 50-litre copper stills in the same building, and the gin has picked up 12 medals at the Scottish Gin Awards, including three category golds, since 2021. The tasting experience runs close to two hours by most reviewer accounts and covers the whole process, not just a sniff and a sip, with reviewers repeatedly calling out the guides by name for how well they explain it.

Outside the tasting, it's a full bar and kitchen rather than a quiet dedicated gin den, so expect a dinner-service atmosphere at peak times. One honest gripe from a reviewer: bar snacks aren't cheap (£4–5 for a packet of crisps). Book the South Loch tasting through their site if that's the main draw.

The Jolly Botanist on Morrison Street calls itself, on its own site, 'a specialist gin bar' in the West End, and its Victorian-styled room backs that up with a menu deep enough that reviewers describe it as almost overwhelming: a genuine spread of Scottish and English gins rather than the usual half-dozen. It won Best New Pub in 2015 and has kept the reputation since, now sitting at 4.4 across more than 1,800 reviews, the largest review count of anywhere on this list.

Ask staff to steer you rather than trying to read the whole menu cold; more than one reviewer says exactly that made the visit. It gets busy, particularly with groups, and one small honest note from a reviewer: the physical menu itself could do with a wipe. Worth knowing this is the Morrison Street branch, not a Bruntsfield location some older lists still point you to.

Lind & Lime is the pick if you want a proper hands-on distillery visit rather than a bar with a good gin list, and it holds a perfect 5.0 on Google across 184 reviews. It sits on the Leith waterfront and runs a 75-minute Tour, Tasting, Bottle Filling & Cocktail Making experience: a welcome gin and tonic, the story of the distillery, bottling and labelling your own 5cl bottle (one reviewer was proudly awarded 'Head Bottler'), and making a gimlet to finish. At 5.0 on Google, the rating is close to unanimous, even if the review count (184) is smaller than the bigger bars on this list.

It's £30 for adults and £10 for children aged 7 to 17, one of only two venues here with a published exact price. The catch is real: it's only open Thursday to Sunday, Challenge 25 applies, and the industrial setting means no babies. Book through their Rezdy page rather than turning up.

Summerhall Distillery is Pickering's Gin's home, tucked into the former Royal (Dick) veterinary school building in Southside. The Gin Jolly tour walks through the distillery's history and the wider story of gin, then moves into a tasting that includes a cocktail, and finishes with a gin and tonic in the on-site bar, already included in the ticket price rather than an upsell. At 4.9 across 466 reviews, it's consistently rated as one of the better tour experiences in the city, not just the better gin.

One planning note: the premises are open daily, but the Gin Jolly tour itself runs Wednesday to Sunday, so check before building a Monday or Tuesday visit around it. Book through summerhalldistillery.com; a 20%-off promo code doing the rounds was tied to Fringe season and won't apply outside August, so don't expect that discount to still be live.

McGonagalls on George IV Bridge brands itself a 'Gin & Whisky Emporium', and by its own count that's more than 100 gins and 120 whiskies on the gantry, with staff who'll talk you through the selection rather than leaving you to guess. It's a solid Old Town option if you want the gin list without the queue at somewhere like Edinburgh Gin, and it sits at 4.6 across 639 reviews.

The honest catch: every review I could verify talked about the food and the live music, not the gin list. It reads as a full gastropub that happens to have a serious spirits selection rather than a dedicated gin bar, which is fine if you want dinner alongside your drink and less fine if you're after a focused gin-tasting evening.

Shore Distillery is the smallest and least polished of them, also at a perfect 5.0 across 187 reviews, a craft outfit down on Leith Shore that a couple of reviewers describe stumbling into by accident. It makes both gin and whisky, with Plockton Gin among the bottlings reviewers mention buying on the way out, and the guided tasting starts from £15 per person, the other of the two venues here with a published exact price.

It's genuinely small-scale: closed Sunday and Monday, and open only midday to 7pm the rest of the week, so it needs planning rather than a spontaneous evening stop. If Lind & Lime and Edinburgh Gin feel like the big, polished versions of a distillery visit, Shore is the low-key one, and reviewers who came for the whisky keep mentioning they left buying the gin too.