Bar Review : The Albanach , Edinburgh

It all started in a very short trip to the place that every whisky lover needs to visit – Scotland.

Two of my friends went to Scotland for a special track -  the west highland way. This trip includes walking 25 KM per day, starting at somewhere near Glasgow and ending in a place called Fort William (If you live in the UK you know this place for sure). This kind of trip is not my cup of tea, so i decided to join them at the end for a long weekend in Edinburgh. I had a free flight to Manchester and all i needed to do was to drive towards Scotland with my convertible rented car. couldn’t  be more fun. right?

I always wanted to go on a long trip to Scotland, but this was nice as well. I had the pleasure of visiting  the Oban distillery and the Whisky experience in the city of Edinburgh. However the reason for this post is not to summarise my time in Scotland, the reason is to share with you my experience in one of the greatest whisky bars in Edinburgh, The Albanach.

As you know Gal is addicted to Whisky and before my trip he gave me list of places to visit while in Edinburgh. I was able to fulfil only a few of them. One of them was sent by Lucas from the Edinburgh whisky blog, which  recommended that i visit the  Albanach bar. One of my friends (Shlomi) had only recently become a whisky lover and decided to join me for some whisky tastings.

The place located in the middle of the Royal mile street, from outside of the bar i was started to feel the excitement, in Israel you cannot enter a bar and get this variety  of Whisky, and if you get some to choose, it will cost you some money, i mean some big money.

We decided to sit on the bar near the whiskies, we got the menu which designed well, divided in to the following:

• Highland
• Island
• Lowland
• Islay
• Speyside
• Welsh (Penderyn)
• Irish
• Japanese

The Japanese section had only 2 kinds of Yamazaki, Also for the Irish they did not had much of a selection, beside the Connemara which we tasted – peaty – I like this one, very unique. The Scotch malt section is very big, and starts at 4 pounds a dram and you can taste expensive drams for about 20 pounds only. G r e a t!!

I was highly disappointed to find that the whisky is served in a lowball glass, i was expecting to get a Glencairn glass.

One thing i was not expecting is that one can only get a wee snack : peanuts which were served in a small bag, even not on a plate. That was rather weird for me. Food is a must when you drink, i think so and this is how we manage our own whisky tasting gathering in Israel.

The atmosphere in the bar was very relaxing, no loud music, this is great place for a business meeting.

We tasted about 6 drams, and finished with a peaty one  of course, i tried to sample drams which  i don’t have in my collection. One of the whiskies i tried and  liked is the Ardbeg Blasda which is an unpeated Ardbeg . I really liked it and I think i am going to get a bottle of this stuff pretty soon.

I am going to miss the Albanach, in fact i am going to miss Scotland and i am certainly sure that i will be back soon. Thanks again to Lucas who pointed up this place.

Slainte !

Kfir