Every August, Edinburgh becomes a different city. The population roughly doubles. Every spare room in a ten mile radius is rented out to a comedian, a theatre troupe, or a solo performer who has been working on their show for two years and is quietly terrified. The Royal Mile turns into a parade of flyering, shouting, singing and general theatrical desperation. Cowgate stays open until four in the morning. And scattered across every church hall, basement, converted car park a

A good friend of mine visited Nectar for the first time not long ago. He had come up from London for the weekend and we had arranged to meet on a Friday evening. He arrived, looked around at the tables filling up, ordered a drink, and turned to me with a slightly puzzled expression. It feels like people gather here for drinks after work, he said. Just like pub culture in London. Is that the thing everywhere? I had to smile. Some days it is, some days it is not. But the honest

People often ask me where I like to go for drinks when I am not at Nectar. It is one of my favourite questions to answer, because Edinburgh has quietly become one of the most exciting cocktail cities in the UK, and the honest answer changes depending on what kind of night someone is after. I have been working in hospitality for years, first in Zurich, then in Edinburgh, and I have spent a lot of time in a lot of bars. I know what separates a good cocktail from a great one, an