The old fashioned is my favourite cocktail. It is Panos's favourite too. We agree on very little when it comes to what should go on the Nectar menu, which is why the drinks programme is as good as it is, but on this we have always been aligned. The old fashioned is the drink that, when everything else has been considered and ordered and discussed, is the one we both end up coming back to. Which makes it slightly embarrassing that it took us a year to put one on the menu. Not

One of the first guests to try the Bees Essence described it in a way that has stayed with me. They said they had never had a cocktail that keeps going the way this one does. First there is whisky. Then there is sweetness. Then there is spice. And as the spice fades, the other flavours come back. Not a diminishing experience but a circular one, each element returning in sequence, the drink still unfolding long after the glass is empty. That description is more accurate than a

Not every cocktail that makes it onto the permanent menu was designed to be there. Some are built with that intention from the beginning: a concept developed over weeks, a technique refined across many iterations, a name chosen before the recipe is finalised. The Old Beanut was like that. So was the Tzatziki Martini. Both arrived with a deliberateness to them, a sense that they had been thought about until they were ready. The Raspberry Paloma arrived differently. It went ont

The Local Connection is a white negroni. That is the most accurate short description of it. It is also not quite like any white negroni you have tried before, because two of its four ingredients are unusual enough to deserve a proper explanation, and because the technique used to finish it changes the experience of drinking it in a way that the description on the menu does not fully prepare you for. Start with what you know, or what you think you know, and work outward from t

One of the things I enjoy most about being part of Edinburgh's bar scene is that the people doing the most interesting work in it are not far away. They are on the same streets, at the same events, in some cases a ten-minute walk from Broughton Street. Iain McPherson is the founder of Panda and Sons on Queen Street, which we have written about before as one of the best cocktail bars in the world. He has spent over a decade building a reputation for techniques that push what a

One of the questions we get asked most often is how we decide what goes on the menu. The honest answer is that the menu is never quite decided. It is always in the process of becoming something slightly better than it was. Every three months we reprint. Every month we run a special. Every week something new is being tried behind the bar or tested in the kitchen, quietly and without announcement, waiting to see whether it is good enough to earn its place in front of a guest. T

There is a moment with the Warmth Within that almost every guest experiences and almost none of them expect. The heat arrives, but not where you thought it would. Not on the lips. Not on the tongue. Somewhere further back, lower down, a warmth that spreads rather than stings and fades slowly rather than demanding immediate relief. It is the kind of spice that makes you want another sip rather than a glass of water. That effect is not accidental. It is the whole point of the d

The martini is probably the most misunderstood cocktail on any bar menu. Not because it is complicated to make, but because the number of decisions involved in ordering one can feel overwhelming to anyone who has not done it before. The result is that most people default to a single combination they have heard somewhere, "very dry, shaken, straight up," without fully understanding what those words mean or whether that combination actually reflects what they enjoy. The martini

Some cocktails are created purely for flavour. Others are created because a conversation at the bar raises a question that refuses to go away. Mountain Chalet began with a question about garnish. Not a complicated question, but the kind that, once asked, changes how you think about every drink you build afterwards. The Visit That Started It Shortly after Nectar opened, Panos and I went to visit Panda and Sons on Queen Street. If you are not familiar with Panda and Sons, they

Some cocktails are created because a menu needs filling. Others arrive because someone set a challenge and the most interesting answer turned out not to be the one submitted. Fizz n Fig belongs firmly in the second category. It exists at Nectar not because it won anything, but because it survived something. And that story, it turns out, is more interesting than a trophy. The Competition That Started It The Diplomático Artisans of Taste is one of the more creatively demanding

Some cocktails are inspired by flavours. Others are inspired by techniques. The Lemon Cheesecake cocktail at Nectar is built around something more personal than either of those things. It is built around a memory. A specific evening, a specific table, and a dessert that took two days to make properly and became a family tradition almost by accident. This is the story behind it. The Thanksgiving Table Growing up, Thanksgiving was always celebrated at our home. Once a year, clo

There is a particular moment that happens at Nectar when the Tzatziki Martini arrives at a table for the first time. The glass is completely clear. Not pale yellow the way a gin martini is clear, and not cloudy the way you might expect something containing yogurt and cucumber and dill to look. Crystal clear. The kind of clarity that makes you hold it up to the light to confirm that something is actually in the glass. Then you take the first sip. The flavour arrives in a seque

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

When Panos and I first started talking about what the bar at Nectar was going to be, the easiest version of the conversation would have been to agree on a list of well-executed classics and a handful of crowd-pleasing signatures. Something approachable, something that would not confuse people, something that would move quickly on a busy Friday night. We did not do that. What we wanted to build was a cocktail programme that had a genuine point of view. Not drinks designed to l