{"id":487381,"date":"2025-10-10T04:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/487381\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T04:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:08:13","slug":"spectacular-hidden-scottish-pub-named-in-worlds-best-50-bars-list-for-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/487381\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Spectacular\u2019 hidden Scottish pub named in World\u2019s Best 50 Bars list for 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World\u2019s Best 50 Bars have been announced for 2025, and one is in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Edinburgh\u2019s Panda & Sons has once again been named one of the best bars in the world by making it into the World\u2019s Best 50 Bars list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Opened in 2013 by Iain McPherson<\/a>, the speakeasy style bar whose frontage is that of a Victorian barbers, has made it into spot 34 this year. It\u2019s the only Scottish bar in the top 500 and overall 100.<\/p>\n

The World\u2019s Best 50 Bars team had this to say about Panda & Sons<\/a>: \u201cThis cocktail bar fronted by a family of tweed-wearing hairdresser Pandas is no new concept, having opened some 12 years ago, but the world continues to fall in love with it, step-by-step down its Queen Street entrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as word of the bar has travelled \u2013 not least in the slip stream of owner-adventurer Iain McPherson \u2013 the clientele has become more international. Once you’ve visited Edinburgh Castle, climbed up Arthur’s Seat and seen the caf\u00e9 where Harry Potter was written, it’s time for a drink at Panda & Sons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith vintage vibe and stylings and the wide-armed welcome of the likes of Nicky Craig, Sean Moggach or Chloe Yeung \u2013 bedecked in panda aprons \u2013 this is the kind of place where you’re as at home with a pint as you are a show-stopping cocktail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThough if you’re of a geeky disposition, the latest cocktail menu Transcend<\/a> 2.0 is a seminal piece of work. A discovery of sub-zero cocktail making, it features freeze distillation and freeze-drying methods, alongside McPherson’s own techniques, switching and sous-pression, which have made him one of the industry’s most influential drinksmiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Panda<\/a><\/p>\n

Panda & Sons<\/a> made the World\u2019s Best 50 Bars last year and Mr McPherson said at the time: \u201cIt feels amazing to raise that flag for Scotland – a tiny wee country and an even smaller city. We’re going to be 11 years old in two weeks and to get here took patience with a goal to be the best we could be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were probably aiming to be the best bar in Scotland, if not one of the best in the UK, and just take it from there.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“I guess we’ve got good tourism here, so there are international eyes on Edinburgh, which is great for us, and also changes our drinks philosophy. Probably 11 years ago we were going down the route of theatrical, big, loud serves, and seven years ago, we started tinkering with freezing techniques, so that’s really what we champion now, and we’re the pioneers and innovators of those methods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s something that makes us stand out, and that the bartending community appreciates. It\u2019s helped us get here, but of course you need to have great drinks, and lovely service as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

First published in 2009, the World\u2019s 50 Best Bars is an annual list that celebrates the best of the international drinks industry.<\/p>\n

The list provides an annual ranking of bars as voted for by more than 800 drinks experts from across the world including the votes of The World’s 50 Best Bars Academy, which is made up of renowned bartenders and consultants, drinks writers and cocktail specialists.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World\u2019s Best 50 Bars have been announced for 2025, and one is in Scotland. Edinburgh\u2019s Panda &…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[14010,748,1102,4884,712,161096,16,15,161097],"class_list":{"0":"post-487381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-scotland","13":"tag-speakeasy","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-worlds-best-bars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115347910271192609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}