Bring It Home: 20 great whisky-adjacent shops

This directory is taken from issue three of GNAW, our food and drink writing magazine. This latest issue is all about whisky – its origins, cultural impact, and our relationship with that brown, brown liquid – and can be found at venues across Scotland and beyond. Follow GNAW on Instagram at @gnawmag

Amathus Drinks
Branches across London, Bath, Brighton and Oxford
A large selection is what you’ll get from Amathus. Loads of whiskies, plenty of other drinks, and a hefty range of stores to pop into – like we said, a large selection. Jumbo. Grande.

Aston's of Manchester
12 St Ann's Sq, Manchester
People who love whisky also love cigars, apparently. Aston’s whisky selection is diverse, with some exciting indy bottlers on deck – well worth fighting through all the cigarillos.

Auld Hag
406 St John St, Angel, London
The Shoap is Scotland’s unofficial culinary embassy in the heart of darkness (aka ‘London’). Head here for top-drawer breakfast rolls, pints you can’t get elsewhere, and macaroni pies. HWFG, etc etc.

Berry Bros and Rudd
1 St James’s St, City of Westminster, London
If you’re supplying your wares to the royal family, you’re doing something right; BBR’s spirits shop near St James’s Park is loaded with exciting bottles, and runs regular tastings and events.

Cadenhead’s
172 Canongate, Edinburgh; 26 Chiltern St, Marylebone, London; 30 Union St, Campbeltown
Scotland’s oldest independent bottler, Cadenhead’s offers a boatload of one-offs, special editions and limited bottlings from distilleries across Scotland and beyond.

The Cookbook Shop
19A Haddington Pl, Edinburgh
Scotland’s first dedicated culinary bookshop is the place to go for exciting recipe ideas, nifty food-related gifts, and more interesting food writing for when you get to the end of this magazine xx

Cork & Cask
136 Marchmont Rd, Edinburgh
One of Edinburgh’s finest independent bottle shops, Cork & Cask pair an interesting whisky selection with an exciting wine range, and beers and spirits from Scotland’s indie breweries and distilleries.

Drinkmonger
11 Bruntsfield Pl, Edinburgh; 100 Athol Rd, Pitlochry
From the team at Royal Mile Whiskies, Drinkmonger is an extremely good all-rounder. Great spirits selection, exciting beers in the fridges, a stacked but accessible wine range – big thumbs up from us.

Good Spirits Co.
23 Bath St, Glasgow
Good Spirits run a trio of great shops across Glasgow, but Bath Street is the one for whisky fans. It houses their full and extensive range of Scotch whiskies, as well as a tasting room to try them out.

Hop Burns & Black
38 East Dulwich Rd, Peckham and Arch 1, Deptford Station, London
Beer! Hot sauce! Coffee! All good things, and all together at Hop Burns & Black’s two shops in southeast London. An impeccably curated mix of tasty stuff, all from independent, ethically-minded producers.

Good Spirits Co. Image courtesy of Good Spirits Co.

Idle Moments
86 Columbia Rd, Bethnal Green, London
In the middle of the Columbia Road shuffle, you’ll find a haven of brilliantly curated records, an expert wine selection, and a bunch of very nice audio equipment if you’re feeling particularly flush.

Milroy’s
3 Greek St, Soho, London
They’ve been in the game for 60 years, and Milroy’s have the range to show for it. Hundreds of whiskies from across Scotland, plenty of one-offs and hard-to-finds… oh, and a cocktail bar in the basement.

Park Fever
21a Staplehurst Rd, Hither Green, London
These folk put together two of our favourite things – craft beer, and fancy chocolate. Throw in a funky little wine selection and you’re good to go.

Robert Graham
111 West George St, Glasgow; 194 Rose St, Edinburgh
On the scene since the 19th century, Robert Graham is a proper old school whisky shop packed with knowledge and history (and also quite a lot of cigars and pipe-smoking paraphernalia).

Royal Mile Whiskies
379 High St, Edinburgh; 96 Market St, St Andrews
Clue’s in the title – an excellent independent whisky shop in the heart of Edinburgh, with more bottles from across Scotland (and beyond) than you can shake a stick at. Please do not shake a stick in the shop.

Spirited
196 North St, Bristol
The ‘can you use it in a sentence?’ of whisky shops, Spirited is both a bottle shop and a cocktail bar. Check out the range, head to the bar for ‘inspiration’, head back to the racks, rinse and repeat.

Spy Wines & Spirits
22 Lavender Hill, Clapham, London
Connoisseurs, log on. Spy’s pitch is that they offer “distinctive” bottles in their ranges, and we’re extremely on board. Head down, get chatting, come away with something interesting.

Valhalla’s Goat
449 Great Western Rd, Glasgow
A fantastic bottle shop in the West End, the Goat is the best kind of shop: well laid out, thoughtfully stocked, and impossible to leave without a tote bag full of great stuff.

Whisky Exchange
Branches in Covent Garden, Fitzrovia and London Bridge, London
The physical manifestation of the phrase ‘all the whisky’, Whisky Exchange’s three shops offer an outlandish range of bottles from here, there and everywhere.

Yield
44/45 Newington Green, Stoke Newington and 97 St Paul’s Rd, Highbury, London
Yield champion low-intervention natural wines, and pair that with charcuterie boards if you’re hanging around in the bar, and an impressive selection of cans and nibbles if you’re on the move.