The Skinny Food & Drink Survey 2019: Best Drinks

Isle of Harris Gin
This is a lovely gin, with the sea kelp that's mixed in with its botanicals giving the Isle of Harris a really nice freshness, but my God that's a nice-looking bottle. You eat with your eyes as much as your mouth, and clearly that applies to drinks as well. A firm favourite among the myriad Scottish small-batch gins out there, and with good reason. 

Edinburgh Gin
Edinburgh Gin are gearing up for a busy 2019 as they get moving on their new distillery and visitor centre in the heart of Edinburgh. That'll just be a building site for a while yet, so kick back with an Edinburgh Gin and tonic (it goes well with a slice of orange) and await further instructions.

Pilot Beer
In previous years this was the 'Best Beer' category, and the one brewery that's survived the reformatting is a good 'un. Pilot continued to go from strength to strength in 2018; their beer buoys up bars across Edinburgh and beyond, they've just moved into a new brewery unit, and they still love getting into it with beer nerds on Twitter. Long may their reign of unfined, delicious terror continue.

Rapscallion Soda
"I think there’s a lot of mistrust around soft drinks and what’s in them," Gregor Leckie of Rapscallion told us last summer, "that’s exactly why we do what we do." What Rapscallion do is put together tasty sodas using fresh local ingredients, some going down expected routes and others taking wild swings at something a bit different. Either way, Rapscallion makes for a tasty (and much less sugary) local alternative to Big Cola, so we're on board.

Tempo Tea Bar
Tempo serve up an extremely extensive menu of hot and cold Taiwanese bubble teas, complete with the drink's requisite tapioca balls. If you're in need of a sugar boost that also doubles as an extremely light snack, find them on East Market Steet in Edinburgh and Queen Street in Glasgow.