Pot Still Whisky Bar, Glasgow

  SLTN Malt Whisky bar of the year: 2003 & 2004

  Whisky Magazine's Whisky bar of the year: 2005

The building in Hope Street, Glasgow which currently houses the 'Pot Still' dates back to 1835 when it was first built. The first recorded tenant was John Hill, a wine & spirit merchant who operated from the premises in 1867. Links with the wine and spirit industry were maintained when the premises transferred in 1870 to William McCall who ran a public house from the building.

In 1898 the premises where left to the second of a long list of McCalls who were to run the business until 1981. The McCall family appeared to have been superb raconteurs, with stories of incidents which happened in the pub passed down from one to the next. Customers over the decades have been amazed at the stories of Tam the coalman who at the turn of the century, parked his horse and cart outside the pub every day after work, then joined his fellow drinkers for his ritual whiskies. Tam apparently did this for almost sixty years, long after he stopped working and lived to the ripe old age of 83!

In 1981 the premises were taken over by John Waterson, a well know Glasgow publican who made significant alterations to the premises and introduced the "Pot Still" famous range of over 300 malt whiskies. Indeed the range was so famous that in 1984 a group of Japanese business men working in London flew up to Glasgow for the day to try a particular malt unavailable anywhere else, a story the McCalls would have been proud of!

In 1990, John Waterson sold the pub to Scottish & Newcastle Breweries, who renamed the pub the Cask & Still, and planned to launch a chain up and down the country. But replicating here isn't easy, and hence, in 2001, they sold the lease to their manager, Ken Storrie, who became the latest proprietor of the rejuvenated Pot Still.

Under Ken's leadership, the gantries have swollen to over 500 bottles, no two alike, and the walls glint with awards. The Pot Still is now a port of call for North American pilots, South African businessmen, West European weekenders and pilgrims from the Far East, all come to worship at this shrine to the barley's finest work. We wonder what Tam the coalman would make of that.

Pot Still
154 Hope Street
Glasgow
G2 2TH
0141 333 0890

A Whisky bar of Glasgow