You wont hear many whisky folk in Edinburgh talking about the Athletic Arms…
You will hear them waxing lyrical about the magic contained within Diggers however. Conveniently located in-between the Dalry and North Merchiston cemeteries, the Athletic Arms was a haunt of the Gorgie gravediggers, hence it gaining it’s affectionate alias. Nowadays Diggers is frequented by beer and whisky lovers from near and far. A more handsome pub you’d be hard pushed to find. Red upholstery, stained glass panels, fixed tables and a checkerboard tiled floor. We happily took up a seat in the corner for a blether with esteemed publican Kev McGhee to talk all things Edinburgh, pubs and whisky…
RB: Hi Kev! Can you give us a brief history of your involvement in the licensed trade?
KM: Of course. I’ve always wanted to own pubs. I’m not sure why or where it came from. Going through high school all my choices were related to hospitality. When I finished high school I went on to study hospitality management at Napier. Part of the course was related to working in hotels and behind the scenes of hospitality and I had to do a placement so I went to Connecticut in the US for 6 months to work at a yacht club. It was great, despite being 19 and not being able to have a pint or a dram! I was offered jobs to go back but my family is in Edinburgh so I came back.
At that point my brother decided he liked the idea of having a pub, so he was 18, took on his first pub and I started working for him. He built up a few more pubs and I took on my first place when I was 27. We were probably both too young to be honest. There were quite a few issues with staff and stock and things so I ended up handing the keys back and came to work for my friend as the manager of Diggers in 2006.
RB: The whisky world has changed massively since 2006. What’s changed in the pub since then?
KM: There were hardly any whiskies in the pub back then. You could probably fit them all on one shelf. It was my old rep from Gordon and Macphail that got us involved in the idea of a whisky festival within the pub. So we had 20 drams, £2.50 for 35mls. The drams in the festival weren’t the most exciting but it was an inexpensive way for people to try different things. So we did that for a while and then around 2015 we started really building up the collection and then I think I just got a bit addicted to buying whisky.
At the time we were really known for our beer so it became an additional sale for us and then around 2018 or so I started noticing people were coming in specifically looking for whisky. At this point I still wasn’t into whisky in a big way personally. Then comes 2020 and with Covid we were doing a lot of online tastings. We did one with Hazel who worked at Bunnahabhain at the time. As the restrictions kept changing I ended up with around 20 extra Bunnahabhain tasting packs. There was a dram in there that quickly became my favourite, a 2013 Moine Bordeaux. I’d never got so much flavour from a single whisky before, so I kept coming back to that over and over. Once we reopened after covid that dram had opened the floodgates for me, so we started getting in more and more interesting drams from then on.
We’ve had to build a lot more shelving since then. We built on top of the gantry, then we built on top of where the tv is, then we built on top of the kitchen and then we put independence bridge in so I’m not sure where we’ll go next. We might streamline a bit. We’ve got about 780 bottles at the moment. The Whisky Stories guys have ruffled a few feathers by claiming we’ve got the biggest open collection of bottles in Edinburgh!
RB: Where do you think the pub sits within the whisky landscape now?
KM: The pub’s become a bit of a destination for whisky people. We have a lot of brand ambassadors that drink in here. We might not have the biggest collection but we like to think it offers great value within Edinburgh. As we’re not in the city centre we need to attract people out so we’ll get weird and wonderful stuff and we support the brands wherever we can. We were also keen to get involved in awards this year as it’s something we’d never spent anytime on before. We didn’t make the pub the way it is to win awards but with the current climate both in whisky and the wider world we thought it couldn’t do any harm.
Before we could plan on entering anything we were nominated for the Whisky Bar of the Year award at the Scottish Bar and Pub Awards and ended up winning it, so we were absolutely chuffed to bits with that. Before the awards we were all in The Pot Still and they’re up for the award too. They’ve won it loads of times and rightly so as they’re fantastic at what they do, so I wasn’t expecting to win, what with the calibre of the competition but we did and it was very welcome!
RB: Do you think there’s a big difference between the whisky pub scene in Edinburgh and Glasgow?
KM: I don’t know whether it’s a West coast thing but maybe Glasgow drinkers were more accustomed to that bigger, highland, peated style of dram? Historically Glasgow probably had more whisky pubs but I think Edinburgh has really come along over the years. You’ve got Colin at The Tipsy Midge, we were doing what we were doing, Scotch at the Balmoral. It’s a phenomenal bar. A proper whisky experience. The Abbey over on the southside, The Black Cat, Rory at The Belfry, Teuchters and obviously everything going on in Leith.
RB: Do you still enjoy introducing people to whisky?
KM: I love it when I’m doing something in the office and the staff say ‘Kev, someones wanting a hand with whisky’. I relish the challenge and it’s so fun seeing people made happy. You know it’s not uncommon now for folk to order things here that are £85 a dram if they know what they’re coming for. The old regulars just can’t understand that. We usually like to start people off on something simple like our North British which we did with Duncan Taylor and we can take it from there to anywhere. It’s a great first dram, very affordable and just from the other end of Gorgie.
Whisky is so much more popular now than it was when we first started so the staff knowledge is incredible. Staff seek out their own knowledge and pass that on to customers and the customer also wants to know so much more now, so it goes both ways. First and foremost we’re a community pub and that means service is our number one priority, whether we’re serving whisky or serving beer.
RB: Some drams that hold a special significance to you and the pub?
KM: North British 14, Duncan Taylor for Athletic Arms We did this bottle with Mark Thomson, good friend of the pub who drinks in here with his dogs. He’d sent us some samples and being a Scotsman I was on the lookout for not the cheapest but the best value. I tried the North British and thought it was absolutely banging. When the bottles arrived I was a bit nervous, would it be as good as I remembered? It was. For what it is I think it’s brilliant. I took bottle one of one to my Dad and he was so proud he had a tear in his eye. He normally just drinks Grouse and Bells and what not!
Tamnavulin is by far our biggest seller. We can do around 9 to 10 bottles of it a week! It’s just something the regulars like. There’s a port, a sherry and a white wine and they all take care of themselves. It’s not fancy and it’s a great price. It’s also a good place to start if you’ve never tried whisky before. The 40% is probably a bit low for folk that have more whisky experience but for £3 a dram you can’t go too far wrong.
Bunnahabhain Bordeaux Moine This is the whisky that got me into whisky so every time I see it on auction I buy some. If people ask me to recommend them a dram, this is still what I’d say. If I’m honest, I’ve had a lot better drams than it now but it’s the dram that I’ll always have that connection with.
RB: Put you on the spot here…favourite distillery?
KM: Bunnahabhain.
RB: Thought you might say that!
KM: Well it’s not just about the whisky is it. When we went over the people were fantastic. Last time we were headed to Islay we stopped by Campeltown first and had a great experience at Glen Scotia. When we stopped by Springbank they were just so busy it was hard to get that personal touch. It was similar on Islay until we got to Bunnahabhain and everyone was just so nice. They were all brilliant, lots of samples etc etc. A really great experience having made the trip over there and of course there’s always that Bordeaux Moine…
RB: Cheers Kev! Absolutely fantastic hospitality at Diggers…can’t speak higher of the place. One of our favourite whisky afternoons of late. Cracking drams, an absolutely knock out butchers steak pie and a great chat with Kev and the regulars. What more could you want?
Here’s to the whisky people and the whisky places!
Cheers!
