][1]The starting gun for the Edinburgh Festivals goes off today with the curtain going up on many of the shows taking part at this year’s Fringe.
As ever, August in Edinburgh means a whole host of interesting pop-ups, street food and, of course, the Foodies Festival.
Free DJ sessions
We’ve told you about Burgher Burger going posh with their Pommery pop-up and we’ve drawn your attention to the excellent line-up of top musos doing free DJ sessions at Bar Soba on Hanover Street.
In fact, the first Bar Soba DJ event takes place this evening with Ashley Beedle from X-Press 2 manning the decks or tee-ing up the tracklisting or whatever it is that DJs do now.
Over the next week or so, the 5pm blog will bring you all the news we know about exciting new ventures taking place in the capital over the next month.
Scotch Malt Whisky Society opens doors
If you like interesting whisky then you will be chuffed to learn that the Scotch Malt Whisky Society on Queen Street is opening its bar to all during August.
Usually, you have to be a member or be signed in by a member before you can explore the bar’s extensive range of single cask malt whiskies.
Happily, the Society is 30 this year and, as part of the celebrations, non-members can pop into the bar and gaze in wonder at the massed ranks of rare whiskies.
Modern Scottish cooking
The ground floor restaurant is also worth a visit. It’s open to the public all year round and produces well presented, modern Scottish cooking.
The 5pm blog was there earlier this week for a dinner which matched food with whisky.
It’s an interesting idea. Whisky has an almost infinite number of tastes and finding the right malt to enhance a dish should be easy.
In practice, it’s not. The sheer strength of whisky, even with water added, can prove challenging to even robustly flavoured dishes.
Crab & whisky?
Having said that, a starter of crab did pair well with a 21 year old whisky from Orkney while a 22 year old Speyside definitely enhanced a chocolate mousse which was already spiked with whisky.
If you would like to try matching whisky with food then the Dining Room at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society has a four course tasting menu which changes on a weekly basis.
Diners have the option to take with matched wines or whiskies.
][12]