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October 28, 2016

The latest business to join the fray is The Empress which, all being well, will open today on the old Mather’s site.

Craft beer, cocktails and an American style food menu are the formula with which the new operators hope to make the venture fly.

It is a combination which has had great success at their other outlet, Jeremiah’s Bar, located just around the corner on Elm Row.

Small batch Scottish beers

With Mather’s demise, there are just two traditional pubs – The Barony and the Cask and Barrel – left on Broughton Street.

We’re not getting all misty-eyed about this. Simply noting it. In twenty years time, someone else will almost certainly be scribbling about the final days of the last craft beer bar on Broughton Street.

Anyway, beer enthusiasts at The Empress are promised five fixed beer taps and a further eight rotating draught lines. The Empress will also sell small-batch Scottish and UK beers and stouts.

Accompanying these draught specialties will be a further 100 bottles and cans of the finest beers and ciders from around the world.

Maud Stevens: liked her tats.

Maud Stevens: liked her tats. Pic: Wiki

The cocktail menu is loaded with seasonally inspired drinks, backed by an extensive selection of locally produced gins. There is also a 60-strong list of handpicked whiskies and bourbons, many of them rare vintages.

Casual dining

The casual dining menu includes options such as honey and paprika-marinated buffalo wings with hot sauce, served with a blue cheese dip, as well as Cajun and sesame-spiced squid with a lime aioli.

In addition to a selection of flatbreads to tear and share, there will be main courses like the West Coast mussels, as well as slow-cooked, one pot venison dishes.

‘We’ll have one of the best ranges of craft beers in the city – it’s a market which shows no signs of slowing down,’ said Landmark Pub Company business development manager, Jane Corrigan. ‘But we also love our cocktails and there’s a great synergy between them and beer.

‘Fifteen years ago it was all about cocktails in the city – now craft beer is clipping away at its heels. From our experience at Jeremiah’s Taproom, customers love access to both! Add to that some great food, with locally sourced meats and fish, and we hope to be a real asset to what is already one of the best, most diverse, streets in Edinburgh.’

First female tattoo artist in USA

The Empress is said to be inspired by Maud Wagner. Maud was a circus performer who is reckoned to be the first female tattoo artist in the United States.

Judging from her Wiki page, Maud was a remarkable, pioneering woman and her fondness for inking her skin makes her an apt figurehead for a hip craft beer bar.

In the circuses, she worked the sideshows as well as being an acrobat, aerialist and contortionist. If only she had developed a sideline as a bearded lady.

That way she would have fitted right into the craft beer culture.