Outlander actor Sam Heughan was welcomed into an Edinburgh pub this week as he had a go behind the bar mixing up cocktails.
He paid a visit to Wildcat on Tarvit Street as he enjoyed some of the drinks as part of the Edinburgh Bar Show, reports Scottish Daily Express.
Posting on his Instagram, Heughan said: “The cocktails were too delicious, as was the whisky.” The accompanying video showed him downing shots and mixing cocktails, to a soundtrack of Azizam by Ed Sheeran.
In a separate Instagram video, he was interviewed by Iain McPherson – aka the Cocktail Panda.
The 44-year-old star grew up in Edinburgh and revealed he used to visit the bar as a teenager when it was known as Burlington Bertie’s.
He said: “This bar is one of the first bars I ever went to as a teenager in Edinburgh… I should say an older teenager, until my early 20s, I used to come here all the time. This was my very spot I used to sit in.”
Heughan added: “This bar had the best jukebox in the corner there and I liked it because it played The Doors’ ‘The End’, so you got seven minutes. That’s like amazing value for money!
It really was amazing, you’ve got the King’s Theatre there, you had a lot of actors, a lot of stagehands coming in. Amazing musicians, Martyn Bennett, incredible… he used to play bagpipes to dance music.”
Dreadlocked Bennett, who played at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay party (including on the Millennium), T In The Park and the 1998 World Cup, was a huge figure in the Celtic fusion scene. He died from cancer in 2005, at the age of just 33.
Looking back on his early adulthood, Heughan went on: “We used to sit in the corner there and we’d drink – wasn’t great cocktails in those days – it was pints of heavy.
“The world has changed, Edinburgh’s changed from the years when I was growing up but there’s so many incredible cocktail bars, some of the best bars in the world are in Edinburgh, the best bartenders, the best produce, it’s so innovative and it’s amazing to come here.”