Mackenzie's Whisky Bar, Liverpool

Opening in 2015 in a former branch of the HSBC bank, this is a smart, upmarket bar specialising in whisky, with over 200 varieties apparently available. You enter the building through a grand porch with a marble framed doorway which gives way into a smartly floorboarded room with a grey servery running along the right hand wall. The bar has a nice patterned tile floor around it, a marble top counter and a part mirrored, part grey panelled bar back. The large, roughly square shaped, space opposite the bar has two chunky centrally positioned pillars which break up the space nicely. The room has been filled with lots of very smart tables, button backed chairs and a few high and low stools – no expense seems to have been spared on such plush furnishings. Each table has a whisky bottle place on top of it with fresh flowers inside and the walls are decorated with lots of old portraits, mainly to the rear, whilst the rest of the room has to make do with a mix of white and grey high panelling. A further collection of whisky bottles run around the top of these panels and I noticed a nice little fireplace to the front left which had a large screen above showing live football with the sound on. A door at the far end of the bar leads out to a decent looking, partly covered garden strung with copious amounts of fairy lights. The huge collection of whisky bottles on the bar back grabs the attention on entry, but there are handpulls here too and the cask range on this occasion was Sharps Doom Bar, Red Star Samba, Cross Bay Halo, Stamps Blonde Moment and Titanic Plum Porter. Keg options were a mix of fairly well known international brands and less frequently seen brews although I’m not sure there was anything from a genuine microbrewery. I tried a pint of the Halo for £3.30, which was in good shape and indicative of why the pub has made the cut for the 2017 Good Beer Guide. This is a very smartly presented bar that still felt very new despite having been open for well over a year now. It felt a bit too upmarket for my liking and I found it difficult to properly relax. It’s obviously a great venue for whisky lovers and the good beer means it would fit in well on a crawl around this part of town, but I can’t imagine enjoying a proper session in here.

A hotel bar decorated in shabby chic style. A lot of bench seating and a few tables and chairs plus bar stools. A large selection of whisky as you might expect given the name. The friendly barman was up for a chat despite the pub being fairly busy on our Sunday evening visit. Sadly only 2 of the 5 handpumps were in use, but my pint was in good condition and Ms CAMRA thought the red wine was very good. I suspect we'll be in here again soon.