On the tours and in the bars at Johnnie Walker Princes Street, Diageo’s flagship visitor experience in Edinburgh, you’ll find a refreshing mission to embrace a broad spectrum of whisky drinking encounters, not least in offering whisky cocktails in preference to traditional, lip-tingling, neat drams. The latest addition to the experience can be found in the Explorers’ Bothy Bar, one of the venue’s two seductive top-floor bars, with a collaboration called STIR.

This sees a flight of four imaginative whisky cocktails paired with intricately designed amuse-bouches by chefs James and Maria Close from County Durham’s two-Michelin-star Raby Hunt restaurant. Getting food to pair with whisky can be a fraught business, but the chefs have met the challenge with a series of tiny but perfectly formed dishes; for example, a twist of crisp cos lettuce around a soft sliver of quail breast in caesar dressing, which appears alongside a vermouth and Caol Ila cocktail that’s first smoky then herby.

While there’s no sense in which the four mini servings constitute a meal or even really add up to a hunger-addressing snack, there’s an engaging narrative whisking you around not just Scotland’s distilling geography, but also a sophisticated array of ingredients, techniques, textural contrasts and global influences. At £48 per head for some sips and nibbles, it’s a bit of an indulgence that demands the willing suspension of disbelief, but it does also deliver a unique, multi-faceted taste experience in a memorable location. Just remember to make a dinner booking somewhere nearby for later.

Explorers’ Bothy Bar, Johnnie Walker Princes Street, 145 Princes Street, Edinburgh