Hoot The Redeemer

Fun, quirky little speak-​easy bar, just off Princes Street (tucked away so you’d possibly walk past and not even notice it) — the interior is fab! complete with old theatre style seating, wall art and murals, ice-​cream cone lighting — its really cool!
Great bar staff, table & bar service and plenty of tasty beverages and complimentary pop corn. They also have two vending machines, one selling alcoholic ice cream! and the other, shots — there’s plenty to keep you occupied.

I like quirky places! Something a bit away from the norm.
Love the décor and vending machines.
Our table was a wee bit shoogily but otherwise all great.
I will certainly be back here.

We were told to head to hoot the redeemer for a drink by one of our friends and we have not been disappointed.
It’s fun and quirky with lots of nice details and character. From when you walk down the stairs and you’re greeted by a fortune teller all the way through to the claw machine game to create your own cocktails.
I had a slushee which was delicious with good alcohol content as well! Abby had a go at the claw machine and grabbed peach and mint and ended up with a peach mojito at the bar.
Friendly staff, great music and nice vibe. Fun little bits and bobs (cinema seats and suitcase tables). There’s also a nice cream dispenser which I will be sure to try next time I drop in. Overall I would definitely recommend having a gander for a bit of fun and some good cocktails.

This place is exactly what it promises to be.
Underground, quirky, carnivalesque and playful.
You can get some really great cocktails for a decent price (£7.50)
I really liked the Professor Green cocktail — with mint and Absinth.
Some of the sofa’s are a little uncomfortable, but there is plenty of (quirky) spaces to be seated.
They are a little difficult to find and if you don’t know what and where they are you will easily miss the entrance.
I haven’t ventured on the Flavour Picker, nor did we get out there to choose an ice-​cream flavour.
But that is something for next time.
I enjoyed my visit here and will bring out some friends at times to enjoy (win?) some cocktails
recommended for a date night, or with a bunch of good friends.

Panda and Son’s not quite so grown up younger brother of a bar.
It’s very gimmicky and good fun for a quick after work nice drink or alcoholic ice cream but not somewhere that I’d want to spend the whole evening. It’s fun and I enjoyed playing on the grab a ball machine to see if I could pick a cocktail flavour (which you then need to pay £6 for them to make into a drink) and the alcoholic ice cream machine was greatly amusing (it uses suction to pick up the tubs). Maybe it’s as we went on a random Wednesday night that it wasn’t busy and didn’t have much atmosphere or buzz about it.
This would have been a three star review but the ice cream was great and I would quite happily eaten a full pint of the peanut butter vodka ice cream (they only sell mini tubs) so that earns it an extra star.

Hideous experience from entrance door to leaving. Could not ever recommend. Make it stop please…

This place was fun, lots of gimmicks and interesting ideas that I haven’t seen anywhere else. From the vending machine that gives out boozy ice cream, to the grabber machine that gives you a mystery cocktail flavour. There’s definitely nowhere else in Edinburgh that is quite so unusual, and the frozen slush-​puppy-​esque cocktails were great on a warm night!

Hoot the redeemer? More like ott the trytoohard
Maybe I’m just too old and cynical for this place, because everyone else was having a great time. Possibly should have been a 4 star as their cocktails were very well done, the music was good, but I just got upset at how many gimmicks were thrown at me. They have a clearly defined theme, but it was too OTT for me.
The sister bar to Panda and Sons, it’s got that unique speakeasy feel to it also. We have a fortune telling ‘head’ for a door. We have an ice cream machine that vends novelty risqué flavours. We have a DJ booth dressed up as a Punch and Judy show.
The ‘gimmick’ that got me the most is the ball grabbing machine full of different cocktail flavours, I pay £1 for 2 chances to win a flavour, but no guarantee. £2 later I have 1 ball, Vanilla, which is a fine flavour. I once had a conversation with a random guy in a bar about how Vanilla makes everything taste better, I didn’t necessarily agree, but he made a good argument. So, I have to take my flavour to the bar and ask the guy there to make me a cocktail, I get 2 as I have company, and we ask for rum and bitters to go with it. I recognise the guy from another bar in town, and he makes us a really good drink. My problem here is that I still have to pay £13 for the 2 drinks, so this has now cost me £15. Now I have no issues paying £7.50 a drink, especially for a very well executed cocktail, I feel as if I’d rather just have a chat to the bar guy and order something exciting…