Four families have nurtured this Victorian Glasgow pub for over 150 years.
Mad Men star Christina Hendricks recently shared a selfie with her Instagram followers that featured her having a drink in a Glasgow pub while taking a break from filming the new Apple TV drama The Buccaneers.
It was no run-of-the-mill bar. Behind her you can see the bar housing hundreds of bottles of whisky, and an eager crowd of punters milling around waiting to choose just one to sample.
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The Hollywood actress was paying a visit to The Pot Still on Hope Street, and it’s likely she already knew its name and its allure as the establishment has become world famous for its drams.
It has become an iconic pub with almost 900 whiskies to choose from. It’s been run by four families and at one stage, a well-known drinks company was in charge of the city centre establishment.
The history of the Pot Still predates its name, as the site has been home to a bar since at least 1867. Back then it was known as the McCall’s bar and remained in the same family for over 100 years.
When it was taken over by Tennents in the early 1960s, they transformed the pub into something closer to what it resembles today, with the lounge part added at the back in 1971.
It is remarkable to think that a beer firm once ran a pub so synonymous with whisky.
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The bar entered a new era at the dawn of the 1980s, and with it came a new family and a new name. Father and son John and Paul Waterstone introduced the name The Pot Still and assembled an impressive 300 bottles.
This increased to 500 when a new family, the Storries, took over in the 1990s. The Pot Still became more officially recognised when it won awards, being named the whisky bar of the year for five years in a row.
With all the family involved and even more whiskies – well over 800 now – The Pot Still has shown it is staying ‘still’ in the Glasgow pub scene and never sacrificing what it is known and loved for.
Despite the struggles felt by pubs and bars universally during the pandemic, The Pot Still celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021.
Glen Powell is currently in Glasgow filming The Running Man - can we expect him to run to The Pot Still for a wee dram after a shift?
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