Set in the heart of the Old Town, Edinburgh's Cowgate has been a late-night boozing site for hundreds of years.
Since the times of Robert Louis Stevenson, generations of thrill-seekers have headed down to its murky taverns looking for lager and a lumber.
The latest venue to open its doors to the hordes of party people is Red Vodka Club.
The premises have had many guises in their time. When I first moved to Edinburgh 17 years ago, it was a dive bar called Sneaky Pete's. Until recently, it was Abbar.
To be honest, it never really mattered what it was called. It was just one of a strip of bars where you always seemed to end up as the evening turned into the early morning.
People still head here for a few pints and the chance to pull, but Red Vodka Club looks a bit more sophisticated than its predecessors.
It is not a big bar. If it were a flat, estate agents would call it compact.
But it makes the most of what it has with leather booths, pulsating lighting, black slate and stripped stone walls.
In fact, it's surprisingly stylish for a Cowgate bar. If it was anywhere else in town, it could be quite a smooth little place.
However, smooth and Cowgate are two words which sit uneasily beside one another and while Red has style-bar looks, it is in a party location. Nobody comes to the Cowgate to sip on a quiet cocktail.
This is made clear from the shooters menu. It would be a tad difficult to maintain a suave, Bond-like appearance while ordering up a round of Assisted Suicides.
Similarly, the menu provides proof that romance, if not dead, is at least on life support down the Cowgate. Offering to buy someone a drink and then fetching them a Knicker Dropper Glory is not the most subtle of hints.
A stag party pitched up on the night I was in and the lads did their best to impress the girls by using a pillar to show off some of the pole-dancing moves they had just seen in a strip joint up the road.
I never thought I would write this, but even buying a Knicker Dropper Glory might have been marginally more successful.
This being the Cowgate, the customer base tends more towards the early 20s than early 30s, but the music was spot on for an old fart such as myself.
The Beastie Boys' Sabotage, Run DMC/Aerosmith's Walk This Way and a remix of Shaft took me back to the days when this was still Sneaky Pete's and most of the holes on my belt were still uncharted territory.
If only they had played James' Sit Down, I would have thought I had died and gone to the great indie disco in the sky.
Fortunately, I had given the shooters list a body-swerve and so was not tempted to hit the tiny dancefloor and show off the moves that lost me several potential girlfriends in the early '90s.
Back then, Sneaky Pete's attracted a lot of students. Red Vodka Bar has its fair share, but it's a nicely-mixed crowd.
Maybe it's just nostalgia, but although Red Vodka Club is not aimed at me, I liked it.
Nobody wears Doc Martens any more and flavoured vodkas have replaced snakebite as the drink of choice.
But, still, Red Vodka Club does what every Cowgate bar has always done best dishing up the drinks in a loud, dimly-lit atmosphere to people who want to go home with more than a pizza. Give it a try.
Open: 8pm-3am seven days Food: Served dawn until dusk
Drinks: Pint of Kronenbourg £2.70; bottled beer £2.50, shooters £2, cocktails £4.50, various promos such as £1 frozen vodkas on Wednesdays
Rating: Four out of five
Details
0131 225 1757
However, smooth and Cowgate are two words which sit uneasily beside one another and while Red has style-bar looks, it is in a party location. Nobody comes to the Cowgate to sip on a quiet cocktail.
This is made clear from the shooters menu. It would be a tad difficult to maintain a suave, Bond-like appearance while ordering up a round of Assisted Suicides.
Similarly, the menu provides proof that romance, if not dead, is at least on life support down the Cowgate. Offering to buy someone a drink and then fetching them a Knicker Dropper Glory is not the most subtle of hints.
A stag party pitched up on the night I was in and the lads did their best to impress the girls by using a pillar to show off some of the pole-dancing moves they had just seen in a strip joint up the road.
I never thought I would write this, but even buying a Knicker Dropper Glory might have been marginally more successful.
This being the Cowgate, the customer base tends more towards the early 20s than early 30s, but the music was spot on for an old fart such as myself.
The Beastie Boys' Sabotage, Run DMC/Aerosmith's Walk This Way and a remix of Shaft took me back to the days when this was still Sneaky Pete's and most of the holes on my belt were still uncharted territory.
If only they had played James' Sit Down, I would have thought I had died and gone to the great indie disco in the sky.
Fortunately, I had given the shooters list a body-swerve and so was not tempted to hit the tiny dancefloor and show off the moves that lost me several potential girlfriends in the early '90s.
Back then, Sneaky Pete's attracted a lot of students. Red Vodka Bar has its fair share, but it's a nicely-mixed crowd.
Maybe it's just nostalgia, but although Red Vodka Club is not aimed at me, I liked it.
Nobody wears Doc Martens any more and flavoured vodkas have replaced snakebite as the drink of choice.
But, still, Red Vodka Club does what every Cowgate bar has always done best dishing up the drinks in a loud, dimly-lit atmosphere to people who want to go home with more than a pizza. Give it a try.
Open: 8pm-3am seven days Food: Served dawn until dusk 
