Mary’s Vine is a restaurant and cigar bar in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania offering over 500 bottles of wine and 250+ bottles of whiskey to choose from.
From Mary’s Vine restaurant itself, “Our wine lounge is a perfect meeting place to celebrate a special occasion, meet up with friends, or have a nice date night Come enjoy a glass of wine or a classic cocktail and partake of some amazing food that is fun to share.”
The restaurant area upstairs is well-designed and quite beautiful. The owners converted an empty church into a lovely restaurant space with a warm and friendly ambiance. From comfortable seating and relaxed lighting to fancy bars, wine room, and even original organ pipes on the upper balcony, the experience was far nicer than the photos do it justice.
My friend enjoys cigars and whiskey and suggested we visit Mary’s Vine. He heard about it via Restaurant Week here in Pittsburgh where we celebrate restaurants around the city and can experience unique offerings designed to drive awareness and enjoyment of new restaurants in the area.
When I visited the restaurant’s website and looked at their whiskey selection, I immediately wanted to visit and try some of their rare pours.
I arrived a little early (made a reservation at 7:00) and the staff greeted me extremely well. The free valet attendant out front made sure my buddy was taken care of when he arrived and escorted him to the side of the restaurant’s wheelchair-accessible entrance and escorted him to our table.
The wait staff was very attentive and offered a ton of information about their menus, the wine selection, and cocktail choices. I decided to order the 65-day dry-aged rib-eye.
I’m pretty picky when it comes to steaks and I was impressed. I really enjoyed the white pepper pomme puree and garlic mashed potatoes paired with the nice cut of meat.
We also ordered the Elk Meatballs and while they were a bit pricey ($30 for two meatballs), the flavors were good and enjoyable.
The only thing I would suggest before going to Mary’s Vine is to explore the menu and make sure that you are comfortable with the prices of everything. If you’re good with spending a bit of money, the quality seemed on par with the price.
As we finished up dinner, we planned to head down to The Study – Cigar Bar and Whiskey Lounge. While both places are under one entity, they are on separate floors and have separate billing.
Our server gave us instructions to “Go downstairs. Follow the hallway to the end where you will see a large painting on the wall. Pull the cane on the wall and the painting will open up and you can enter the cigar bar.
At first, I was like… “Wait, what? I’m not following.”
But once we were downstairs, it made sense. It was a great experience as we walked down the well-decorated hallway, encountered the painting on the wall, and pulled the cane on the wall.
The painting opened up a doorway and led us to the beautiful cigar bar and whiskey lounge.
At first glance, I thought to myself that they must have all the whiskey in another room.
Our waitress Mila came and asked us whether we enjoyed Scotch or Bourbon as she slid one of the bookshelves to the side to reveal all the bottles of whiskey.
Not only was the whiskey selection excellent and probably the best whiskey with some very rare bottles, but the fact that they were hidden behind the bookshelves was quite impressive.
Mila gave us an extensive overview of the place and the bottles they had to offer. As she opened the Scotch shelves, the first bottle I saw was one that I had been trying to find for a few years called Bruichladdich Octomore 13.1. This is quite an expensive bottle. The only time I’ve seen a bottle was for $350 when I was in Las Vegas. I wanted to buy it then, but not at that price so I was very glad to get a pour here.
With that being said, I kind of wished I had purchased the bottle in Las Vegas. It was a delicious Scotch with excellent peaty notes that were extremely well balanced with sweet fruits and a nice proof point. I would consider this bottle a nice middle point between the Bruichladdich Classic Laddie and the Port Charlotte.
While I was sipping on this glass, the co-founder was there and offered a lot of great information and was very knowledgeable about the whiskeys. He pointed out that the Octomore 13.1 has a peat PPM of 137.3 which you would expect to blast out your taste buds in comparison to the 40 PPM Port Charlotte.
I will be sure to keep an eye out for a bottle of this in the future, but I don’t think I’ll ever find one here in PA.
I also tried the Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2011 which is one of the few unpeated Islay whiskeys. I always love the Bruichladdich Classic Laddie and wanted to compare this one to it.
I think I may still like the Classic Laddie a tad more even though it’s the cheaper option of the two. Since we don’t get many options here in PA, it also has the added bonus that I can find it fairly regularly here.
We also tried a few other whiskeys and it was nice to give him some of my favorites to try for the first time.
He tasted Wild Turkey Rare Breed, Yamazaki 12 Year, and Booker’s Bardstown Batch, and Old Forrester 1910. We were pretty satisfied with all of these pours. Yamazaki 12 Year is one of my favorite whiskeys overall and I was quite impressed with the Booker’s Bardstown Batch.
For my final choice to try, I decided to bite the bullet and ordered a pour of the Pappy Van Winkle – 15-Year Family Reserve.
Obviously, this is a golden goose of whiskeys and one I have always tried to win a bottle of in the PA Liquor lottery (with zero luck). A bottle of this whiskey on the open market now goes for $2200-2400 per bottle!
Absolutely insane since the retail value is $120.
After hearing some much love and hate for this whiskey, it was excellent to have the chance to try it.
I thought it was a delicious whiskey. It is definitely above many other options and if I could buy a bottle at $120, I would in an instant. And not just for its resale value, but it was quite complex and impressive.
The strongest note I got when tasting it was a very unique fruit note. I still can’t pinpoint exactly what the flavor was and wish I had an entire bottle to really dive into, but it struck me as maybe a banana, apricot, and cherry flavor – sweet but also caramel and oak.
It also had a very nice mouthfeel to it. I got a lovely oily, buttery texture that coated my entire mouth which is one of my favorite qualities in a good whiskey.
You can read my full Pappy Van Winkle 15 Year Review for my thoughts and whether it was worth the pour.
Overall, I had an excellent experience at Mary’s Vine restaurant and The Study – Cigar Bar and Whiskey Lounge. Having the pleasure of meeting the co-founder and the excellent staff really gave us an experience to remember.
The best part of visiting Mary’s Vine is whether you’re a fan of food, wine, whiskey, or cigars… everyone can find something they will enjoy here. I definitely recommend this spot. It’s one of the best whiskey experiences I’ve had in the city!
I hope you enjoyed this review and will check out Mary’s Vine for yourself. It is easily one of the best whiskey bars in Pittsburgh.
If you are in Pittsburgh and visit Mary’s Vine, please let me know what you think on social media via Reddit, Instagram, or Twitter.
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