CGA’s Mixed Drinks Report for last year ranked it as the UK’s biggest selling cocktail yet again. There really is no accounting for taste. Revolution Bars alone sold 364,000 of them. That’s a lot of hen parties. Let’s hope they sell a lot of condoms too.
It can make you feel like you’re in the Highlands on a snowy Christmas day with a breeze blowing up your kilt, but do, please, leave the Buckfast back in the monaster
This was originally inspired by Jonathan Meades’ Rebarbe, ironically from his book ‘The Plagiarist in the Kitchen’. where he had, in turn, stolen it from Philippe Regourd.
Easily dismissed as ‘just a Bloody Mary with gin’ Red Snapper can gain from further delicate nuance.
It takes a lot of balls to ride bucking bulls at the rodeo and it takes a good few more to make Rocky Mountain Oysters, cowboys’ (and cowgirls’) favourite breakfast. It’s bollocks, fair and square.
First appearing in 1937, the Rusty Nail only came to the fore in the 1960s when it was said to be the Rat Pack’s favourite tipple and Frank Sinatra’s go-to when he frequented P.J. Clarke’s, NYC. Donald Sutherland endorsed it but, naturally for him, with Canadian rye, not Scotch.
Sazerac has its roots in 1850s New Orleans, home to Peychaud’s bitters. The original base was Sazerac de Forge et Fils, a cognac. However in the 1870s, when phylloxera struck French vineyards and it was in short supply, this was switched to local rye whiskey and it stuck although some bartenders have now reverted to cognac.
There are so many stories on the origin of the scotch egg. It is often suggested, falsely, that they were invented by Royal grocers Fortnum & Mason. Whitby put in a bid. In ‘The Culinary Delights of Yorkshire’ by Peter Bone, he claims that they originated at William J Scott & Sons, covered, not in meat but in fish paste!
A sweet pudding as part of your morning fry-up may sound alien to you but this comes from the home of the deep-fried Mars Bar so all bets are off.
The Sea Breeze has, by now, certainly attained the status of retro, and may be close to being on the endangered list. However, in the heyday of Fred’s Club, in the 1980s, it was the drink of choice for hot summer afternoons or sweaty nights in the city.
If you fancy a cognac based cocktail, you cannot do much better than a Sidecar. It can be pretty dry so rimming the glass with a little sugar can take the edge off. The quantities given here, although maintaining the classic 2:1:1 ratio, are more than sufficient for the glass, allowing the excess to be served in a shot glass on the side, in other words, a Sidecar.
There is a long history of the use of olive or pickle brine in drinks. This came to a head in 2006 when the Pickleback was created at the Bushwick Country Club, NYC and it pandemically spread worldwide.
A fine stout is a good place to start, having the depth of the malt combined with bitter undertone, just calling for enlightenment. It can be both hearty yet refreshing. Guinness is an obvious choice but you can do better. There are a lot of fine craft stouts available in the UK. Just get a strong one and avoid the silly fruit flavours.
Beer and Ice Cream all in one go. What’s not to love?
God Jul!
Landlord Norman Balon once threw a customer out of The Coach & Horses for ordering a snakebite. “We don’t serve cocktails here. Get out!” he announced. Notorious as ‘London’s rudest landlord’, inscribed on matchbooks and writ large over the door, he had worked there for 63 years until his retirement in 2006, aged 79. Somebody once complained that his beer was flat. Norman poured it into a new glass, frothed it up with his fingers and gave it back.
Along came chef David Eyre who, unable to afford a restaurant, took on The Eagle pub, stuck a range and grill behind one end of the bar, coined the term ‘gastropub’, and got cooking. You ordered at the bar from the day’s menu chalked on the bar wall above. Food was just brought to you when ready. Great grub it was too. Large plates of British fare at its best for a most reasonable price. Crucially it was still a pub though.
Is it possible to describe the French House pub without reverting to ‘bohemian’ like everyone else? Bugger, too late. To catalogue all the famous and the infamous who ever took wine in there would take a small volume in itself. Just assume that all the good, bad and ugly luminaries who have ever alighted in Soho in the last 100 years have dropped by for a glass or three and be done with it. Notably they are treated with the same friendly indifference by the regulars as anyone else.
Also known as a Clear Bloody Mary, this needs a bit of forward planning. Simply put it is a Bloody Mary but made with tomato consommé in place of the usual juice and there’s the rub.
This was a signature cocktail of Bar Gros, created by George Mulholland. Ratafia is an intense, ancient, Catalan digestive made from fruit, walnuts and herbs, often homemade in small batches. Some find it quite challenging to digest but George, always up for a challenge, won the day.