Happy 2013!

Hello

Welcome back

Happy New Year etc etc

So, what were your 2012 bar highlights?

Instead of looking back I am going to look ahead. Antico, Bermondsey Street, is revamping their bar - a plus to have a bar to wait for a table in their fab restaurant but never quite got the feel right - and is re-opening the second week of January. Dray Walk off Brick Lane is going to be the foodie haven for 2013. My own little project with The Table in Southwark is almost at take off point, watch this space for a soft launch on their cocktails menu. 

And my personal ambition - hitting those 5* hotel bars. Now I have the money (work allowance), motivation (our brands are well placed for these venues) and time (with just one full time job to run!) I look forward to drinking well and making new friends. 

I also vow to visit Callooh Callay on a regular basis, do not make enough of my Jub Jub status and I apologise! 

If you have any suggestions or you'd like to know if I've been somewhere just drop me a note. And if you fancy a review just let me know where you are, but no free drinks accepted, that's bribery...

London Cocktail Week Day 6 Covent Garden to Embankment

Saturday 15th October

We started the weekend's drinking at the Hendrick's Unusual Umbrella Emporium. This pop up on Monmouth Street was...unusual. We wondered in past the Victorians mulling around outside into the ground floor with glass cases of curiosities and a bath tub full of rose petals as well as tempting libations on the walls. About to place an order, we were promised a free drink if we submitted a - cocktail - umbrella design. A limited number of tables meant we were leaning on our knees with just a red, black and green pencil to use. We held our breath as they barely past muster. So we enjoyed a classic

Hendricks and Tonic

This was everything you'd expect from Hendrick's, refreshing, clean and very drinkable.

We headed back out into the sun and on finding Covent Garden Cocktail Club closed for another 30 minutes, we moved onto St Martins Lane - part of my favourite hotel chain the Morgans Group. Again, the bar had just opened but we picked a seat overlooked from above by leering children's faces with a display of ancient glass goblets. No water was offered but menus were presented. Signature cocktail

Light Bar Punch 

remained undefined by staff who could not quite remember what it was; there were pomegranate seeds floating in it and it tasted fine. Onto The Savoy to browse the Cocktail Museum - not too impressive - and serve £10 taster cocktails! I think not! Why even bother if you are not going to give customers the chance to sample what you do at a special price. They claimed that they were not consulted.

So we left to return to the South, and onto the ever popular bar, The Loft around 6.30pm. Their signature cocktail was called a

Spiced Lemongrass Collins

All the tables were booked - 300 people expected in apparently - but we chose comfortable leather recliners on a table reserved at 8.30. As our drinks arrived, a bar man came over, removed the reservation sheet and changed it. Apparently the table now reserved at...6.30. What a joke. We sipped our drinks - my friend thought of lemon drop sweets, i thought of cleaning products - and left as soon as we could since we were apparently imposing on someone else's time. Will i go back? Debatable.