Drink
I am delighted that cocktails are having their finest hour. The drink doctor has arrived. What you now do when you're feeling under the weather is slip into a Soho bar and describe your symptoms to the charming barman. He will listen attentively, gauge your response to the drinks he mentions and then make it a point of honour to create the perfect cocktail for your needs. There is no reason not to put your life in his hands.
It all began with Dick Bradsell. And he began, years ago, at the Naval and Military Club on Piccadilly which was run by Dick's uncle, who employed him to be his slave. Since then, the list of uber-stylish bars Dick has run is endless but just now he is at the Player on Broadwick Street in Soho (before that it was the Pharmacy). So this is where I am currently languishing.
I think it's going to be hard for him to interest me in anything because I have come here directly from a tasting session at the 10 Room in Cafe Royal, where two of London's rising brigade of cute boy barmen (Jamie from Mash and Andres from the 10 Room) mixed some drinks for me. They were impressive and full of tips. In Spain, for example, where there is no poxy pouring the spirits into a minuscule measure but instead a great matadoric tipping of half a bottle of rough gin into a tumbler, measures are not as generous as they seem. Spanish barmen fill to the top of the second ice cube. It guarantees an identical measure every time (somewhere between a double and a triple; to be fair, you wouldn't want more unless you were a serious alcoholic).
While Jamie explained that being a barman is kind of like being an agony aunt, and that it's very important to get the right cocktail for the right mood, Andres quietly mixed. Of all the cocktails, the last was the most delectable. Deep pink, in a martini glass with a single dusky rose petal floating on it, it is made with fresh raspberries, Bisquit Cognac, passion fruit nectar and sugar syrup. But when asked its name, Andres shrugs modestly and says he's only just made it up. My friend Nina immediately christened it La Vie en Rose because - well, because it's pink, an eau de vie is a fruit brandy and, if you ever tried it, you'd appreciate that it is an eminently suitable name for this wondrous drink. "It's a girl's drink, though, isn't it?" I said. Andres shrugged endearingly. "If a girl bought me that, I'd think it was quite romantic," he confessed.
But I digress. In the Player, Dick - professional, attentive, gentlemanly, the very image of a 1930s barman - is tantalising me with descriptions of his cocktails and one, in particular, puts a sparkle in my eyes. It is called the Bramble and is made from gin, lemon juice, sugar and creme de mure all poured over crushed ice. Then he says the magical words, "Let me make you one," and in a flick of a suit he is gone.
The golden fleece of bartenderdom is the classic cocktail. So keen is a barman to have one of his inventions universally embraced, he will share the recipe with anyone who wants it (barmen in New York, San Francisco and London chat on America Online), sending his cocktail out into the big wide world in the hope that it will go forth and multiply.
Dick has had success with a few of his, notably the fantastic Bramble and Polish Spring Punch. But London is the place to be. As Dick, the master, explains, "London is much better than New York for cocktails now. Only San Francisco gives us a run for our money." After this evening, I can see why.
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