The Cocktail Lovers Magazine Issue 20 Summer 2016

ISSUE 20

SUMMER 2016

ISSN 2052 0603

Sense-ational!

The Senses Issue

Heston Blumenthal leads the charge on the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and clever touches in food and drink

S CI E N C E?

COOL? YO U B E T I T I S! PARTICULARLY IN FORWARD-THINKING

RESTAUR ANTS

AND BARS

You can thank our cover star Heston Blumenthal for that. Before he got his geek on, little was known about centrifuges, rotavaps and the likes for culinary purposes. He took things further still by looking into the science of how we engage our senses when we consume what we eat and drink. We talk to him about his approach to cooking, thoughts on drinks and the vision that led to him coining the phrase 'multi-sensory' (p. 10).

Blumenthal isn't the only expert we've spoken to in this issue devoted to the senses. Giving her views on Sight we have food artist Caroline Hobkinson (p. 16); Professor Barry Smith explores the sense of Sound (p. 31), while Professor Charles Spence reveals his findings on Touch (p. 36). We also have Jozef Youssef from Kitchen Theory examining the sense of Taste (p. 49), while Lizzie Ostrom talks scents and Smell (p. 61).

What else is in store? We're so glad you asked! Ben Norum looks at some of the most beautiful drinks to feast your eyes on in Sippable stunners (p. 18); Miranda Walsh closes her eyes and goes dining and drinking in the dark (p. 24), and Jon Nickoll talks about creating the right ambiance in the American Bar at The Savoy (p. 32).

For Touch, we called on drinks whizzes Alistair Reynolds and Robyn Wilkie to give their views on the feel (and look) of eight stylish aprons (p. 38), and on Smell, we sniff out bars that are looking to the world of fragrance for inspiration (p. 64).

There's more too, but we won't go into it here. Why don't you pour yourself a drink, sit back and discover it for yourself.

Enjoy!

Happy imbibing!

Ms S & Mr G

thecocktaillovers.com

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Discover the finest contemporary silver and jewellery from over 300 designer-makers. www.thegoldsmithsdirectory.co.uk

Cocktail set: Martyn Pugh

6. IN-the know 25 reasons to be a cocktail lover this season Feeling fruity, fishing for compliments and teas-ing out the good stuff – just a few of the things we're looking forward to in the next few months

10. IN-terview In the hotseat – Heston Blumenthal We talk to the man who put the sense into multi-sensory eating and drinking experiences

14. SIGHT 16. The eyes have it Food artist Caroline Hobkinson sheds light on the sense of sight 18. Sippable stunners Cocktails as art: Ben Norum seeks out the best looking drinks around

36. Can you feel the difference?

Professor Charles Spence weighs up the evidence for using texture in food and drink 38. It's a cover-up!

Alistair Reynolds and Robyn Wilkie put eight aprons from around the world to the touch test

46. TASTE 49. A question of taste Lifting the lid on taste with Jozef Youssef, founder of Kitchen Theory 52. Balancing acts The team at Foodpairing on how to create the perfect recipe 55. In the best possible taste With Tony Conigliaro, master of flavours

58. SMELL

22. Bling it on!

Make a visual impact dressing for the cocktail hour with these seriously cool accessories for him and her

61. She nose you know Lizzie Ostrom on the power of scent in perfume and cocktails and how the two are inextricably linked

24. Dinner at Dans Le Noir?

Ever wondered how it would feel to eat and drink in the dark? Miranda Langford finds out (and she's not quite sure if she likes it…)

64. Making scents of smell How bartenders are using scent to elevate their drinks offering, including The Clumsies in Athens, the RitzCarlton in Berlin and The Donovan Bar in London

26. Think ink Zoning in on tattoos, the bartender's favourite garnish 27. Vision on Innovative uses of art in bars, including the Evocative Menu at Little Red Door in Paris

28. SOUND 31. Sound advice How sound affects your drinking experience by Professor Barry Smith 32. The Piano Man Jon Nickoll on tinkling the ivories at the American Bar at The Savoy for the past 12 years 33. Sound bites How music is being used to do everything from maturing spirits to blend into gin (yes, really!)

55. IN-formed Mains and Martinis Three London restaurants where the drinks are as good as the food

66. IN-formed Word up…

News, views, reviews and how-tos

70. IN-ternational Shanghai surprise Six cocktail bars offering our kind of Chinese medicine

SIGHT 74. Snap-shot!

The best parties, events and cocktail competitions from the last few months

The Cocktail Lovers are proud to be listed on The London Evening Standard Progress 1000 – London’s Most Influential People 2015 and global top four Best Cocktail & Spirits Publication Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards 2015 34. TOUCH

Editors: Sandrae Lawrence Gary Sharpen Sub-editor: Sally Briggs Creative Director: James Cheverton at Burnt Studio burntstudio.com Illustrations: Edd Leigh edd-leigh.co.uk Photography: Addie Chinn addiechinn.com Lawrence Watson lawrencewatson.com Contributors: Sam Ameye Iain Bell Foodpairing Caroline Hobkinson Miranda Langford Ben Norum Lizzie Ostrom Jacob Shteynsayg Professor Barry Smith Professor Charles Spence The Departure Lounge Lauryn Tomlinson Travis Watson Jozef Youssef For all editorial and advertising enquiries, please contact: mail@thecocktaillovers.com 020 7242 2546 thecocktaillovers.com Printed by 1881 Headley Reproduction in whole or part of any contents of The Cocktail Lovers magazine without prior permission from the editors is strictly prohibited.

On the cover: Heston Blumenthal Cover photography by Alisa Connan The Cocktail Lovers Issue No. 20 Summer 2016 The Cocktail Lovers magazine is published by The Cocktail Lovers Ltd. in London, UK PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY

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25

REASONS TO BE A COCKTAIL LOVER THIS SEASON Making like Madonna, being clever sew and sews and doing the Konga, three of the things we’re looking forward to in the next few months

N1

Celebrating colour What has an exhibition about nature got to do with cocktails? Plenty when it comes to Colour and Vision – how else do you decide what you want to drink? See the world through the eyes of over 350 species and learn about our own relationship with colour – well, this is the senses issue after all. To drink? Time to bring back the B52! Colour and Vision is at the Natural History Museum until 6 November. nhm.ac.uk

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©trustees of the natural history museum, london

o

IN-the know

THREE...

Upping sticks

02

Winning ways with water no. 101: add charcoal sticks to your reusable bottle.

Looks odd but it filters out the bad stuff so your water tastes great. The Japanese have been doing it for years… black-blum.com

Glossing over

Ladies, the coolest shade for your summer mani-pedis is Bikini With A Martini. Never mind the colour, what a name! essie.com

05 Making like Madonna Feeling like a virgin? Of the cocktail kind, of course. Get fresh with the inspiring collection of smoothies, energisers, presses and teas in The Mocktail Manual, all created with abstainers in mind. hardiegrant.co.uk

04

…or try this. The Memobottle: practical, smart, BPA free and designed to sit flush in your briefcase or bag.

Available in A4 or A5 sizes. thefowndry.com

SIX...

…but if you want something nonalcoholic that tastes as complex as (whisper it) booze, check out Seedlip Garden 108. Made from distilled peas and herbs, being green never tasted so good. seedlipdrinks.com

Going nuts

07

Is it possible to be vegan and drink creamy liqueurs? You bet your dairy-free booty it is.

Baileys gets a gluten-free update with Baileys Almande, the sexy new way to enjoy almond milk. baileys.com

N8 o

Fishing for compliments

Salmon + gin botanicals = the perfect cure – just the ticket for summer soirees. rossandrossfood.co.uk

09 Being

clever sew and sews

Needles at the ready, patches are in. Not only do they add a touch of retro chic to your outfit, you can use them to fill in the silences. Bam! skinnydiplondon.com The Cocktail Lovers - 7

IN-the know

11

10 Poshing up

our picnics

Say no to plastic glasses.

Be sustainable (and super stylish) with this lush leather Champagne carrier instead. luxdeco.com

…budget not up to it? These Champagne popsicles get the thumbs up, too (just be sure to recycle the wrappers). fortnumandmason.com

THIRTEEN Playing games

Go old school and get properly interactive. Deal your best hand with the Cocktail Cards designed

by Sarah Ferone (while sipping a Martini of course). cocktailhourcards.com

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14

Doing the Konga!

Shaking cocktails is so last season, right now it’s all about the Konga.

Get in line and get the folk from Monkey Shoulder to show you how they roll! monkeyshoulder.com

15 SIXTEEN .…you could also try these Talking Tables Pineapple Holders to add some lols to your summer serves. johnlewis.com

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Measuring up New to this cocktail malarkey? You won’t go wrong with these Bartending Glasses.

Salut! kikkerland.com

Feeling fruity Still got a pineapple shaped hole in your life? Fill the gap with one of these beauties. oliverbonas.com

17. CHILLIN’

BY THE POOL

Who needs cool when you can have fun and have your cocktail poolside at the same time? That's your summer packing sorted then… urbanoutfitters.com

IN-the know

18.

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TEAS-ING OUT THE GOOD STUFF Love tea? Love Pina Coladas? Thanks to a canny blend of pineapple, coconut and oolong you can have both. Get your fix at kitchenprovisions.co.uk

Rolling with it Tension Tonic won’t do a jot for your gin, but it works like a dream for stress busting.

Don’t leave home without it. tazekaaromatherapy.com

Calling the shots

21

You say chocolate, we say shots!

Pop these Cocktails to Chill in the freezer then dive in. hotelchocolat.com

…and for those who prefer something stronger, there’s T.E.A. (tea enriched alcohol) Gin with Earl Grey or Jasmine in the mix. Nice touch! tea-enriched-alcohol.com

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24 Pulling out the stops Why have a boring old corkscrew when you can have this colourful chap in your life?

Bring on the smiles. Parrot Corkscrew. shop.royalacademy.org.uk

22

BLOWING BUBBLES

Yes, that’s right – like when we were kids. The difference now is, these grown up bubbles can be mixed with alcohol for an edible treat. Prosecco your days are numbered… fowndry.com

23 SIMPLIFYING OUR SERVES Pour it, shake it, sip it. Repeat. The Cointreau Cocktail Maker not only looks cute but it does the job on the practicality front too. Top marks! cointreau.com

Twenty Five Popping our corks …and wearing the plaque de muselet (that’s the cap bit, fyi), in jewellery form. Cool idea or what? wearingmemories.com

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IN-terview

IN THE HOTSEAT

HESTON BLUMENTHAL photography: alisa connan

CHEF, SCIENTIST, STORYTELLER

IN-terview

How does someone who failed chemistry O Level go on to be awarded honorary degrees for his scientific approach to cooking, and earn an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Society of Chemistry in the process?

It’s been a long and eventful journey! When I left school I was unsure what I wanted to do but I was obsessed with food, I was re-reading recipes books, over and over. After a string of uneventful jobs I decided to take over a small, run down pub in Bray – and that’s when The Fat Duck was born. Having the restaurant allowed me to experiment, to challenge convention, to ask questions. That’s what science, and to a larger extent cooking, should be about.

I’m incredibly proud of my degrees, they show that there are many different paths to science and education.

Is this why you’re now working with Oxford and Cambridge universities to rewrite the cookery GSCE to include a sensory element?

I felt that the existing food GCSE didn’t go far enough, ours now has a greater focus on the science and nutrition of cooking. Over the next couple of years I want to introduce more sensory experiments to the syllabus, so that children start to recognise eating and cooking as a form of science, begin to understand how important it is for our wellbeing.

Do you regard yourself as a chef, scientist or storyteller?

I’m not sure those labels are mutually exclusive, I’ve found them complementary. When I was starting out as a chef, I picked up an incredible book by Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, and I started to see cooking as an empirical art form. It was through science, using equipment like centrifuges, distilleries and molecular databases, that my understanding and appreciation of food grew. The Fat Duck became my personal laboratory, and it’s gone on an extraordinary journey over the past three decades.

The menu is now based on a collection of my childhood holiday memories, and I’m very interested in how sharing my story acts as a psychological nudge, to help others remember their own stories. Food is so much more powerful when it has a narrative running through it, when it engages someone emotionally.

How much of each of the aforementioned elements come into play when devising your creations?

I’m constantly balancing these elements when creating new dishes or revising old ones. The dishes and ideas are already there – the Sound of the Sea, savoury ice lollies, breakfast cereal – they just needed something to bind them together – that's where my story comes in; it should

evoke the senses, prompting nostalgia. Your story is pre-empted by mine. The food that makes up the Duck has evolved like a journey; the dishes are a narrative.

And when a dish can’t be evolved any more, we take it off the menu.

When and why did you first become interested in sensory eating experiences?

I was on a family holiday in France, when I was about 15.

We were lucky enough to visit a restaurant in Provence called L'Oustau de Baumanière. I was sat on a terrace at the foot of a cliff surrounded by a valley of olive trees and the smell of lavender. The sound of the crickets filled the air and the cliff was lit up by the setting sun. The sommelier had a huge handlebar moustache, the cheese trolley was the size of a chariot, and there was a wine list bigger than a billboard! I fell into a multi-sensory wonderland, and was hooked.

A GOOD DISH, OR DRINK, STIMULATES ALL OF THE SENSES IN UNISON To your mind, how does it enrich our enjoyment of food and drink?

A good dish, or drink, stimulates all of the senses in unison. Memory also provides us with a collection of references – flavours, tastes, smells, sights, sounds, emotions – that we draw on continually as we eat. One of the dishes that I’m most proud of is the Sound of the Sea, it’s the perfect example of multi-sensory dining – the sound of waves crashing against the shore that accompany the dish heightens the flavours.

The term ‘multi-sensory’ in relation to food and drink experiences is bandied around a lot these days, but you were the first to coin the phrase. When and why did you feel the need to do so?

In the late 90s I was playing around with the idea of crab ice-cream – at the time I didn’t realise how important it would become to the direction of my cooking. The actual name, ‘crab ice-cream’, seemed to act as a barrier for some people. After running tests, I found that if it was called ‘frozen crab bisque’, not only was it more acceptable, it was also considered less sweet. Just a name could change someone’s appreciation of a dish. It got me thinking about other cues and factors that affect flavours, leading me to work with some great universities and researching the

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Sight

THE EYES HAVE IT

Caroline Hobkinson is an artist who curates and creates immersive dining experiences in gallery, public and private spaces. Born in Cologne and trained at Central Saint Martin’s, she works with food and the ritual of eating and drinking as an artistic medium and has published numerous articles in the field of multi-sensory perception.

Sight or vision is our ability to see and to interpret our surroundings by processing information. Our visual perception can be tricked, based on the context in which we see. Our minds tend to make assumptions about the world – and what we think we see is often not the truth. Our eyes are so easily fooled and I love to play with this in my practice.

Sight is our first sense. It is the safest, the one we trust the most, the one we can rely on before we have to touch, smell, hear or eat anything. It is our gatekeeping sense, the one we judge with to see whether it’s worth engaging with all the others. Sight overrides a lot of the other senses, that’s why we automatically close our eyes when we eat a specifically nice thing or listen to a beautiful piece of music. We automatically want to shut out sight in order to focus, to recalibrate more on the other senses. Our taste is heightened when we are blindfolded. We don’t necessarily taste more but we can smell more so our flavour perception is heightened.

It is true that we eat with our eyes. If something looks delicious we perceive it as tasting better. Our eyes taste first, and our taste buds follow. Our taste perception is dominated by what we see. I love to serve white wine (midweight Viognier works best) coloured into a red wine with organic food colouring and brought to room temperature during my experiential workshops and let people taste and describe it. Everyone reads and describes the wine as a red wine using attributes they usually use to describe reds.

Visual cues are very important when it comes to food and drink. Just by seeing something is orange we feel like we

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perceive an acidic taste, even if it's just water coloured orange. At the moment we like the look of slightly cloudy drinks in natural tones. Bright blue reminiscent of blue curacao would actively put most people off.

Our eyes can fool us, just like in an optical illusion we can experience a gustatory illusion. The colour of food warns us whether it's edible. Blue does not occur naturally so in our current health aware world we distrust it. Orange and lemon are indicators for sour and citrus flavours, green indicates a bitterness, white a creaminess, while red food signals ripeness and sweetness. A German study reveals that drinks drunk under red light were rated 50% sweeter than under white light. But all this is very contextual as soon as we play with perceived colours we lose our trust and are on alert.

This can differ depending on age and sex. For instance, the better developed our taste buds the less we rely on our eyes; we lose our taste buds with age and rely more on our eyes.

Little children almost taste everything directly by putting it in their mouth. While an aesthetically pleasingly presented drink will be more appreciated by a female.

The presentation of food and drink is really important as I try to take it out of the every day to elevate it and draw attention to it. I like to take people out of their comfort zone, to add spectacle to their experiences, to force people gently to reassess the way they eat and drink and to add a touch of mindfulness.

Chefs and bartenders are constantly pushing boundaries in terms of presentation of food and drinks and we now expect more visual stimulation on the food/drink front as a result. But it would be great to see the visual stimulation underscored with specific taste experiences that work more on a multi-sensory level.

Bartenders could try to think about the cocktail as a 20 minute immersive experience to enhance drinking experiences for their customers. I want to be engaged from the moment I read the menu, to the moment it’s served, to the moment it touches my lips.

HARVEY NICHOLS COCKTAIL M ASTER CL ASS LEARN HOW TO BLEND PERFECT COCKTAILS AND A FEW OTHER TRICKS OF THE TRADE, PERFECT FOR GROUPS OF FRIENDS, SPECIAL OCCASIONS, OR SIMPLY TO TRY SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO BOOK PLEASE VISIT WWW.HARVEYNICHOLS.COM KNIGHTSBRIDGE, BRISTOL, DUBLIN, MANCHESTER, EDINBURGH, BIRMINGHAM, LEEDS, OXO, PRISM.

SIPPABLE STUNNERS Cocktails have never looked prettier. Ben Norum ogles some of the most stunning and finds out why their appearance is so important

They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover, and any wine lover knows that the artwork on a bottle’s label can never be considered a guide to what’s inside. But what’s the case with cocktails?

In cities with progressive dining and drinking scenes, such as London and New York, stripped-back eating has been de rigueur for some time now. We’re fed up with foam, would rather the components on our plate didn’t perform acrobatics, and superfluous sprigs of parsley are practically extinct. Thank goodness.

Yet the world-class cocktails served in these same cities have not followed an identical path. In fact, of late they haven’t just retained their flair but upped it.

cocktail in frame: 'your room, or mine #feeling naughty' from the surrealism menu at artesian

At Regent Street’s Artesian we’ve become used to drinking concoctions wrapped in fur and surrounded by Lego, while over in Shoreditch cocktails at Nightjar are routinely served in intricate pottery vessels and with scented, smoking garnishes.

Promotion Sight

clockwise from top left: first aid box; nightjar; oriole; shrub and shutter; duck & waffle; oriole; shrub & shutter; nightjar

At Nightjar’s newer sister bar Oriole in Smithfield, the team go a step further with libations offered in metal crocodiles, cappuccino lookalikes presented in coffee cups and a memorable Bourbon number, inspired by the American prairies, served in a horn.

Whiley, who runs drinks consultancy Talented Mr. Fox, was one of the founding fathers of Fluid Movement and leads the bar at Peg + Patriot. “We consume with our sight, smell and our taste so the three of those need to work coherently together.”

Edmund Weil, who runs Nightjar and Oriole explains: “The way a cocktail looks can greatly complement and even enhance the taste of the drink. We do a lot of our sensory work with our eyes and noses, before it has even passed our lips.”

He adds: “I think London has some of the best looking drinks around. Over the past couple of years people have really started to pay more attention to the way drinks are presented, and that has resulted in a lot of innovative and original serves.”

Richard Woods, who heads up the cocktail offer at Sushisamba and Duck & Waffle – where a Negroni is served in a Nutella jar – agrees that looking good is essential for a cocktail: “We buy with our eyes and how a drink looks is much like window dressing. It draws the drinker in.”

It’s not just a London thing, though. The drinks at Artesian Hong Kong are as elaborate as those served by its UK sister; The Aviary in Chicago is known for its stunning porthole cocktails, showing off intricate garnish through wide glass vessels; and New York’s Dead Rabbit not only goes all-out with its cocktail creations, but even its menu is a beautifully illustrated, narrativefilled collector’s piece.

There’s a strong business case for impressive presentation, too. Elliot Ball, one of the team behind The Cocktail Trading Co (which serves a cocktail in a newspaper cone topped with chips) notes: “Those who are tasting a drink have already paid for it, whereas all but one of those who are looking, have not yet. More people are going to enjoy your drinks in a visual sense than a flavour one, and that's just a simple fact. Not to mention the importance of social media.”

The fact that the last few years have seen bars in London and elsewhere wholeheartedly embrace informality may also play a part. At high-end, old-school hotel bars, a drink’s garnish should be subtly respectful of its surroundings, but at a more relaxed venue where fun trumps formality, there’s more scope for unabashed wackiness.

This rings true at Brixton’s Shrub & Shutter, where drinks are served in jelly moulds, poured from gravy jugs and with fuse wire attached. It’s all about “wow factor” says owner Dave Tregenza, “a spritz of citrus is just not enough these days.”

It’s not as simple as just choosing a wacky way to serve a drink, though. “The presentation needs to make sense and also has to be fairly practical for service,” says Matt

While in all cases the Instagram effect, and a blossoming lack of stuffy restraint, may be influencing how bartenders present their drinks, the universal focus on a cocktail’s appearance has its roots somewhere far less modern.

The first documented reference to a cocktail’s garnish is in New York bartending legend Jerry Thomas’s book Bartender’s Guide: How To Mix Drinks Or The BonVivant's Companion, published back in 1862 – around 150 years before social media took off.

The types and styles of garnish may have evolved, and will continue to do so, but the aim remains the same – to at once woo and wow the drinker. The very notion of a cocktail carries with it an irresistible sense of indulgence and flair that is almost inseparable from the drink itself: it is a large part of why we love them, and why “going for cocktails” means something very different to “going for a few pints”.

At the end of the day, without a little decorative flair and flourish isn’t a cocktail just a mixed drink?

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GREY GOOSE LE GRAND FIZZ – A TASTE OF SUMMER Deliciously light and refreshing for sipping in the sun; effortlessly elegant and flavoursome for enjoying at lunch, in the afternoon or evening, GREY GOOSE Le Grand Fizz is the perfect serve for the season. To create the ultimate summer cocktail simply build the ingredients in a wine glass over lots of ice and garnish with freshly squeezed wedges of lime (full recipes on next page). GREY GOOSE Le Grand Fizz is also delicious using each of the GREY GOOSE flavours and garnished accordingly with either pear, orange or lemon.

Sight THE COCKTAIL RING White diamond and pink sapphire ‘Boom’ ring set in 18kt rose gold, £2,725, made to order, dianekordasjewellery.com

THE BANGLE Moonshell multi-stone bangle set in 18kt yellow gold, POA, venyxworld.com

FOR HIM: Guys, you can get in on the act too.

A flash of pattern here, a wink of coloured stone there – you don't have to be too much of a peacock (unless you want to of course)…

THE POCKET WATCH Olympic pocket watch in yellow gold, POA, summer at grain store omega.com

THE CUFFLINKS Gyro cufflinks in rose gold plate with garnet at grain store insert, summer £220, dunhill.com

THE SIGNET RING Oval Signet ring in 18k gold with black onyx, at grain store £2,475,summer tiffany.co.uk

THE TIE PIN Terry tie pin in brass with chequerboard at grain store pattern,summer £65, hugoboss.com THE POCKET SQUARE Peacock Power purple silk pocket square, £65, turnbullandasser.co.uk

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Sight

The Taste Sensation:

Dinner at Dans Le Noir?

Miranda Langford puts her senses to the test as she dines in the dark

I

magine sitting down to eat in a room that’s so dark, opening and closing your eyes makes no difference.

There’s no light at all. For someone who boasts about their better-than-twenty-twenty-vision result at the opticians, this isn’t just intriguing – it’s completely out of my comfort zone, and a pretty terrifying concept.

We’re at Dans Le Noir? and my dining companion and I are advised to put our bags, jackets and phones in one of the lockers that line the wall; there’s to be no cheating this evening, as the slightest flash of light in the room will ruin the atmosphere for everyone.

It’s 6.30pm on a Tuesday evening and the restaurant is fully booked as it is most days “There’s a two month waiting list at weekends,” says our host Diane cheerfully. Which, for a ten-year old restaurant that changes nothing but its menu, is quite fascinating. What is it about the Dans Le Noir? experience that keeps Londoners interested?

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This question is answered in part when Trevor, our waiter, greets us outside the curtained entrance to the dining room. I’ve been told already that all the wait staff are visually impaired – at five per cent, Trevor has the most vision out of all of them, and it starts to put the evening into perspective. As I place my hand on his right shoulder and my friend places hers on mine, we become completely reliant on his guidance through the darkness, and, like a nervous conga line, plunge into unchartered territory.

Surprisingly, what we find most reassuring are the broader descriptions of the room around us. I can feel for myself the cutlery and glasses in front of me, but not knowing the size or shape of the room, the number of people in it or where the nearest exits are makes my heart race. Trevor’s assurance that the sudden gap I feel in the wall is just a ledge, and not a vast empty space in which anything could be lurking, is overwhelmingly comforting.

Sight

I reason that my eyes will probably adjust to the darkness, and after a few minutes I’ll at least be able to make out shapes or spots of light in the room. Ten minutes later, hand held squarely in front of face, I admit defeat. My vision claim won’t help me now. I’ll simply have to get used to the dark.

But this is a sensory experience designed to test your tastebuds, not your optician prescription. So what is the food like? First, a starter that I’m convinced is baked aubergine throws me off kilter with the taste of cinnamon. Then there’s a strong olive oil taste, and something crunchy that could be fried bread. My friend’s voice announces out of the darkness that she doesn’t want to alarm anyone, but she thinks she might be eating a whole octopus head. The cocktails are served at the same time, and we take big gulps. Deliciously sweet. I taste vodka and cranberry juice first, then peach schnapps – but that can’t be right, can it?

“I think it’s a Woo Woo,” I say. Are my tastebuds so immature that the slightest sip of vodka and cranberry takes me back to being eighteen years old, ordering a pitcher of the pinkest cocktail on the menu? Or have I really been served a curveball, intended to challenge my expectations of the evening? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a delicious drink – I just expected something a little more… sophisticated.

The main course is more palatable for my companion, less for me as a vegan. She has a trio of separate dishes, ranging from a cold salad, to a meat stew, to steak and mash. The only flavour I can positively identify on my own plate is raw fennel. The rest is all guesswork, with my nose telling me I’m eating mushroom and my mouth arguing that it’s red pepper. At least we have mastered the art of getting food from dish to mouth; the right hand holds the fork, while the left gently pushes the food on and guides it towards the mouth. Feeling the texture of the food helps with the guessing game, and also ensures minimal empty fork moments.

After an hour (or maybe two – it’s hard to tell without a watch or phone reminding you) we finish with dessert.

It’s another mystery; something foam-like which could be cream except I’ve asked for a dairy-free menu, and a fruit tart or cake of some sort. We wash it down with a perfectly paired dessert wine, sweet enough to bring out the vanilla flavour in whatever it is we’re eating.

Once back in the lobby, our eyes have no trouble adjusting to the light, but a little more trouble putting two and two together when we’re presented with photos of what we’ve consumed. I can’t reveal what we ate – some things must remain secret for future diners – but the meal was more sophisticated than I imagined. The cocktail did have the same base ingredients as a Woo Woo, but also featured blueberry puree and pink lemonade. My vegetarian ‘green’ menu included an olive tapenade, not just a big slug of olive oil as I’d thought, and there were some surprises. Baked apple, not aubergine! Now the cinnamon makes sense. As for my companion and her meaty ‘red’ menu, she hadn’t eaten mozzarella but, fortunately, it wasn’t an octopus either.

Were my other senses heightened? Yes – but not always in a good way. The smell of other people’s food in the room overpowered what I was eating, and possibly confused me more. Do I see why, on its tenth anniversary, Dans Le Noir? is still so popular? Absolutely – although I’m not sure if it’s an entirely enjoyable experience, it’s certainly a thrilling one. If you’d like to really test your palate, and be immersed in a purely sensory experience for an evening, this is the place to go. Just keep an open mind and try not to spill your Woo Woo. Dans Le Noir? london.danslenoir.com

Dans Le Noir? has some notoriety, at least in my circles, due to its cameo in Richard Curtis’s 2013 heart-warmer About Time. As the meeting place of the protagonist and his love interest, it plays out as a real ‘blind’ date. Sat at a table with complete strangers, it’s a sociable experience, and people are more likely to talk to each other than they would if the lights were on. I can’t deny that it would be an excellent location for a first date. No need to worry about bad table manners or awkward spinach-in-teeth moments here.

The couple next to us have been served the strange, potentially-octopus-head starter, but have come up with a different explanation.

“It’s a big ball of mozzarella, surely?” says Laura.

“Oh thank God!” exclaims my friend.

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The Piano Man

At 24, Jon Nickoll became the youngest ever resident musician at the legendary American Bar at The Savoy. He’s still there 12 years later. He talks about setting the mood in the bar and why he doesn’t mind if guests don’t notice he’s playing

Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald. This music just feels right when sipping a cocktail, there’s a sophistication, intelligence, charm and wit, that goes hand in hand with what the gentlemen behind the bar are creating.

You play very diverse songs and styles, how do you make them your own?

I'm self-taught, and despite my best intentions, whatever I play comes out sounding like me. I've performed for so many years that I know my versions of famous songs better than the originals.

How do you set the mood in the American Bar at the start of an evening?

I try to ease into the night, keeping things swingy, upbeat and lower volume. Early, the bar is full of folks in the nine-to-five mode, talking business. I don't want to intrude on that, so I attempt to creep up on them. If I get a smile or a hand clap, I know I've done something right.

Do you always have a set list in mind or do you judge the mood when you sit down at the piano?

Describe some of the outstanding memories of your time playing at the American Bar. Some highlights would be Amy Winehouse joining me on the piano bench and singing in my ear for half an hour and having Paul McCartney singing along with me, with his hands on my shoulders! And on a more sombre note, the night of the 2005 (7/7) terrorist attacks in London; the atmosphere in the American Bar was indescribable: hurt, resilience, pride and love for our common man. I didn't want to go in that night, but I'm so glad I did.

I respond to how the guests seem to be feeling. Sometimes a guest requests something I wouldn't normally play, and the whole mood of the set goes off in a different direction.

But, largely I just let it happen – the bar has a huge spirit, and I've learned to listen to it!

What’s your personal favourite cocktail and song combination?

Great lounge music and great cocktails go hand in hand, where do you fit in as a purveyor of an experience?

What would be your perfect set for an evening of enjoying cocktails?

The music needs to be at a level that can be talked over, but can also be actively enjoyed by guests who are interested in it. Later in the evening, if the crowd seem in the right zone, I crank up the energy, and volume – but I never force the issue.

Given the history of the bar, it's vital I remember that many of the guests aren't there to listen to me; hopefully they'll leave with fond recollections of the music, but in a way, if they haven't noticed me, I've succeeded. Like a venue’s lighting and fragrance, the music should be complimentary, not forceful.

What influence do music, and different styles, have on people’s enjoyment of what they’re drinking?

My default setting in the American Bar is music from The Great American Songbook, think Sinatra, Tony

32 - The Cocktail Lovers

Easy! A Perfect Manhattan coupled with the song Manhattan by Rodgers and Hart.

Let's start with Fly Me To The Moon and a bit of I've Got You Under My Skin, both made famous by Mr Sinatra (who certainly enjoyed a few drinks in The American Bar over the years).

Then, as the cocktails start to hit our blood streams, and the room starts buzzing, what about a bit of Motown, say Marvin Gaye How Sweet It Is and some Elvis, All Shook Up. The hands on the clock seem to have drunk too much too, and before you know it, it's 11pm – time for something a bit mellow, As Time Goes By and, to land the American Bar aeroplane, One For My Baby.

Hear Jon play at The American Bar, Savoy Hotel.

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights 6.30pm to 11.30pm. jonnickoll.com

Touch fig. 2

fig. 1

fig. 6

fig. 3 fig. 4

fig. 5

Bar at the House of Wolf restaurant in Islington, North London (now, unfortunately, closed) were really on to something when they served one of their drinks from a rocks glass that was insulated by a bubble wrap sleeve. That distinctive serve has certainly stayed with me over the years.

Once again, one finds many of the drinks manufacturers thinking about how to redesign their glassware in order to try and minimize any heat transfer between the drinker’s hand and the contents of the glass (so that the contents will stay cooler for longer). Here, one needs only think of the chalice glass from Stella Artois (see Figure 2).

We shouldn’t forget texture either, be it the feeling in our hand, or even on the lip of a glass. After all, isn’t smoothness just so cold and clinical? Don’t forget that our fingertips and lips are among the body’s most sensitive regions – at least among those that the cocktail maker can safely stimulate in the bar setting. So how, exactly, do you think that the experience would change if one drunk from a texture-lipped glass like that shown in Figure 3 from Roberts Wineware Inc.?

While we have yet to do the relevant research, what we know for sure is that changing the texture that a drinker (or for that matter, diner) feels in the hand can draw their attention to something in the tasting experience, and so change the taste. Together with Luli Biggs of Flavour Sense Nation, for instance, we recently found that we could accentuate

the gingery-ness of ginger biscuits simply by serving them from a roughly-textured plate. As such, I am fascinated to think about quite how the beautifully-textured receptacle used to serve one of the cocktails at Artesian in London would change the experience (see Figure 4).

And I couldn’t leave you without sharing a couple of my favourite examples from Tony Conigliaro in London. The glass in figure 5 shows how simple it can be to change the feel of one’s glassware. Just wrapping some string around the stem is all it takes. Better still, perhaps, if one adds a few drops of scene-setting scent to the stem too. Then, to end, the wonderfully-realistic hairy stemmed glassware shown in figure 6. You don’t need to do the experiment to know that drinking from this vessel would be a very different (and memorable) experience!

Given the above, you should now understand those who say that the first taste really is with the fingers!

Prof. Charles Spence, Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Oxford University.

Want to know more: See Spence, C., & Wan, I. (2016).

Assessing the Influence of the drinking receptacle on the perception of the contents. In B. Piqueras-Fiszman & C. Spence (Eds.), Multisensory flavor perception: From fundamental neuroscience through to the marketplace (pp.

269-296). Elsevier.

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Taste

A QUESTION OF TASTE Jozef Youssef founder and chef patron at Kitchen Theory and author of Molecular Gastronomy at Home explores the meaning of taste

Taste is one of our five senses.

It allows our brains to perceive taste sensations including; sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, and – most researchers believe – fatty and metallic tastes.

We use all our senses when we consume food and drink. Almost 2000 years ago the Romans perceived there was more to flavour than taste and smell: “we eat first with our eyes”, quoted Apicius, a first Century Roman gourmand. We use visual cues to make judgments about foods based on their colour and shape. Texture is also extremely important, as is sound; although both are undervalued in common definitions of flavour appreciation.

The idea that different parts of the tongue are responsible for detecting particular ‘tastes’ – also known as a ‘tongue map’ or ‘taste belt’ – is a misconception. We have receptors that detect different tastes spread all over our tongues; threshold sensitivity (how much of the stimulus you need in order for it to be detected) may differ across the tongue, but all parts are equally good at conveying the perception and intensity of all tastes.

We tend to use the term ‘taste’ in place of ‘flavour’. When we have a cold it’s common to say we “can’t taste a thing”.

That’s wrong, we can still perceive saltiness, sourness and the other basic tastes, but we can’t perceive flavour, as this is made up of the senses of taste and smell. Current research suggests that up to 90% of what we perceive as flavour is actually derived from our sense of smell (olfaction). That’s not to say that taste is less important; it’s a balance of both that allows us to truly savour flavours.

This varies according to the individual of course, we all live in separate ‘taste’ worlds and will perceive flavours differently from one another. This comes down to our unique physiological differences which include the number

of receptors we have on our tongues and how densely populated with papillae they are. You can take a simple test which shows if you are a ‘supertaster’, ‘medium taster’ or ‘non-taster’ – the difference being sensitivity and ability to perceive the basic tastes, particularly bitterness.

Other factors will include pH levels in the mouth (for example, smokers will have lower pH), and how sensitive your sense of smell is; this is arguably more important than whether you’re a ‘supertaster’ or ‘non-taster’.

Research by Professor Charles Spence (p. 36), has proven the importance of all the senses in flavour perception.

Spence demonstrated that the pitch and volume of the noise made when biting into Pringles crisps affected people's perception of how fresh they were. Louder, higher-pitched crunch noises were rated by eaters to be 15% fresher on average than softer, lower-pitched crunch noises.

Geography also affects our taste preference, this is partially due to evolutionary factors; so people living in parts of the world – say the Amazon – may be more sensitive to bitterness as a way of protecting themselves from poisonous foods. Cultural food habits, regional ingredients and exposure will all factor into how we perceive, appreciate, like and dislike aromas, flavours and tastes.

There is also a difference in male/female and younger/ older palates. This will largely be due to sensitivity levels and acquired preferences. We know our sense of smell diminishes as we age, this is one of the reasons attributed to loss of appetite in elderly people. Research has shown that women are more likely to be supertasters, as are those from Asia, South America and Africa.

So many factors including the company and the environment, the number of diners at the table and our interaction with the service, will have major influences on what we order and how we perceive flavour.

What single factor should bartenders take into account when creating new recipes and compiling a cocktail list and? That's an easy one: balance! kitchen-theory.com

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Promotion

They got game Individually Shervene Shahbazkhani and Nidal Ramini are good, but working together they’re proverbial dynamite. Here Shervene, recently appointed to the role of Bacardi Martini Ltd Head of Advocacy UK, and Nidal, Brown-Forman Head of Advocacy UK, reveal what gives the Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands (BBFB) training team the edge when it comes to supporting the bar trade.

What are the biggest challenges facing the trade right now?

SS: One of the key things is that bartenders are questioning everything more, which means drinks companies have to be transparent in everything they do.

NR: Also, there are so many great brands, so many exciting innovations out there, it can be hard for bar owners and bartenders to keep up with everything that’s going on in the industry.

SS: Sustainability is another big issue. It’s vital that it becomes an industry-wide concern.

How are you addressing these factors?

SS: When you work for a big company like Bacardí you have to be transparent. With us, everything is in order, the quality checks we do ensure that, so we’re happy to talk transparently about how our products are made; it’s all education, which is where our teams come in. Like most companies we have a team of Brand Ambassadors who work closely with the Brand Managers. Where we differ is that we have Trade Ambassadors as well.

NR: That’s what makes us gold standard. Our Trade Ambassadors bring category training to the bars. They approach the category as a whole, so our customers don’t have to find time for hundreds of separate training sessions from individual brands. They might go in to talk about pickling or garnishing, or cover entire categories from vermouth to rum, or the history of American whiskey – they give our customers the training they want.

How does your personal experience help you in the role?

SS: To do the jobs we’re doing you have to have walked the path. I remember going to one of Nidal’s training sessions, and he embodied bourbon. He’d always been around it, worked in some of the best bars in London and he was a big whiskey lover – I found that really inspiring. I’ve been a bartender and a brand ambassador so I know how hard it is to pack all your equipment and travel around the country. It’s good to have marketing and sales experience but it’s vital to have empathy.

NR: I agree. The fact that I’ve owned bars means I know the pressures that come with that. It’s important to have been on the front line yourself.

TO DO THE JOBS WE'RE DOING, YOU HAVE TO HAVE WALKED THE PATH How else does BBFB help bartenders in their roles?

SS: We don’t just invest financially but emotionally too. We give our customers PR support, helping to get their names out there – we pride ourselves on building relationships.

NR: If you want to see what we’re doing, come to one of our Think Outside The Box sessions that we’re running around the UK in the next 12 months. You’ll see that what we do is different – the brands we represent are enablers for bartenders to achieve what they want to achieve.

To find out more, visit facebook.com/bbfbtraining

SS: As heads of advocacy, it’s about having the foresight and giving direction to the team – we’re there to guide them in the right direction.

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Smell

She nose you know Exploring the sense of smell with Lizzie Ostrom aka Odette Toilette, perfume obsessive and curator of olfactory events

Everyone’s sense of smell is different. Some people can pick up a smell at low concentration in the air that no-one else notices. Some might recognise a smell but struggle to name it while others will be much faster at finding the label.

Some can clearly tell the difference between two odours that others would find identical.

So there’s no magic formula when it comes to using scent to evoke emotions. In visual culture, we can't guarantee that a certain photograph will elicit a particular response − the artist might have an intention but it’s up to the viewer.

What helps the artist is understanding their audience: their cultural background, their age. We need to think the same way with smell, because our response to an odour is often coloured by personal associations. We need to embrace ambiguity with scent, rather than saying: ‘this will make everyone feel nostalgic.’

You can look at people of a certain generation and question how they might perceive a particular odour. Take violet.

In the UK, depending when you grew up, you could smell violets and think of makeup and cosmetics (1940s), sweeties (1960s-80s) or grannies (1970s-1990s). Children born today will have an utterly different notion − perhaps they’ll be enough distanced from such contexts to reinvent the smell.

One opportunity for the cocktail world is to help us smell tired, heritage odours like violet and lavender anew.

There are various notions around preference in fragrance.

Some come from within us, many come from marketing.

The seasons can play a role, as can climate; an air conditioned or radiator heated room, or a humid environment will alter the way a fragrance behaves, speeding up the evaporation, and perhaps our inclination to like it. Or if we're feeling sweaty and tetchy in the heat, some fragrances might feel too suffocating and claustrophobic. People often tell me they want simple fragrances. That doesn't mean the perfume has a short formulation; it might contain more materials than something smelling complex – but their personality craves the idea of pared down.

An ongoing strand of enquiry from academics like Professor Craig Roberts at the University of Stirling, is looking at how our skin affects fragrance choice, including

whether we can tell something will suit us from smelling it on a fragrance strip. There is right now something of an obsession with skin, and how this affects performance of a fragrance, which I think has been made manifest by the ongoing phenomenon that is Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules. There’s no way the material used is a pheromone − but the glamour of fragrance, its alchemy, is so much a part of how it interacts with our bodies, that the concept of a scent behaving uniquely on everyone is difficult to resist.

We also get cues from smells. There are certain amber molecules used with a heavy hand in scents worn by teenage boys, so a man in his 40s will naturally turn down anything too evocative of this. As with fashion, we mimic. We want to smell like people to whom we aspire, which is why celebrity and brand continue to be important in the perfume world, albeit evolving all the time.

A hundred years ago, the fragrance industry was arguably much more inventive in terms of the sorts of products that carried fragrance. I’m particularly intrigued by the use of perfumed dental powders and pastes, which perfumed the mouth with all sorts of scents we’d find alien today − including heady Oriental blends. I see cocktails makers as having an exciting job to do in nudging the borders of acceptability in flavour, and rediscovering territory we’ve neglected.

Cocktails have already been inspired by perfume conventions, heritage, families and materials; the RitzCarlton in Berlin and London’s Drink Factory are both famous for their crossover into fragrance. I recently made a drinkable Eau de Cologne, containing orange flower, rosemary, bergamot orange and lemon, instigated by research on Victorian female perfume drinkers, who’d douse cologne onto sugar cubes. On an immediate level it’s about thinking how to create that bloom and working with the alcohol to give the drinker an unusual first few seconds with their cocktail. I think makers would have great fun partnering with perfumers. Rather than just thinking ‘let’s turn CK1 into a drink’, they could get into the mind of a perfumer, get inspiration from how they build accords, how they put together a formulation using mathematical, creative thinking. And most excitingly how they create an illusion of a scent using synthetic materials.

When it comes to scent, I think most people crave information and education. They don’t often trust their noses without being told what they’re smelling. So bartenders, think about how you can present your menu, to share the nuance of your creations. The fragrance house D.S & Durga are now offering the equivalent of album notes with their fragrance bottles, what could you do?

The Cocktail Lovers - 61

Smell

MAINS & MARTINIS

RESTAURANTS WHERE THE COCK TAILS ARE AS GOOD AS THE FOOD

Casa di Stefano

Pachamama

The Lighterman

19-20 Dover Street, W1S 4LU casadistefano.com

18 Thayer Street, W1U 3JY pachamamalondon.com

3 Granary Square, N1C 4BH thelighterman.co.uk

Who: The well-heeled Chelsea set, tourists classy enough to frequent The Ritz and Knightsbridge locals looking for an authentic Italian dining experience.

What: Classic Italian fare and cocktails with a modern twist.

When: Mon-Sat 12pm-3pm for lunch, and 6.30pm-11pm for dinner service.

Wear: Men in suits mingle with dressed down locals and the Mayfair set – it all works.

The Cocktail Girl says: The light country-style dining room and mainly Italian wait staff transport you from W1 to the Mediterranean in an instant.

Hot dish: Although all of the dishes were delicious, they saved the best for last with their classic tiramisu, it was the perfect level of creaminess and booziness and ceratinly hit the spot with this cocktail girl.

Cool cocktail: The Verdetto (Martin Miller's Gin, basil, lemon juice and sugar syrup), more depth than a regular G&T and perfect for a summer's evening.

The Cocktail Guy says: A charming unmistakably Italian restaurant that manages to feel like a cosy village local.

Hot dish: Pan-fried monkfish with spinach and bacon sauce – the definition of simple but delicious Italian fare.

Cool cocktail: The Americano Shakerato (red vermouth, Campari bitters and fresh orange) – just what the doctor ordered in this setting.

Who: The funky Instagram brigade as well as locals and families.

What: Peruvian small plates and Pisco cocktails served in a glorious higgeltypiggelty room designed to look like a traditional home.

When: Mon 6pm-12am; Tues-Fri 12pm3pm; 6pm-12am; Sat 12pm-4pm.

Wear: Definitely casual.

Ms S says: The name translates to Mother Earth, which becomes apparent when you soak up the atmosphere in the room.

Hot dish: Sea bream ceviche, grapes and fennel on the light side, crispy lamb belly, jalepeño and miso for something meatier.

Cool cocktail: Chicama (Barsol Quebranta Pisco infused with Earl Grey Tea, St-Germain, lime and lavender bitters), from Mama's Cocktails, this side of the menu tends to be fruitier, more floral cocktails but this one was like a delicious, boozy tea.

Mr G says: The food is seriously good here, so go hungry and preferably in a crowd so you can work your way through the entire menu.

Hot dish: Of the snacks, definitely the brown crab and yuca churros; on the lunch plates quinoa waffles, yacón syrup and bacon for something different.

Cool cocktail: El Captain (Barsol Quebranta Pisco, Cocchi Vermouth di Torini, Angostura bitters), I love a Manhattan and this Pisco version works rather brilliantly.

Who: The new King's Cross possee: fashion students, media and whizz kids.

What: All-day, three-storey casual pub dining room with fabulous views across Granary Square and the Regent's Canal.

When: Mon-Thurs 8am-11.30pm; Fri 8am-12am; Sat 9am-12am; Sun 9am10.30pm.

Wear: Casual but you won't go wrong in black.

Ms S says: Meet friends for lunch and stay until early evening, it's that kind of place.

The food and drinks are good too, nothing fancy but executed perfectly. Everyone's a winner here.

Hot dish: Beer battered fish and chips, house tartare and crushed peas – you can't beat the classics when they're cooked this well; light, crispy and gorgeous.

Cool cocktail: The Seasonal G&T – on our visit made with Tarquin's Gin, homemade tonic and served long with rosemary and a straw – well made and suited to the glorious setting.

Mr G says: A very chilled-out light, airy spot for all-day dining. Good luck trying to get a seat outside in sunny weather but don't worry, indoors is equally airy.

Hot dish: Braised pork cheeks, apple compote and chicory salad – good and homely and cooked to perfection.

Cool cocktail: Goods Yard (Grey Goose Vodka, yuzu, caraway and lemon) – an agreeable aromatic twist on a traditional Vodka Martini.

The Cocktail Lovers - 65

IN-formed

WORD UP...

NEWS, VIEWS, REVIEWS AND HOW-TO’S The

Cocktail

Girl

In pursuit of spiritual enlightenment in London’s bars

Dandelyan

Summers in London are, shall we say, somewhat unpredictable.

This year more than most.

Rain one minute, sunshine the next – it’s enough to drive a girl to cocktails… But, and here’s the big question, where can you meet up for a quick drink after work or while away an entire evening, all while being privy to the odd burst of sun, when it makes an appearance, yet keeping dry when it starts bucketing down?

The answer, my friends, is Dandelyan. It’s been around for a while, granted, but for the brief it does the job perfectly. Sexy setting? Tick. Amazing bar team? Tick.

Cool vibe? You bet. And as it’s positioned slap, bang on the River Thames you get the views but none of the ‘weather’. Yesss! Plus, and this is a big one: how many places do you feel as comfortable taking your parents, boss, girlfriends or potential squeeze? Readers, this place works like a charm whatever the occasion, whatever time of day.

I guess you can tell I’m a fan, right? And I haven’t even got on to the drinks… Put it this way, there’s a reason why this team keep on winning awards, they’ve seriously got it going on. The botany-inspired menu is a delight, both from an aesthetic point of view and the innovative but very accessible drinks. Work your way through the thoughtfully laid out menu divided into Hunter, Gatherer, Shaman, Explorer, Dandelyan Classics and Boozeless – there’s plenty to choose from. My favourites so far include the zippingly fresh and summery Natural Born Gatherer (Ford’s Gin, melon wine, truffle aperitivo, elderflower and soda) from the Hunter section, and for when I’m abstaining but want something more interesting than juice or water, the Wild Thing (Seedlip, ylang ylang and Dandelyan tonic), from the Non-Alcoholic section. Like I said, it's got the lot.

Dandelyan, Mondrian at Sea Containers, 20 Upper Ground, London SE1 9PD. morgansgroup.com

66 - The Cocktail Lovers

CREATE A STIR EACH MONTH 5-21 August Olympic Games Something with the home grown spirit of Rio Soothsayer 20ml Yagura Cachaça 15ml fresh lime juice 10ml sage-infused elderflower cordial* Champagne to top Method: Shake and strain all ingredients except Champagne into a chilled Flute. Top with bubbles. Garnish with a sage leaf. *sage-infused elderf lower cordial: Add 60g of sage to 500ml elderf lower cordial. Infuse for 48 hours then strain Created by the bar team at JW Simpson revjwsimpson.com

17-18 September Thanksgiving Tequila & Mezcal Festival, Olympia Something with agave Casamigos Grape Caipirita 40ml Casamigos Blanco Tequila 25ml fresh lime juice 25ml simple syrup 5 red seedless grapes Method: Combine all ingredients into a tin shaker. Muddle the grapes. Add ice then shake vigorously for 8-10 seconds.

Pour into an iced-filled Rocks glass. Top with a fresh lime wheel.

IN-formed

SOUND SPECIAL

MUSIC TO DRINK COCKTAILS TO...

Notable nibbles

The ultimate playlist The Departure Lounge was created to be the score to a world that probably never existed; a world of Riviera nightclubs, High-Rollers, Crime Fighters, car chases, femmes fatales and hard liquor. Action! Glamour! Excitement! The soundtrack to your Jet Set life!

There’s no reason why an evening of cocktails shouldn’t evoke such drama, shouldn’t awaken all the senses. The feel of Sea Island cotton against bare skin, the aroma of Chanel No.5, catching their eye across a crowded room, the taste of that first Martini: sounds like our world, doesn’t it? Not yet. In compiling the perfect playlist, one should remember that the introduction of music into this sensual passion play should underline our situation, should reaffirm it. It isn’t there to tell us how to feel, it’s there to assure us that how we feel is right.

The Ultimate Playlist Begin with Bond. Sean Connery’s arrival at Café Martinique in Thunderball is probably the single most evocative moment from the entire James Bond film series. This scene encapsulates the world of 007 and this is due in no small part to John Barry’s wonderful music.

Still performing to sold out concert halls worldwide, Ennio Morricone suggests Excuse Me, Let’s Make Love. Oh, OK then.

You may recognise Steve Gray’s A Tender Touch from a TV commercial. It’s also perfect for opening cocktails.

Written by the brilliant Roger Webb and performed by his alter-ego Paul Dupont and His Orchestra, For Deborah is ethereal and perfect.

King of Library Music, Keith Mansfield, lures us further into our world of swank with Morning Broadway.

Clearspring Brown Rice Black Sesame Crackers When your stomach is screaming ‘snack-attack’ and your brain is telling you to get a grip, meet in the middle with these crispiest of crackers from Clearspring. Glutenfree, wheat-free and organic, the only thing they haven’t left out is taste. clearsping.co.uk

HEART OF GLASS

Sexy, cool and slightly dangerous, Teddy Randazzo’s theme from The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. is a Bossa Nova masterpiece.

Star of the Italian classic Metti Una Sera A Cena, Florinda Bolkan also performs the title song. A romantic glass-clinker.

The beautiful Barbara Moore brings us the Jet Set hymn, Fly Paradise.

This man has never written a bad tune in his life. Carrying us on through the evening is Janko Nilovic and Centre Atomique.

Keeping it sexy, another Italian Maestro, Piero Umiliani introduces us to the Fotomodelle.

A cult hero of The Departure Lounge, Chris Joss immerses us in mystery (an essential ingredient of any Cocktail Party) with the contents of The Suitcase. An explosive piece of Spy-Fi. Originally written and performed by Alan Hawkshaw and used as the theme for ‘Dave Allen at Large’, the track ‘Studio 69’ is here remixed by Elliot Ireland and served afresh as Dave is Not Here. Hammonds, Hammonds everywhere…

Britain’s answer to The 5th Dimension, Design, deliver not so much a song as an Easy Listening mission statement with The Jet Song. Powerhouse horns and harmonies will fill the heart.

Time travel may be impossible, but Groove Travel can be achieved. Hit the ‘play’ button on The Chicken by Dick Oliver. It’s like being in a nightclub in St. Tropez with Roger Moore and Peter Wyngarde in 1971. And which one of us would not want to be there?

Whose round is it? No one’s. The drinks are on the house.

Lancelot Narayan produces The Departure Lounge. Available on iTunes Radio, radio. net and radionomy.com

68 - The Cocktail Lovers

Riedel have long had the wine glass game licked and now, thanks to bartender Stephan Hinz, they’re not looking too shabby on the cocktail front either. Upgrade your glasses to the Spiegelau Perfect Serve Cocktail Collection – they look ordinary enough but like everything under the Riedel umbrella, the silhouette and shape of each of the seven vessels in the range has been designed to amplify the taste of your drink. And like some darned clever jiggery-pokery, it works too! spiegelau-perfectservecollection.com

IN-formed

Flights of fancy...

Virgin Atlantic Heathrow Clubhouse sure know how to please cocktail lovers. Get this, throughout August it will be home to one of the finest bars in the world, and we mean that sincerely folks. The space will be transformed every week to make you feel like you’ve travelled the globe without stepping foot outside the Clubhouse. Allow plenty of time before your flight to enjoy one of the bespoke drinks from the teams at, drum roll please:

One for the drinks cabinet

Why stop at one bottle when you can pretty up your drinks cabinet with the entire Koval Whiskey collection? Made in Chicago, the single-barrel, 100% organic spirits are rather spesh in the taste department too. Choose from Bourbon, Four Grain Whiskey, Millet, Oat, White Rye and Rye Whiskies and once you’ve fallen for those, work your way on to the Gin. kovaldistillery.com

1st-7th August: Quinary, Hong Kong 8th-14th August: Hinoki & The Bird, Los Angeles 15th-21st August: Dandelyan, London 22nd-28th August: Employees Only, New York 29th August-4th September: Bourbon & Branch, San Francisco Get booking those flights now! virgin-atlantic.com

FRENCH FANCY

KEEP HYDRATED THIS SUMMER Drink healthy by Iain Bell The simple way to hydrate (and look after your customers) is iced water with sodium. This will increase hydration through the stomach lining and the small intestine. Add a pinch of salt (1g) for every 1000ml, and a big wedge of freshly cut lemon. You shouldn't taste the salt. For every cocktail serve a 150ml of this to your clients.

Simple.

Paris: so many fabulous cocktail bars, so little time to visit them all.

Recreate that je ne sais quoi at home, wherever you may be in the world with Parisian Cocktails – 65 elegant drinks and bites from the City of Light, available from 8 September. rylandpeters.com

If you’re sunning yourself on holiday this works as a great way to hydrate and give yourself a vitamin C boost. Add a standard Berocca for a true turbo boost – an effervescent glass of multivitamins and minerals.

Iain Bell is a wellness consultant and founder of the Bartenders Manifesto, a guide to bartender wellbeing. bartendersmanifesto.com

THINGS THAT MAKE US GO, ‘OOH’

Who doesn't love a bit of shiny copper?

Particularly when it’s been fashioned into something as sinuous and sexy as the Plum Shot Glasses by Tom Dixon – we like. A lot. houseology.com

LAST ORDERS Former lawyer turned TV personality Nancy Dell’Olio added drinks producer to her CV when she launched her new Limonbello liqueur in July this year. Based on an old family recipe using Sicilian lemons, it took two years to perfect and is the first sugar-free, alkaline limoncello on the market. We caught up with her to ask her what her last drink would be.

What would your last order be?

At one point I would have said it would be a Margarita but that was before I launched my Limonbello, now I would go for a chilled glass of that!

Where would you have it?

At home or at the Groucho Club in London.

Who would you share it with?

It’s always important to drink with people you love to hang with, so I would choose family and closest friends. limonbello.com

The Cocktail Lovers - 69

Shanghai surprise When Chivas announced it was staging its Chivas Masters Global Cocktail Competition in Shanghai this year, it was a very big deal. This was the first time a major cocktail competition had taken place in China, let alone the city.

We can’t think why: the bar and restaurant scene has escalated enormously in this part of the world in the past few years and the appetite for quality spirits and cocktails has followed suit.

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FYI, Shanghai has got serious swagger. See it in the day in its swanky designer boutiques along Nanjing Road and feel it pulsating at night along the Bund. This is China’s most populous city (23 million and counting), and the most influential and cosmopolitan one too. And where money and trade go, good food and drink follow. As we found out during our stay.

Clockwise from top: yao lu at union trading company; at the bar at constellation; outside e.p.i.c.

and travelled to 2012 what would it look like. By his own admission, he’s cherry-picked ideas from his travels and brought them into being in this 20-seater room. That’s the look, now the drinks… Here they are of the competition winning kind. There’s Shingo’s Bacardí Legacy winner Speak Low (Bacardí 8, Pedro Ximinez sherry, matcha) and Bar Manager Fay Chen’s Gold Fashion (Bacardí Carta Ora, honey logan water, Angostura aromatic bitters) as well as a number of rituals all served in beautifully elegant glassware.

There’s another floor where members can sit and sip their rare Japanese whiskies, and Scotch which they buy and store in their personal lockers. As nice as it is, there’s no need for FOMO, we still think the second floor is the best.

THE BAR AND RESTAURANT SCENE HAS ESCALATED ENORMOUSLY IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD

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4. TAILOR 4th floor, 2 Huashan Lu, Shanghai Don’t panic, you are in the right place. Yes, you’re stood outside an office block and yes, you do have to ascend to the fourth floor in an uninspiring lift (passing a Chinese Pharmacy on the way) but once you’re up there, you’ll be in no doubt you’ve got the correct address.

If Tailor was a suit it would be light in colour and weight, loosely cut and, although classic, would have some modern detailing. That’s represented in the room – on one hand it’s fairly standard but the floor to ceiling windows and collections of bar porn – the displays of shakers and bottles above the door for instance – let you know there’s some artistry afoot. That’s down to the fact that owner Eddy Yang studied fashion at Central St. Martin’s School of Art in London. So why wouldn’t he call his bar Tailor?

Yang takes the name and extends it to the menu – there isn’t one. Instead he or one of his team will ask you for your spirits preference, mood, palate etc and fashion you something accordingly. Trust them, they know their stuff.

Sight

SNAPSHOT: 1.

A peek into the hottest events, competitions and openings in the last few months 4.

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1. Billie J.D. Porter and Stephen Jones at the Bronte launch party. Bronte, London, July 2016.

4. Lily Cole, Naomie Harris and Laetitia Casta at the Cointreau Creative Crew Awards.

Liberty of London, May 2016.

7. Ketel One 325 birthday celebrations with the Nolet family. Ketel One Distillery, Schiedam, May 2016.

2. Gn Chan, Bacardí Legacy Global Final 2016 Winner. Bentley Reserve, San Francisco, April 2016.

5. Alistair Reynolds, Diageo Reserve World Class GB Bartender of the Year 2015 and Aidan Bowie, Diageo Reserve World Class GB Bartender of the Year 2016 winner. Rosewood Hotel, London, June 2016.

8. Rochelle and Marvin Hume at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, sponsored

by Cointreau. Berkeley Square, London, June 2016.

3. Chivas Masters Global Final 2016 winner Alejandro Millán Ponce De León and Maximilian Warner, Chivas Regal Global Brand Ambassador. The Long Bar, Waldorf Astoria, Shanghai, June 2016.

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6. Chivas Masters Global Final winning team, The Beach Brothers. The Long Bar, Waldorf Astoria, Shanghai, June 2016.

9. Gemma Arterton, Cointreau Theatre Actress Award winner at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards. Berkeley Square, London, June 2016.