Behind the Bar, стр. 9
Bacchus Piano Lounge – the more relaxed, yet no less elegant, zone of Bacchus, the restaurant where West-Coast ingredients get the French treatment – greets visitors with a large oil painting depicting the Roman god of wine and hedonism, for whom the bar is named. During the day, the lounge’s sinuous red booths are filled with patrons partaking in lavish afternoon tea. Come evening, it’s the roster of classic cocktails that gets attention, sipped to the sounds of nightly live music. Martinis, such as the stand-in-for-dessert ‘Red Satin Slip’ with vodka, raspberry liqueur, cranberry and lime, are plentiful.
When three young and audacious former school chums opened Experimental Cocktail Club in Paris in 2007, it unleashed a forward-thinking cocktail culture in a city where such glories had largely been confined to genteel hotels. Similar bars soon sprang up in London and New York before the collective expanded to hotels, including Grand Pigalle in Paris and the Henrietta in London’s Covent Garden. Experimental Group now includes a Verbier chalet, a Venetian palazzo and a Menorcan finca; and it’s not surprising that all of these disparate settings put the startling cocktails for which the hospitality group is known at the forefront. Contemporary concepts such as these are flowering (and welcomed) across the continent. Even London – a city with particular classic cocktail gravitas – is wide open to astonishing guests with unpredictably well-executed creations. But the proud old girls, the bars that are portals into bygone days of pocket squares, Scotch-sipping tycoons and bronzed celebrities necking on terraces, are gratefully as confident as ever.
No. 14
Hanky Panky
AMERICAN BAR AT THE SAVOY, LONDON, UK
Created by Ada Coleman
INGREDIENTS
45 ml (1½ fl oz) London Dry Gin
45 ml (1½ fl oz) sweet red vermouth
7.5 ml (¼ fl oz) Fernet Branca
orange twist, to garnish
METHOD
Stir all the ingredients together in a mixing glass filled with ice. Strain into a coupe glass and finish with an orange twist.
One peep at the Thames Foyer, with its gazebo and patrons sat down to afternoon tea underneath the glass-domed atrium, and it’s clear that The Savoy – former playground for the likes of Sarah Bernhardt, George Gershwin and Judy Garland and the first London hotel to feature lifts that were hydraulically operated – is every bit as luminous as when theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte opened the hotel in 1889. A year later, famed hotelier César Ritz joined him as general manager. One of the most tempting reasons to pop into the Edwardian-meets-Art-Deco hotel in theatre-packed Covent Garden is the grand-piano-shaped American Bar, going strong since the 1890s (1904 in this location).
Drink-slinging females were a rarity in 1903, when Ada Coleman was named head bartender, yet she held that post for over two decades. Together with Harry Craddock, the bartender who compiled the recipes for The Savoy Cocktail Book, which published in 1930, they moulded the American Bar’s reputation. In more recent years, bartenders like Peter Dorelli and Erik Lorincz ensured that it was preserved. Do try a drink from the ‘Savoy Songbook’, a modern-day tribute to musicians such as Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, then order a ‘White Lady’ from the vintage menu. Heightened by the pianist in the background, it’s a jolt of old-fashioned romance.
COLEMAN FIRST STARTED SERVING DRINKS AT CLARIDGE’S BEFORE MAKING HER WAY OVER TO THE EQUALLY STYLISH SAVOY’S BRAND-NEW AMERICAN BAR. AS HEAD BARTENDER – NO SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENT IN AN ERA WHEN WOMEN WERE DEEMED MERE ‘BAR-MAIDS’ – THE THEATRE-LOVING ‘COLEY’, AS SHE WAS KNOWN, TENDED TO CELEBRITY GUESTS LIKE THE PRINCE OF WALES AND MARK TWAIN WITH GREAT SKILL AND HUMOUR FOR 23 YEARS. HER MOST FAMOUS CREATION IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE HANKY PANKY, WHICH WAS MADE WHEN SIR CHARLES HAWTREY SAID TO HER ‘I’M HALF DEAD; WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE ME FEEL QUITE ALIVE’. THE FOLLOWING EVENING SIR CHARLES RETURNED AND ASKED FOR…
‘some more of that hanky-panky’.
No. 15
White Mouse
THE AMERICAN BAR AT THE STAFFORD LONDON, UK
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Gabriel Boudier Saffron Gin
25 ml (¾ fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice
15 ml (½ fl oz) Rosemary Syrup*
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) egg white
Champagne, to top up
fresh rosemary sprig, to garnish
*For the Rosemary Syrup
500 ml (17 fl oz) water
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) sugar
bunch of fresh rosemary
METHOD
For the Rosemary Syrup, combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the rosemary and bring to a boil, then pour the mixture into a sterilised glass jar and let cool.
To make the cocktail, combine the saffron gin, lemon juice, rosemary syrup and egg white in a cocktail shaker and dry shake. Add ice to the shaker, then shake again. Strain into a coupe glass and top up with Champagne. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
Hidden away from the hubbub of Piccadilly, the first thing one notices upon entering The Stafford London is how desirably quiet it is. Built in the 17th century as private residences fit for a lord, The Stafford London opened in 1912. Abundant in Victorian flourishes and complete with carriage-house accommodations where guests sleep in onetime stables overlooking a cobbled courtyard, it feels less like a hotel than a noble mansion. During World War II, The Stafford London was a stomping ground for homesick American and Canadian officers, while its labyrinthine wine cellars – a 1600s relic –served as an air raid shelter.
At The American Bar, where bar manager Benoit Provost – a fixture since 1993 – is the debonair host, autographed photos and a mish-mash of baseball caps, flags and model aeroplanes dangling from the ceiling allude