Naked and Famous in Shoreditch

My cousin used to work in a bar in Brixton. I learnt a lot from him: how to stick a straw to the outside of a martini glass, how to chat up cute guys on his atheletic’s team at university, that kind of stuff. He also taught me a lot about music, and one song that was always on our uni playlist was by ‘Young Blood’, titled ‘Naked and Famous’.

This also happens to be the name of what I guess one of the most well-known classic mezcal cocktails. It’s a mix of mezcal with yellow Chartreuse, Aperol and lime juice, a twist on the ‘Last Word’ cocktail. Once I heard Joseph Mortera, kickass gin ambassador in Mexico, say it was the only cocktail he prefers made with mezcal instead of gin so there’s another testament of it’s greatness for you!

On this particular evening, I find myself at the upstairs bar at Hawksmoor Spitalfields in Shoreditch. This isn’t because I’m not a huge fan of the cocktail bar downstairs (I LOVE IT) but it’s because I’m hanging out with Johnnie. He’s an awesome Spanish bartender that I’d met maybe a year ago? And somehow we ended up in Barcelona at the same time last summer and had a night out there too. It’s always great seeing him because he always has a huge smile, lots of positivity and creative ideas. And today he was telling me about how recently he’s been told that he looks like a younger Saul Berenson from Homeland. I had no idea who that was but had to laugh out loud when we googled him:

Definitely go to Hawksmoor Spitalfields for the drinks on their menu, which changes by season. They also won ‘Best International Restaurant Bar’ at the Spirited Awards at Tales of the Cocktail and are in the running to win again this year! And they do a pretty wicked mac and cheese too 😉

Best of luck to them for the awards and ¡Salud!

-Hawksmoor Spitalfields, Shorditch, London UK

Aperol Spritz in a Beer Garden

England had gone mad.
London was sunny and over 30° every day, the English football team seemed to be headed for the finals and everyone was obsessing over ‘Love Island’.
-OK I need to pause and talk about this Love Island thing a second especially as I’ve noticed that most of my readers aren’t British… I have to admit that a programme where «single people get put into a villa and they have to couple up» sounded absolutely absurd so only possible explanation was that the sun had obviously got into my friends’ heads… But now I’ve found myself back in Mexico having downloaded a VPN and stressing out when I’m behind on episodes. Oops. #TeamLauraAndJack.

Anyway back to sunny England, and sunny Shoreditch to be exact. I have always loved Shoreditch and actually, some of my first experiences drinking alone have been here in a little underground cocktail bar called Hawksmoor Spitalfields, but we’ll come back to them in another post, perhaps the next.

On this day, I caught up with my friend Lizzie after she’d been showing off some scotch and gin around her accounts. I was half an hour late 😦 But when I finally did make it, we met up in a beer garden which belongs to ‘The Crown and Shuttle’ and it was PACKED. So packed that the actual beer garden was full, and we snuck up to a little balcony overlooking… the plastic covering the beer garden haha.

We were feeling bubbly, so Lizzie had a wine spritzer and I ordered an Aperol Spritz. I’ve been enjoying Aperol Spritz for about two years now, ever since I was having a chat to Luca Cinalli in Oriole, and when asking what his favourite cocktail was, that was his choice. The next day in a pub I couldn’t think of anything else, and on sunny days it’s high up on my list of thirst-quenchers.

Our chat circled about plans for the future. The near (where shall we go next?) and the far (I probably won’t ever get married!) but it’s a great little pub, such a fun vibe from the bartenders to the clients! I don’t know if it’s somewhere I’d go alone though actually – it’s a place more tailored for groups and no seats at the bar, but 100% recommended for groups when sunny or for evening fun.

Cheers!

-Crown and Shuttle, Shoreditch, London UK

French me in East London

On the phone, me «Lizzie, Hesh wants to go to Satan’s Whiskers. Is it any good?»
Lizzie (London based, ex Pernod, current Remy Martin, my best bud and go-to on cool London joints) «Yeah it’s fab! One of the industry peoples’ favourites actually. How does he know about it?»

Satan’s Whiskers it is then.

I hadn’t seen Hesh for four years – just before I’d moved to Mexico was the last time we’d caught up over a beverage. And here we are again with me telling him I’m coming back.

This particular afternoon was extraodinary as English weather goes – as in, bare legs no jumper weather – and we had two plans. A couple of beers in a beer garden enjoying the sun, then a couple of cocktails in Santan’s Whiskers round the corner. We started off over a beer, and feeling daring he went for a smoked pale ale… and wasn’t that convinced, ha ha!

Me «Did you know that they use peat, a natural carbon often found in the Scottish islands, to add the smoked flavour during the malting process??» – whoops, I’ve just slipped into alcohol-related ramble again!
Hesh «What are you going to do if you leave the alcohol industry for good? You obviously love it.»
Me «I’m not going to leave entirely… I’m going to write a blog about drinking alone.»
Hesh *Plays imaginary violin*

Hahaha. I guess I’m going to be getting that reaction a lot, but that’s why it’s worth writing all this!

We arrive to Satan’s Whiskers and are greeted by Joe the bartender. This bar is amazing, I quickly spot the devil decoration on the drip rail (see both photos) and… is that AN EAGLE(?) WITH A SNAKE’S HEAD? (see photo of French 75).

Joe explains that they offer different cocktails every single day. How is this possible? They have a huge library of drinks and the bartender working the shift chooses which they would like to make on that particular evening. His favourite on the menu is the French 75 with cognac, yum! So of course I ordered that, and Hesh a martini which apart from yum was also super photogenic! Hesh re-ordered the French (big fan of the maraschino cherry) whilst I moved onto mezcales. In Mexico, there are over 200 registered-to-sell-commercially mezcales, however in UK I’ve only consistantly seen about 3 different brands. They did have a cheeky Minero style however which I enjoyed a lot, and needless to say we were the last in the bar.

We left with Hesh commenting how he now understood why I prefer to sit at the bar instead of taking a seat at a table. Great success!!

Cheers!

-Satan’s Whiskers, Bethnal Green, London UK