NEIGHBOURHOOD BARS
T RAISING A GLASS TO NEIGHBOURHOOD BARS Destination bars are all well and good but there's a lot to be said for drinking closer to home. By Gary Sharpen
54 THE COCK TAIL LOVERS / ISSUE 45
here used to be a bar, quite some years ago, that was about a five-minute walk from where we live. The design of the space itself was nothing particularly special. Open all day, the lighting worked well enough. Music seemed to cover hip-hop, pop, jazz, soul, reggae, Latin, with no particular rhyme or reason. The food consisted of simple snacks that were pretty good. And then there were the drinks. Now these were always fun. They knew how to pour a beer and open a bottle of wine (both from well-priced selections). As for cocktails… We have particularly happy memories of the cocktails. They had a few on the menu, some classics and a few original creations. We soon learned, though, it was about who was making them. If it was the assistant bar manager, let’s call them ‘X’, then we couldn’t have been happier. But if the task fell to absolutely anyone else on the team we were in for an absolute shocker. As I say, we learned. If we were served by X then we would order a cocktail and it would always be
