Shaker maker taker!

jeudi 17 novembre 2011

Nightjar

On City Road, about 25 metres from the roundabout beneath which the Old Street tube labyrinth winds, you'll discover a door. It's positioned between a café that begins with a 'c' and a cafeteria which is, for whatever reason, spelled with a 'k'.

Behind this central door and down the stairs is Nightjar, a cocktail bar and music venue which stays open late and leads with live jazz and debonair drinking. With its inconspicuous entrance, a distant, doubting doorman and underground subterranean setting, it's a stylised stab at a Shoreditch speakeasy but, like all efforts to refabricate illicit bars from the era of Prohibition, it's more faux than phwoarr.

First and foremost, the cocktails here are excellent and original. In a genuine speakeasy, drinks were dirt cheap, laced with illegal moonshine made by ne'er-do-wells and likely to make you go blind. That, thankfully, doesn't happen here.

A gifted bunch of bartenders have compiled a well-crafted list featuring liquid legacies from cocktail's golden era and pre-Prohibition drinks incorporating homemade infusions and liqueurs and bitters. They take time to make the drinks but, once brought to your table by (maybe overly) meticulous staff and accompanied by an array of canapés, they both look and taste the business.

The BBC, made with calvados and Becherovka cordial, is served with 'absinthe smoke', while misty 'dry ice' vapours add allure to the Fog Cutter, an alcoholic orgy of rum, sherry, gin and Cognac. Even more experimental is the Aged Pina Colada. The bartenders have created the tiki classic and laid it down in Limousin oak barrels, where it's languidly matured for a few months.

Compared with its scruffy Shoreditch neighbours, it's a dapper, dusky place to drink. Seeing as it's a speakeasy, it's a bit mock-Manhattan; a trio of open-plan areas go big on brass, black leather booths and dark wood beneath the standard tin-panelled ceiling - it's all ideal for late night canoodling. The big mirrored murals are a nice touch but, on closer inspection, some of the finishes and fittings look a little flimsy.

On Friday nights, DJs play retro tunes and a raised platform provides the stage for regular live music including cabaret, swing, jazz, blues and ragtime. Live performances are planned for Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, when a small cover charge is added to the bill.

Time line for drinks

c. 3000 BC In the Middle East wine is a common drink. In Egypt beer is popular.

1200 AD Vines are grown in England. Mead and cider are also drunk but the most popular drink is ale (beer brewed without hops).

c. 1600 Beer replaces ale as the most common drink in England. Cider is also very popular.

1651 The first coffee house where people can drink coffee and chat opens

1657 Tea is first sold in England

c. 1700 Gin drinking becomes very popular among the poor

1751 A duty is charged on gin ending the problem of many people drinking cheap gin

1759 Guinness is first brewed

1772 Fizzy drinks are invented

1789 Bourbon whiskey is first distilled

1839 Indian Tea is first sold in Britain

1842 Golden lager is invented

1865 The coffee percolator is invented

1883 Horlicks is invented

1885 Dr Pepper

1886 Coca Cola is invented

1888 Paper drinking straws are invented

1889 The screw bottle top is invented

1900 Coca Cola is first sold in Britain

1901 Instant coffee is invented

1904 Ovaltine is invented. Iced Tea is popularised when it is sold at the St Louis Worlds Fair.

1908 Vimto is invented. Melitta Bentz invents the coffee filter.

1924 Tizer goes on sale

1935 Canned beer is first sold

1940 Tea is rationed in Britain

1952 Tea rationing ends

1953 Teabags are first sold in Britain

1970 The rum ration in the British navy ends

1985 The widget for beer cans is invented

mardi 15 novembre 2011

Manet
The Absinthe Drinker
Manet

1859 Edouard Manet (1832-1883) creates the first great Absinthe painting.

L'absinthe Degas
L'absinthe Degas (1834-1917)

1870 The Absinthe Boom Vineyards in France are almost destroyed by the Phylloxera bug. Wine is scarce for the next 30 years. Absinthe takes its place.

Punch cartoon
'Phylloxera, a true gourmet, finds out the best vineyards and attaches itself to the best wines' Punch cartoon
Gogh
1887 Still Life With Absinthe Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1887
Green Muse
The Green Muse Maignan

Parisian Decadence

By the 1890s The Moulin Rouge is in full swing. Absinthe has outgrown its cult status and is enjoyed by millions.

Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge by Lautrec
Death

1905 Swiss farmer, Jean Lanfray, murdered his wife and daughters sparking a national campaign to obtain a ban on absinthe. Lanfray was said to be under the influence of absinthe when he shot his family – he was also known to be a wine guzzling alcoholic, who had washed down two glasses of absinthe with no less than a crème de menthe, a cognac, six glasses of wine with lunch, a glass of wine before leaving work, coffee with brandy and more wine before committing his crime.

1906 Absinthe was banned in Belgum and in 1908absinthe was successfully banned in Switzerland whereas France consumed a whopping 36,000,000 litres!

At the height of its popularity in 1915 absinthe was banned in France. Absinthe became caught up in the temperance movement that was sweeping Europe, thus becoming the scapegoat for alcohol. Pressure came from wine producers, who saw it as competition to their ailing wine trade trying to recover after the bout of phylloxera. Findings were also published showing that although small quantities of thujone were beneficial, extremely large quantities were a neurotoxin. Traditional absinthe became a thing of the past and was replaced by Pastis (a reformed version of absinthe omitting the vital ingredient – wormwood).

Delayahe
Marie-Claude Delahaye

Marie-Claude Delahaye &
George Rowley

The Return of La Fée - In 1998, George Rowley, entrepreneur and specialty drinks importer, begins investigating the worldwide absinthe bans world. On July 21st, 1998 he secures the UK government’s authorization on the landmark document allowing absinthe to be legally sold in the European Union. He works closely with Marie-Claude Delahaye, the world-expert on absinthe to ensure the utter authenticity of La Fée.

certificate
Pernod
1797 Henri-Louis Pernod opens his
first absinthe distillery in Couvet,
the Val-de Travers, Switzerland

1792 Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor, develops the first version of Absinthe in the Swiss town of town of Couvet. By mixing wormwood with other herbs and alcohol he creates his highly alcoholic elixir which quickly becomes a cure-all tonic

1805 Henri-Louis opens his second distillery, this time in Pontarlier, France. Production quickly rises from 16 litres a day to 30,000, establishing the town as the new home of The Green Fairy

French Foriegn Legion

1840 The French Foreign Legion

Soldiers fighting in Algeria are given Absinthe to ward off disease. It proves so popular, returning troops demand the drink in the salons and cafés of Paris


Absinthe Time Table from the La fée web site

Wormwood
Grand Wormwood Artemisia absinthium

Pliny The Elder reports that the champions of Roman chariot races are given a cup of wine steeped in wormwood as a reminder that victory is bittersweet.

Hippocrates, father of medicine recommends wormwood for a number of ailments including menstrual pains, rheumatism and anaemia