I am no stranger to the London Cocktail Clubs. Out of the six Cocktail Clubs and one Craft Cocktail Co, I’d already been to five of them before being invited along to their Islington branch. LDN Life were invited to sup on the new menu at their latest establishment, and have a peek at their new back room, a little haven away from the madness in the main bar (or perhaps an extension of it).
JJ Goodman himself was there to talk us through how the Cocktail Clubs got started, the idea behind them, and to go through the whys and wherefores of the current menu. It was really interesting and infectious to hear him talking about why he wanted the type of bar he wanted and to see his passion for making seriously good drinks.
I won’t go through the entire menu here myself but he talked about why some cocktails are LCC classics and will never be taken off the menu – the bacon and egg martini for example (which I later sampled and which I can confirm is very tasty, though got a little too sweet by the end for my liking) and why they weren’t afraid to put a mojito on the menu when so many ‘serious’ bars refused. People like mojitos so why shouldn’t LCC give it to them? They’ll just make sure they’re the best damn mojitos you can get – how many limes is the right number of limes? How many sprigs of mint? All of this came under consideration.
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So the crafting of the cocktails is taken very seriously indeed but the overarching factor for any of JJ’s bars is that drinking is fun and that’s what these bars are for. The music is always cranked up and playing tunes that make you want to dance, the bartenders are larking about, there’s dancing on tabletops and banging on the bars and lights. It’s raucous. It’s great.
Needless to say the cocktails were flowing and everyone was having a merry time. I tried to taste a good few different types (all in the name of research) and for once managed to get one of the sharing cocktails that look so epic. We had the sharing cocktail served in a skull with scooped out passion fruit set alight. Quite the spectacle and more than enough booze for two or three people to share. A favourite of the night, and one that seemed to attract a lot of attention considering its understated look was the Roselle – a drink combining gin, lime and grapefruit juice and hibiscus syrup and having a beautiful pink hue. This was a ‘sour’ but with no nasty bite.
But there are so many cocktails to choose from. Oh and of course they have happy hour every day until 8 and all day Mondays, as well as a ‘secret serve’ that changes monthly so whenever you want a hefty side of fun with your cocktails, head on down.