Name: The American Bar
Where: The Savoy
Vibe: Old School
USP: the longest surviving cocktail bar in London
Price: ​cocktails typically £20.

In the world of cocktails, some things go a long way. I have a bottle of Angostura Bitters at home that I bought many years back, has been used extensively and will likely carry on many years hence. A Whiskey Sour for example requires no more than a few dashes, yet those few dashes make all the difference. It would be foolhardy however to add more thinking it will improve the drink, it will not.

The American Bar at The Savoy would do well to remember this. As the 'longest surviving cocktail bar in London,' it has had many a famous person pass through its door and that shimmer of fame has always made the bar feel special. But in its most recent format, they are (almost literally) shoving their historical famous associations down your throat. The new cocktail menu is described thus:

"Every Moment Tells A Story’ draws inspiration from twenty iconic black and white portraits by British photographer Terry O'Neill that have adorned the American Bar walls since the 1980s.

O'Neill's style of photography resulted in candid and often unconventional depictions of the stars of the 60s and 70s. Featuring the likes of Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, David Bowie, Judy Garland, Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore, each portrait displayed in the bar reveals a hidden story. The bar team have used the idea of every moment telling a story for the basis of an innovative, yet timeless menu, creating a cocktail around each image, and the story behind it."
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In taking the photographs off the walls and making them central to the menu, they've made The American Bar the cocktail equivalent of Planet Hollywood, aimed squarely at the tourist who is invited to gush over celebrities who drank here 50 years ago. The impression given off now by The American Bar is that of a (just about) living museum and that's boring. And for a grand bar, it also feels somewhat desperate. 

And I can't imagine what anyone under the age of 35 makes of it. Half the celebrities featured on the cocktail menu are dead, the rest are pensioners. Former Prime Minister David Cameron, who is decades younger than anyone featured on the menu, joked at his final PMQ that, 'I was the future once.' So was Bob Hope, in 1920. 

At 5pm on Wednesday, when offices kick out and a limited version of 'happy hour' at Mac & Wild starts, the whisky bar at Mac & Wild is empty. In fact, when we arrived, it was empty even of staff and we stood around for five minutes joking about being left alone in a whisky bar.

The range of whisky on offer is impressive but none of that really matters because the staff's lacklustre enthusiasm for the product provides a seemingly equal counterbalance. It feels cynical. Whereas so many of London's brightest spots now have grown out of someone's unbridled enthusiasm, I get no sense of that here.

Happy hour offers '2 for 1' on a limited range of drinks. I'm intrigued by a Glenfiddich Orchard Slushie (regular price £7) but fearing it might not be as fun to drink as it sounds (a whisky slushie!), we think that pairing it with a drink from the Highball menu (regular price £10) would be the best option. I ask the barman if on the '2 for 1' deal I can have a slushie and a highball. The answer comes back, 'no.' I'm quoting directly here, the barman didn't say, 'sorry, no,' or anything like, he just said, 'no.' As the barman was so abrupt, I thought maybe that was a joke on his part.
So I asked, 'are you joking.'
'No.'

I enquired why this was not possible. He said there wasn't a button on the till for it. I was simply gobsmacked at their approach to customer service and needs. Look around dude, you've got an empty bar, ever wondered why? It's happy hour, it's empty. It's not happy, it's miserable. Clearly here, the customer is not even close to being right. I don't really blame him though, in that sense, he gives every impression of being a foot soldier obeying orders for a paycheck.

In the end, we agree that I can have a slushie and a highball cocktail but I would have to pay the price of the more expensive drink. Whatever.

As it turned out, the slushie was quite nice, it felt like there was a lot of sugar syrup in it to make it so, but it was still a pleasant surprise. The highball we chose was The Skipper (Talisker Skye, Soda, Black Pepper). I must take some blame here, I selected it because it had Talisker in which I thought would guarantee some bite and that they might do something extra or clever with it. The answer was no, this was simply a whisky and soda with the whisky so diluted as to be meaningless, giving more of an impression that what you were drinking was contaminated rather than constructed. Off key soda water. Looking at it now, the whole Highballs menu is a joke of a cocktail list.

When we started the CC Cocktails stream on the blog, we suggested there were, possibly, no bad cocktails in London anymore, the competitive dynamic simply didn't allow for it. I was wrong, there are, they're at Mac & Wild. Okay, they're a whisky bar not a dedicated cocktail bar but in that case, don't serve cocktails, or at least, don't serve bad cocktails. And true whisky lovers would blush at serving something so insipid.  

Mac & Wild have got good reviews for some of their food, so someone somewhere cares. But I guess I'll never get to try the food because on a given Wednesday afternoon in the whisky bar, no one seemed to give a fig. As such, I have no interest in returning ever again, for the food or the drink. London offers too many other places where people do care and are trying really hard: that's where you'll find me.  

Name: Clarette
Where: Blandford Street, Marylebone, London, W1U (tube Baker St/Bond St)
Vibe: Serious French meets English wine bar culture
USP: Chateau Margaux
Nearby Restaurant: Roganic
Price: In parts, hugely decent. Read on. 

'Legendary grump' Norman Balon of the Coach and Horses pub, Soho, was better known as London's Rudest Landlord. On the occasions I ever visited the Tudor Rose pub on Blandford Street, Marylebone, I always felt they were making a land-grab for the title. Perhaps this is why they closed down back whenever. While a refurbed and revamped Tudor Rose with a new and polite landlord installed might have been expected, instead, Clarette appeared.

Clarette's website reads, 'Clarette is a chic, refined and stylish restaurant and wine bar,' and that it is. But that undersells it somewhat, but as the website's 'About' tab reveals, 'wine is at the heart of everything at Clarette.' I know they all say that but really, now we're getting somewhere. One of the co-owners is Alexandra Petit-Mentzelopoulos, the youngest daughter of the owner of Chateau Margaux in Bordeaux. Yes, the Chateau Margaux.

That is one hell of a USP. And that is why I am here.

I've been curious to visit Clarette for sometime, but with a trip to Roganic planned, browsing the Clarette website, one thing really caught my eye, they do a 'Margaux Discovery wine flight'. For £65, you get a 50ml glass of each of the following: Pavillon Blanc du Chateau Margaux 2015, Margaux du Chateau Margaux 2012 and Chateau Margaux Grand Vin 2004. Yes indeed, 50ml of one of the world's truly great wines where the provenance is assured (and two other fabulous wines from the fold).

At this moment, you're either thinking, wow, that's good value, or wow, £65 for 150ml of wine is crazy expensive. But of a 750ml bottle, 50ml is 6.7%. Now, the Pavillon Blanc is a £200+ bottle of wine, retail. That's £15 then for 50ml at retail prices. The Margaux du Margaux, which I admit is something I've not tried before, is the third wine of Margaux (the second being Pavillon Rouge), yet despite that fact, it is still a £150 bottle of wine, so there's another £11, say. And finally, the BIG ONE. Now, as it turned out, they didn't have the 2004 behind the bar so they checked that I would be okay with the 2006. Err, yeah. Now, the Chateau Margaux Grand Vin is (as cheap as I can find it online) £400 retail, so, that's another £28. Adding those up, it comes to £54. Bear in mind, the prices I quoted above are the cheapest single bottle price I could find on the internet over three different suppliers. Essentially then, you're drinking these wines at retail price. I love it.

As you flick through the wine list and reach the Bordeaux section, you might initially be puzzled that in the Bordeaux listing, they don't actually have any Chateau Margaux there. Fear not however, turn another page or two and you will discover that Chateaux Margaux has its own page dedicated to the four wines of the estate, with, on the Grand Vin, vintages from 1985 - 2008. Interestingly here, the 2006 I tried above is priced at £800 a bottle so 50ml of the Grand Vin when you buy a whole bottle of the stuff here costs around £55 (so maybe just keep going for the flight, upset the staff, and then get cut off and barred).

At the risk of seeming like I'm the person who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, well, this is an iconic wine, a first growth. It wont float everyone's boat, but yes, hand up, my boat is properly floated and in that moment sailing away toward an idyllic sunset. I wont provide my tasting views, Bob Parker can give you a better steer if that's what you want. But in a world of me-too wine bars, this is spectacularly unique as far as I'm aware and it alone makes Clarette worth visiting.

They do other stuff too, apparently it's all very good. Maybe another time.  

Name: Bob's Lobster
Where: St Thomas St, SE1 (nearest station London Bridge)
Vibe: fresh & lively
USP: seafood diner and wine bar
Price: In-line

I was walking past, that's all, but in the window, Bob - can I call you Bob? - reaches out: We're new in town, Drop-in and say hello! So I did. Inside, they had a sign that said, 'Happy Hour £1 Oysters, Every Weekday 5pm-6pm' (they call it Buck-a-Shuck). It wasn't 5pm yet, but I'm patient. Head barman, David, started making me cocktails, my bar-stool started to feel very comfortable indeed.

I didn't know about Bob's beforehand, I really was just passing by. I didn't know they previously had a van from which they used to serve lobster rolls (the van's now parked in the bar area). I didn't know this is their first permanent site and has been open only a couple or months or so. I didn't know they do breakfast, lunch and dinner (and snacks in between). And I didn't know they do wine based cocktails. I guess it's why we started the blog again, there's a lot we don't know (but we like learning).

Accordingly, Bob's could be on the restaurant stream or cocktail stream of the blog but that day I was there for the drinks, so here it is, with a focus on cocktails. What I will say about the food is that they clearly care about seafood (and food in general) and their lobster roll (of which I tried a mini one from the between-meals snack menu) has both built them a following and got them where they are today. From what I've seen on their Instagram account, the food coming out the kitchen looks very good. Maybe another time then for a proper meal. 

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​So drinks. Being a restaurant and wine bar, they do all the regular things that a punter having dinner might expect and the wine list is surprisingly, and pleasingly, extensive. White wine starts from £5 for a 125ml glass of Feudi di San Gregorio (£25 a bottle). And what looks like becoming a benchmark for the drinks' blog (because every bar seems to sell it), Bollinger is £15 a glass (£85 per bottle), arguably a little on the high side per glass but hardly unexpected.

Cocktails riff on the wine list. For refreshment, I start with a French 57, their take on a French 75; I think they reversed the norm and called it a 57 because that was the year their lobster van dates from, but I wouldn't stake my next drink on it. Priced at £11, it's perfectly reasonable for a champagne cocktail while also the most expensive cocktail on the list.

David, the head-barman, was very engaging and a great sport, even allowing me to Instagram him making one of my cocktails. I'm passionate about drink so a friendly barman to discuss the bar list with is one of the things that can differentiate a bar. Technically, he was fully on top of things and all his creations were excellent. 

I ask most barmen about signature cocktails or the like, and the reply that everything is a signature cocktail can be annoying. David however was delighted to point me in the direction of two cocktails in particular, while I was equally delighted to drink them (both). One was a Sherry Rebujito (Fino Manzanilla Sherry, Mezcal, Lime, Mint and Negroni Cherry - an Andalusian invention to combat the heat and tweaked by David for a more refined offering), and the other was the Muscat Martini (Monbazillac, Cointreau, Campari and Fresh lemon). Come to think of it, I might have insisted on the Muscat Martini myself. I do remember enjoying it (while it also made for a great photo, see below).

Finally, I really liked what they did with the Negroni, serving only half to start with the remainder in a bottle on ice. The outcome is that you don't end up with a severely diluted Negroni by the end of the drink if (like me) you sip this drink quite slowly rather than chug it. The offering is thoughtful, and we like thoughtful.

Conclusion: I really enjoyed stopping by Bob's Lobster for a drink. I will definitely return and most likely eat there too so I can let you know if the food tastes as good as it looks. 'Drop in and say hello,' they said: I did, and I'm pleased I did. I got a warm reception and a cold drink on a hot day. A happy find.

Name: Coppa Club
Where: Tower Bridge
Vibe: Beach Party/Cruise Ship
USP: Igloos
Price: Surprisingly reasonable

Coppa Club. Yes, it sounds like something out of a Barry Manilow song, but at the Tower Bridge outlet, that actually feels like the vibe they're currently aiming for with their outside deck populated by palm trees. And located with views of Tower Bridge, this is a hugely popular venue, so the buzz is there, tourists mixing with locals, shorts mixing with suits and everyone having a good time.

What I am rapidly learning about bars is that they (seem to believe that they) require a USP - a Unique Selling Proposition. In this respect, Coppa Club at Tower Bridge hit upon a piece of genius. While other bars put heaters outside, Coppa Club laid igloos across the terrace and these igloos have become some of the most sought after real estate in London. Where they really come into their own is at Christmas and you can have dinner in said igloos over the festive period but be quick, no sooner do they announce they are taking bookings and the whole thing is sold out, I know, I tried to book one last Christmas and simply couldn't get anything at any time. Having your own private (heated) igloo looking over Tower Bridge at Christmas has become a big thing. Well done Coppa.

Beyond the igloos, I cannot provide a better or more succinct summary of what Coppa is than their website (so why try), so in their own words:

Coppa Club is a space for eating, drinking, meeting and unwinding. Built around a central, brass bar that’s open on all-sides, Coppa Club has a raised lounge for working and winding down, a 250-cover restaurant with a marble herringbone floor, and a café with booths and a fireplace. Outside, there’s a large, south-facing terrace that catches the sun all day. All our seating is designed to make the most of our view over the river.

Whoa. A 250 cover restaurant. Like the Tardis, it's bigger on the inside so think buzzy rather than bijou. And getting on to drinks, which is why we're here, clearly they need to serve every variety to satisfy every taste, in a mainstream way (so don't go thinking you'll be getting a snail in your cocktail like at Dandelyan).

I love topical, so on the day following Stormy Daniels declining to enter the Big Brother household, looking to the cocktails, a Pornstar Martini leapt off the page. If you're reading this two years from now and Stormy hasn't brought down the presidency, you may be wondering who the hell she is, well, you can find her on Wiki and on Pornhub. See below for the ingredient list (of the cocktail). The dominating flavour in the Pornstar Martini is obviously the passion fruit, leaving me wondering the purpose of the side shot of Prosecco which washes out alongside, but it doesn't really matter and the tropical fruit martini itself plays nicely to my beach bar narrative.  

Additionally, I tried am Espresso Martini which seems to be to cocktail lists currently what beards are to Shoreditch, and a Stroppy Cow (Black Cow vodka, Kahlua, caramel syrup, sea salt & cream), dessert in a glass. And credit to Coppa, the cocktails are nice enough and the staff seem to care (about both me and the drink). But here's the other magical thing about Coppa Club, the cocktails come in at £8.45 which, quite frankly, is a bargain given your prime location. A glass of Bollinger is available at £10.95 (£63.25 if you want the bottle) which is as cheap as I can remember in London while if you want a serious drink, there's a bottle of Haut Batailley 2010: on the wine list at £88.95, it is as cheap (for a vintage Bordeaux) as it is surprising (to find it there).

It's the numbers then that make the arithmetic work. As a huge capacity venue, volume permits keen pricing and keen pricing brings in the volume of people to keep the wheels on. And I doubt you ever have to worry about dress code, rubbing shoulders, as you might be, with people who have literally just stepped off the cruise ship that anchored up next to HMS Belfast over the way. I wouldn't go so far as to call it 'the hottest spot north of Havana', but it does have a vibe and can deliver a fun evening out at a very agreeable price.    

It is serendipity that the first cocktail bar to find a place our new CC Cocktails blog stream should happen to be the best cocktail bar in the world. We should add, that's not us rushing to judgement, rather, at the Spirited Awards, Dandelyan won the World's Best Bar category (2017), World's Best Cocktail Menu (2016), and Best New International Bar (2015). How exciting.

Now, the purpose of this stream was to discover bars to drink in before and after your meal (kind of), and Dandelyan was the bar of choice following the meal at Great Guns Social (Borough, SE1). Located in the old Sea Containers House by Blackfriars Bridge (south of the river), it is now a Mondrian Hotel - the Mondrian London at Sea Containers House to be precise, and they've done a fabulous job of turning it into a destination venue.

Aside of all the money they've spent, the first thing that strikes you is how large the bar is. Remember, good cocktails take time to make and a large bar needs a large staff of competent cocktail makers to ensure the wait for drinks does trip into annoying (and indeed the cocktails came without undue waiting). The bar opens at 4pm and at this time of day, you can just walk in, but perhaps understandably for the 'best cocktail bar in world', if you intend to visit after 7pm, you might want to think about booking in advance.

While we were there, it was all very relaxed and guests wearing a Michael Jordan basketball jersey sat alongside guests dressed to the nines and no one minded. All very egalitarian. It's a personal preference of course whether you think this is a good thing or not.

In terms of drink philosophy, the cocktail menu, which they allow you to keep if you ask nicely, reads:

Dandelyan takes a modern approach in the pursuit of new flavours through an understanding of the make-up of plants to create innovative, memorable cocktails and new experiences. Mr Lyan and the Dandelyan team research how plants grow, reproduce and defend themselves, then extract these qualities - a 'nose-to-tail' approach to fauna.

While 'memorable' and 'experiences' are regular cliches for bars to trot out, with one of my cocktails having Creme d'Escargot as an ingredient, and arriving with a snail shell atop the ice, I will definitely concede, it's memorable. And with such an eye-popping menu, it would feel like a crime to order a gin and tonic there. Furthermore, in what has to be acknowledged as a major plus point, all of their cocktails can be ordered in non alcoholic versions also. Well done them.

The cocktail menu is so outside the box that one can't adequately address it in a blog post of reasonable length, but the three cocktails that I ordered that day are shown below with the menu descriptions alongside, giving you a sense of what you're in for. And as well as entirely new drinks, old favourites are also on the menu with an extensive make-over such as my Nemo Old Fashioned.

Another plus point worth noting is that cocktails here cost around £13, which is as far as I can tell the going rate for cocktails in London these days, and less than what many inferior places charge. They could have easily charged more, so well done to them again. The non alcoholic versions are about £5 cheaper which is also nice to see. 

This really is a great cocktail bar that offers a remarkable drinking experience in a very relaxed style. The result is that cocktail drinking here is fun, rather than intimidating or pretentious. I simply haven't been to enough cocktail bars (yet) to venture an opinion of whether it is worthy of the title 'best cocktail bar in the world', but it is certainly the best on the blog so far. They've dared to do something different and it's worked handsomely, and that's one thing among many here that's worthy of praise. Hats off to Dandelyan.   

'Wow, what is this place?' I thought, on stepping inside. The answer was the somewhat eccentric, Mr Fogg's Residence, on Bruton Lane. Heading back to the Tube after lunch one day and feeling somewhat more friendly than usual due to the wine earlier consumed, we struck up conversation with a man in a bowler hat, who turned out to be the doorman at Mr Fogg's. He offered to show us inside, which, as I now write this, sounds a bit dodgy (but fortunately wasn't) and with an enthusiasm that only lunch time drinking engenders, we thought, 'why not?' 'Wow, what is this place?' I thought. How little I know it seems.

Our knowledge of the London drinking scene is, quite frankly, pitiful. How had I been so blissfully unaware of Mr Fogg's? We know the bars in the big hotels and a few pubs, and that's about it. Googling 'London's best cocktail bars' yielded several lists of 50 apiece of which, on average, we knew less than five. Forty five bars we had never heard of. That seemed like an opportunity. Or as Boris J suggested, 'there's no such thing as a disaster, only an opportunity, and an opportunity for a fresh disaster.' No Brexit commentary here.

Now, we like a good cocktail, but are hardly experts. This stream then can be considered less a critique and more of a guide of what's where, with a fresh pair of eyes. And bars are not like restaurants, not least, if they make you a bad drink, maybe it's £15 down the drain but you can walk out there and then. In a restaurant, by the time you realise that you are not keen, if it's a tasting menu, you might have 10 more courses still to arrive, be landlocked for three more hours and be £100+ out of pocket. It's a different proposition.

I'm reminded too of Graham Greene's novel, Our Man in Havanah, where a game of 'shot glass' chess is played. The idea is that the better chess player takes more of his opponent's pieces and is therefore required to drink more, so handicapping his performance. Genius. Along these lines, it is quite possible that the best bars we sample might leave us with very little memory of the evening out we enjoyed. The blog posts may even be written with the effects still evident. I hear you, Lord help us all.

In other words, the CC Cocktail blog posts will be what they will be, but please don't take them as gospel. A good cocktail is a must, but doesn't everywhere do good cocktails these days? The criteria then is simply, did we have a good time there, or is it a place never to return? Let's run with it and see how we go. Anyway, must dash, I hear Mr Fogg  calling.