bringing drinks to life

It’s been another interesting week and frankly I am wiped out. You see I had a last minute invitation to go to Copenhagen for a tonic water tasting… yes you read that right… I went to Denmark to drink tonic water. But that’s a different story for another time. All I will say is that after a night trawling the bars in Copenhagen 13 glasses of tonic water were exactly what I wanted to see in the morning!
 
 
In my mind this update was going to cover quite a lot of what we’ve been up to lately, kind of a ‘what we’re drinking, where we’re drinking and who we’re drinking with’ type of thing. But actually there’s more than enough to write about after just 1 night in Copenhagen so I think I’ll just stick with that.
 
 

To be honest I had mixed thoughts about what to expect from Copenhagen, I have a couple of friends who tend bar over there and they tell me it has a great up-and-coming scene, but I hear that a lot and sometimes the skeptic in me wins out. So I caught the plane looking forward to seeing the city, but also perfectly prepared to order beers if the drinks weren’t up to expectations… As it turned out the only beer I drank was at lunchtime with my traditional Danish Christmas lunch.  

With only one night to see all that Copenhagen had to offer, it was always going to turn messy, so I planned to start by lining my stomach with a good hefty lunch, however, my hosts for the evening Jimmy and Henrik decided that this should come with a guided tour through the history of Akvavit and its many splendid forms. Three beers, 4 akvavits and a load of pickled fish and rye bread later I found myself embarking on a whirlwind tour of Copenhagen's cocktail scene, with a quick stop in the middle of the city to get involved in the climate change events... I am hoping the footage of me half-cut doing a Brad Pitt impression (complete with wig and sunglasses) for a Danish film crew will never see the light of day!

Anyway, more about the cocktail scene and less about my antics! Our first stop was a quick look at Honey Ryder at Hotel 27 where the menu featured a host of Scandanavian berries such as cloudberry, lingonberry and others I couldn't pronounce even if I tried. The cloudberry daiquiri was a subtle well balanced affair that left me in no doubt as to the skill of the bartender... hmm maybe Copenhagen has more to offer than I imagined. Just as I was getting ready to tuck into another drink from the menu I was told we were moving on to one of the more renowned bars in the city... I was begining to get a feel for how my whole night was going to develop!

So we moved on to Ruby's, which is my kind of bar. It's the sort of place where you can sit at the bar, chat to the bartender, taste a few new things and just generally unwind. The guys there mixed me up a beautiful Martinez and introduced me to Both's, a product that seems to be much loved by Danish bartenders judging by how often it was offered to me. The drinks were once again spot on and I really felt that I could be drinking in any major city with a good cocktail culture. Developing scene? Seems like it has already grown up and actually has a thing or two to show other 'cocktail capitals'.

We swung by K bar to see Kirsten, who is one of the pioneers of the cocktail scene in Copenhagen, I was told that her sake and lychee martini was a must-have drink when in the city, and while it wouldn't have been my first choice from the list, I certainly didn't leave dissapointed! Sometimes a simple set of ingredients in the hands of the right person really hits the spot. Unfortunately I was told it was time to move on again before I could see what else Kirsten has up her sleeves... next time I am staying for longer! 

K's LYCHEE MARTINI - K BAR

30 ml Geranium Gin

30 ml Sake

10 ml Lychee liqueur 

5 ml Ginger liqueur

Add ingredients to a mixing glass with cubed or cracked ice and stir until well chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lychee stuffed with pickled ginger.

From K bar it was time to move on and catch up with some familiar faces from the UK cocktail scene, Angus Winchester and Hannah Lanfear. They have just opened the bar at Nimb and a more amazing room you will struggle to find. It used to be the ballroom of this boutique hotel but has been transformed into an amazing and elegant space to enjoy a little grown up drinking. Obviously with Angus at the helm and Hannah heading up the bar team, I had pretty high expectations.

If I am honest I didn't get Nimb on my first visit, the concept made sense and the drinks were good but I just couldn't quite relax and enjoy it the way I thought I would. Fortunately for me I made a second visit before heading back to the UK and I managed to not only get my barings but to fall in love with the bar. You see Nimb feels like a stand-alone cocktail bar in some ways and is a destination in it's own right. I hadn't really thought about the fact that it is in essence a top end hotel bar. I guess visiting it in the middle of a whirlwind cocktail bar crawl was never going to do it justice!

So while I am on the subject of Nimb let me get a few things straight. It's a stunning space, with huge ceilings, well spaced sitting areas and a small but carefully stocked bar. The concept is that the bar should work the same way as a fine dining restaurant: you are presented with a menu and are expected to order from the list; after all you wouldn't walk into a Michelin starred restaurant, take a look at the menu and then tell the waiter you fancy fish and chips... The drinks list changes monthly, the ingredients are fresh wherever possible, the entire spirit selection changes with the drinks list, so in essence you are being given a fresh start every month.

For me the whole concept hinges around this changing drinks list; this is where the idea works or fails. A list that is built around 12 cocktails, 6 mixed drinks, 12 spirits, 1 of each wine and 2 beers has to be well balanced if it's going to appeal to the range of drinkers walking through the doors. Nimb's list fulfils that brief and offers drinkers the chance to get out of their comfort zones and try something new, in fact it almost requires it! For me the pleasure of this bar is in handing over control to the bartender (and in Hannah's case you know you are in safe hands!) letting them guide you towards a drink that might suit your mood. Play it safe and you miss the point of this bar, take a chance and you just might like it!

PURGATORY COCKTAIL - NIMB

50 ml Rye (Rittenhouse 100 works rather well!)

12.5 ml Benedictine

12.5 ml Green Charteuse

Stir ingredients with cubed or cracked ice until well chilled and diluted and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy by a large open fire!

This isn't a bar that sits comfortably with the Copenhagen cocktail scene, but it definitely fills a gap in the market there. It isn't going to be a popular place for bartenders to go drinking, but that isn't what this space is about. It offers a grown up drinking experience for people with open minds, it will never be a 'beer and a shot' kind of place. If you look at Nimb in the same light as The Connaught or The Artesian then it starts to make perfect sense. 

Anyway, enough about Nimb... I could write about it all night, but it was time to move on and get stuck into what else Copenhagen had to offer. We headed to the bar at Umami where Chris looked after us with a few cocktails and a chance to taste some of the strangest spirits I have ever encountered. Once again the drinks where perfectly balanced and the care and attention taken in making and presenting them left me in no doubt that Hardeep considers bartending an artform. With hardly enough time to get a second drink in me (I did manage, but only just) we headed out into the cold to visit 1105.

Now in every bar we visited, every bartender seemed to agree that this is THE place to go, especially if Hardeep is working, and fortunately for us he was! Hardeep, I'm told is the bartender who wins all the comps, but no one minds because he is such a nice guy. On meeting him I can see what they mean. He is a host who welcomes you to his bar and ensures you leave having had an experience that betters your expectation. For me it was another Martinez with Both's but this time even better than my earlier one in Ruby's. Perhaps it was the feel of the bar or the fact that I'd had a few more drinks but this really was the hardest bar to tear myself away from. It is dimly lit and has the feel of a speakeasy without seeming to try very hard. It's a stylish environment serving drinks from a carefully constructed menu that teases you with descriptions without giving too much away about what you're drinking. Having visited once I am inclined to agree with the Copenhagen bartending community, this is a must visit bar, especially if Hardeep is working!

From 1105 it was time to experience something new, so when a call came in from Carl Wrangel of the Oak Room saying we should get down to the new tiki bar in town, Brass Monkey, it seemed like the perfect excuse. Brass Monkey is an interesting bar that is either having an identity crisis or is cleverly balancing two very different ideas. On one hand it is dimly lit, slate-backed and clean lines, on the other hand it is rum throwing, tiki statues and Trader Vic's. Only time will tell how the concept will work, but on this pre-opening night I can tell you the Mai Tai was one of the best I have tasted for a long time and the menu looks like it will deliver a full tiki experience to thirsty rum swillers in Copenhagen. The pattern of the evening continued with me just finishing my Mai Tai before being ushered out the door to go and check out just one more place... 

So our last bar of the evening was Oak Room where Carl plies his trade. Carl seems to be one of the main players in the Copenhagen bartending scene, he helps run the Copenhagen Cocktail Club and arranges unsponsored comps getting bartenders together to have some fun and share ideas... not in a geeky way but in a shots of tequila and beer while watching bartenders have fun and break the rules, kinda way!

Carl jumped behind the bar despite it being his night off and whipped me up his latest creation, the Diplomatic Cocktail. I love the simplicity of this drink, even the lack of bitters works for me as these three simple flavours balance in the glass. Pay special attention to the 'not too cold' in the instructions as the flavours really stay open if you don't over chill this one.

DIPLOMATIC COCKTAIL

35 ml Diplomatico rum

25 ml Ruby Port

20 ml Noilly Rouge

Stir with cubed or cracked ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Don't chill the glass and don't over chill the drink, stir it just enough to get a little dilution going and then get it in the glass, this one benefits from being not too cold!

That's where my cocktail journey through Copenhagen ended, well at least the bits that I can tell you about, I did have a close encounter with Carl's tequila collection and there is a possibility that I was sipping Negronis in the small hours of the morning while boxing on the wii... but as this Brad Pitt impersonator says 'the first rule of Copenhagen Cocktail Club is that you don't talk about Copenhagen Cocktail Club'...