Worship Street Whistling Shop

Once a branch of Davy’s, this austere brown-on-brown cellar with staff in Edwardian garb & a wind-up gramophone soundtrack still has echoes of the past, but few orthodox wine bars can match the Whistling Shop for sheer cocktail wizardry. A mad scientist’s lab is the fulcrum for an array of bitters, reductions & home-brewed gubbins, which are pivotal to the success of ‘exploded’ vodka martini & ‘gold dust’ (a sparkling wine-based quaff enhanced by chlorophyll bitters & herby ‘preservation’ liqueur). Also check out ‘panacea’ (a therapeutic mix of honey, lavender shrub, lemon juice, sage dust & Compass Box whisky), & a bizarre concoction of fine de Cognac, formula milk (!), Madeira & homemade grenadine that drinks like alco-Nesquik. In case you were wondering, the phrase ‘whistling shop’ was Regency slang for an illicit still/bar.