A Second London Cocktail Club to Open
on Shaftesbury Avenue

04 January 2012

Not even 12 months after the launch of their award winning Goodge St Cocktail Club the boys are back at it again! This time though, the kick ass team of JJ Goodman, James Hopkins, Raymond Blanc, Sarah Willingham and David Moore are mixing it up as of mid January 2012!

Goodge St has a strong “Gin palace” vibe as well as reputation, so one would naturally assume that they had intended to repeat the formula: if it ain’t broke, as they say?! Well apparently not content, JJ has decided it’s time to take over the dark spirits market with a tattoo-inspired British navy rum bar!

“It’s not that I don’t LOVE Tiki bars” says JJ cautiously. “It’s just that I don’t think the world needs another one…. Navy rum is an incredibly intense field, and the history & involvement of the British throughout the history of rum has made the category what it is today. All we intend to do is explore it in our LCC way.”

By that he means as tongue in cheek as ever. The LCC is storming ahead; JJ and James have created a reputation for not taking themselves too seriously, but at the same time demanding perfection in drinks and service from their teams that get stronger each year. The team is headed up by “Mr. Chambord”, Matt Arbitrage who has spent the year flexing his skills at Goodge St; the equally exciting news is the arrival of legendary bartender Sarah Mitchel (formally of LAB & Graphic) who no doubt will slot in to the LCC fold and turn some heads as 2012 proves to be the year of the cocktail. This bar is kicking it all off with a bang!

The drinks are some of the best in town, and so are their parties. It’s not uncommon to see girls dancing on the bar top at Goodge St on a Friday, waving a beautifully crafted Old Fashioned. “Why can’t you go and have a great party night out and have an amazing drink at the same time?” begs James with an amusing look of confusion! “It makes no sense to us why everyone isn’t trying to do it?”. Of course he’s right; what do you really want from your perfect night out? It’s the search for unpretentious without having to compromise on quality isn’t it?

Expect to see traditional Soggy Dollar Painkillers, Trader Vic’s Mai Tais, and Beachcomber Zombies amongst Grogs, Swizzles and Nelson’s Bloods starting at a more than reasonable £7.50.

As well as all this, we have homage to the daddy of all Naval rums, Black Tot rum will be available, for £100 you can get a tot (a twice daily ration is 71ml) of the military’s last consignment. It seems that when they stopped distributing rum to the navy in 1970, the locked up the remaining flagons and forgot about them until last year that is. £100 sounds steep, but for a taste of British history & a silver plated tankard with your name engraved on it, we don’t think that that last consignment will last very long. We hope they’ve got enough space to display all those tankards!

For more information, visit the London Cocktail Club website by clicking here.

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