The Hide Bar Newsletter

The Hide Bar - Newsletter

Number 17, July 2008

We've been busy at The Hide over the last month, with cocktail competitions, wine tastings and a staff 'research' trip to Champagne. The summer months are kind to bartenders!

The highlight has to be our trip to Champagne, where Bollinger and Ayala gave us a guided tour of their cellars and tastings of their ranges. Ayala produce a huge variety of superb wines, including three bone-dry zero dosage or ultra-brut. Many champagnes have at least 8 grams of sugar added per litre, but these three have none, meaning they have to use the best grapes as nothing can be hidden! They're perfect aperitif champagnes and we'll be rotating them on our reserve list for you to try.

June also saw the London heat of the Boutique Bar Show's 'Free Spirit' Competition. Held at The Hide, this offered bartenders the rare chance to make their favourite drink with their favourite ingredients - not as common as you might think, with most competitions sponsored by big brands. Bartenders from (amongst others) Mahiki, Bureau, Artesian, Eclipse, Shochu Lounge, The Light Bar, Crazy Bear, Roast and, of course, The Hide all came to play and admire each others' drinks/laugh at each others' mistakes/drink beer. It was a very entertaining day, and the drink below put me through to the final at The Boutique Bar show in September (www.boutiquebarshow.com), and made it on to our new cocktail list. More to follow later in the year...

'Beginning of the End'
(Based on the Fin de Siecle from the late 1890's)
50ml Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva Venezuelan rum (replacing the gin of the original)
10ml sweet vermouth
5ml Amer Picon
5ml Palo Cortado Viejo 30 year old dry sherry (an addition)
Stirred and served in a coup glass that has been lined with a flamed orange twist.

Other additions to the new cocktail list include Paolo's winner in our in-house competition to make a 'Beefeater London Twist' cocktail for their competition, to be judged by readers of Square Meal over the next couple of months:

'Traitor's Gate'

50ml Beefeater London Dry Gin
50ml Pinot Grigio
4 drops lemon bitters
15ml simple syrup
stir, served 'up' with three juniper berries to garnish

We also have a bellini made with hibiscus syrup, and including a preserved hibiscus flower in the bottom of the glass, a La Mauny Agricole Rhum mojito - the Martinique Mojito, plus many others besides. Wines on the bin end/reserve list are changing weekly at the moment, and the food menu is getting a make-over as well (with some great value light lunches), so plenty to tempt you, whatever you fancy.

Drinks available from The Hide Bar near you now...

Cheers!

Paul

EVENTS
Tuesday tastings : Last roughly an hour to and hour and a half and include random facts, helpful hints and a little bit of tasting. They are often free to attend, but booking is advisable as we're limited to about 25 people in our back room.

Please note we are starting an hour later than normal this month as requested by people coming from work and those making the most of the sun

Tuesday the 1st July, 8pm - Sauvignon
Tom will be in to taste a few different expressions of the grape, from Argentina, through Pouilly and ending up with a really top quality New Zealand.

Tuesday the 8th July, 8pm - Japanese whisky
We've discovered a few rather good bottles of Japanese whisky recently, so thought we'd read up on them a little and let you try some. Ranging from 10 to 21 years old, these are real classics and exceptionally well-made. Kampai!

Tuesday the 15th July, 8pm - Argentina
Ginny will be coming in to taste some wines from Trapiche (www.trapiche.com.ar), voted the Argentinean Wine Producer of the Year in 2004 and 2006 by the IWSC. Tasty stuff, which we'll also have on special for the week.

Tuesday the 22nd July, 8pm - Brandy
A blind tasting of French vs. (wait for it) South African brandies. I hasten to add that the blinding is done by virtue of not giving you the bottle. It's not a side effect of spirits, some of which are really very good!

Tuesday the 29th July, 8pm - Curry
Curry and drink matching! We've decided to branch out on the food-and-wine matching theme and go for a few drinks that suit the world's curry styles. We'll be making an Indian, a Caribbean and a Thai curry, and tasting three or four appropriate drinks with each to see what works. Riesling, India Pale Ale, or rum punch - you decide! As you're getting some grub and a sample or three, it's got a price tag of £10 a head, payable on the night.

Last bit - summer party drinks
Given the weather is momentarily better (apologies if you're reading this in the dark and wet, but it's nice as I'm writing this!), I thought we'd make a few suggestions to help your weekend barbeque or picnic go well.

First some pieces of advice from someone who regularly ends up making the drinks at friends' parties.

    a. Buy ice. Lots of ice. Don't scrimp on the ice.

    b. Buy the ingredients you need. Not whatever is left in the cupboard from two         years ago. If it's sherry/port/cream-based or vermouth, bin it and start again.

    c. Don't try to make too many things - two cocktails are plenty to cover most         tastes.

So, to follow are 5 summer recipes that can be taken anywhere. Just don't try to sample them on the tube or Boris will have you over his knee!

Sadly we're not allowed to sell you take-outs, so I've chosen things that are (on the whole) widely available. Where they're a little more unusual, The Whisky Exchange underneath Vinopolis, or Gerry's on Old Compton Street are the bartenders off-licences. Be warned though, we've been known to spend a whole month's salary in there.

    1. Pimms, Ginger & Gin. Pimms and lemonade is all very well, but ginger ale is just a little more stylish and drier. It's still quite sweet though, so I'd suggest a dash more gin to kick it into shape. Hendrick's works really well as it uses cucumber and rose petal in the botanicals which match the vegetal components of Pimms very well.
          To make a 2 pint pitcher:

       150ml Pimms No.1 cup
100ml Hendrick's Gin
mint leaves, chopped apple and cucumber, strip of fresh ginger
fill jug to the brim with ice, fruit & veg, add spirits, top with ginger ale

    2. Sorbet Bellini. Very simple, but great for a picnic if you can find some champagne flutes (plastic versions from all good supermarkets!). A good dollop of your favourite fruit sorbet in the bottom of the glass, topped up with a nice dry Prosecco. The sorbet will stay frozen for a while, chilling the drink if you can't keep the Prosecco cold. Coke-float for grown-ups.

    3. The Portable Mojito. The mojito in Cuba dispenses with all the muddling and crushed ice we're used to here, so you can make a pretty authentic one in the park. It does require a little bit of preparation though, as bottled lime juice is pretty horrible.
Dissolve 2 mugs of sugar in the same volume (about 500ml) hot water and bottle when cool. Squeeze 30-40 fresh limes and bottle the juice.

put a sprig of mint in the bottom of a cup/glass and fill with ice, then add

25ml (a large bottle cap) sugar (simple) syrup
25ml lime juice
50ml light rum - preferably Cuban style
stirr, then top with soda water

    4. Dark n Stormy. A good jigger of Gosling's Black Seal Bermudan rum, half a lime squeezed in (watch your fingers on that Swiss army knife), lots of ice and top with ginger beer. A dash of Angostura or Orange Bitters if you're feeling adventurous. Arrrr.

    5. Flensburg Pilsner. Tasty ceramic-flip-top bottle of beer, highly suitable for picnic-type occasions when you've forgotten a bottle opener.



Other stuff
Our back room is available for hire, and we’d love to hold tailored wine tastings or cocktail classes. Just get in touch and let us know what you’d like to do. We now have a price list of some of our more popular tastings, available from the website at www.thehidebar.com/parties.htm.

Likewise please get in touch if you have any comments and suggestions, please email everyone@thehidebar.com. You can also sign up to keep in touch at ‘people who like to drink at The Hide Bar’ on Facebook.

The Hide
39-45 Bermondsey Street , London . SE1 3XF
t: 0207 403 6655; f: 0207 117 4173
www.thehidebar.com; everyone@thehidebar.com

ayala rose

champagne trip

mmojito

picnic

ICE!