The Hide Bar - Newsletter

Number 11, January 2008 

Chances are you’ll be reading this in 2008, in which case, Happy New Year! I hope you had a really good 2007 (we opened our doors to you, so it can’t have been that bad), and our sincerest best wishes for an even better 2008.  

We’ll be doing our best to improve on a good year, including some refinements in the kitchen, some more great wines at brilliant prices, some new and some revisited old cocktails and some tasty hoppy brews. As always, we’d love to hear your recommendations and suggestions.  

By the next edition of the newsletter, we will have a selection of our wine and cocktail tastings priced out for you to choose from, a new buffet menu for parties and a set dinner menu for groups of 8 or more. All changes that will hopefully make your parties easier to plan this year.  

Hannah has her pen out for the random section at the end of the newsletter this month, so I’ll conclude the intro with a random bit of my own. For those of you who don’t already know, The Hide was named after the history of Bermondsey Street as a location for London’s leather warehouses and markets. The old tanning pits are two doors down and the old leather exchange not much further. To give you an idea how things have changed, here’s a picture of the area that a friend of mine sent the other day. A nod to the past as you’re thinking about the New Year.

Next time you’re in, you could try a glass of Meantime Porter – brewed to a recipe from the 1750s it’s probably about as close as you can get to what would have been drunk by the leather workers back in the day.

Cheers!  

Paul 

EVENTS

Tuesday tastings: Last roughly an hour and include random facts, helpful hints and a little bit of tasting. They are free to attend for the moment and you don’t need to book. Just turn up and see what’s going on.

We are going to be holding all of these in the back room now we have our back bar, so please come and stake your claim on Tuesdays as there are only a certain number of seats to go round.

Tuesday the 1st January, 7pm
We will most likely still be asleep and the bar will be closed. Sorry about that.  

Tuesday the 8th January, 7pm
Vermouths and classic vermouth cocktails. Hannah will be following up her piece at the end of this newsletter with a tasting of some of the things she’s mentioned in it. I’ll leave you to read on to find out more.  

Tuesday the 15th January, 7pm
Speyside whiskies. We’re going to dip a toe in the water of the many and varied whiskies that Speyside has to offer, looking at a few different styles from Inchgower to Speyburn, Balvenie to Glenfiddich. A tasty evening and what the back bar of The Hide was made for!

Tuesday the 22nd January, 7pm
New Zealand Pinot Noir. Fresh red berries with hint of leaf-mould, cherries & cranberry, leather and smoke, take your pick. We’ll find some lovely examples and you can see which you prefer, from Marlborough to Hawkes Bay.

Tuesday the 29th January, 7pm
Italian varietals. A tasting of some fantastic Italian reds chosen by our red-blooded Italian. 

Sundays

Our Bloody Mary offer still stands – please bring a copy of this page or one of our flyers for a free Ketel One Bloody Mary on a Sunday. We have a DJ playing jazz, funk & soul, plus poker chips and other bits and pieces to keep you amused. The back room makes a pretty good afternoon poker den I’m told – as long as you’re not playing for cash of course.   

Last bit - Restoratives

With the coming of the New Year, lots of us are thinking about looking after ourselves a little better. You could start by taking vitamins and drinking herbal tea, but as every bartender knows, there’s a better way to get your body tuned up.

Since the days when people added herbs to spirit to create anti flatulence potions, we have used alcohol for medicinal purposes. Gin was long used for its medicinal properties and was said to help with all sorts of ailments including lumbago, kidney problems, gallstones and gout. Alcohol is the perfect solvent for fixing the properties of these botanicals, and thus gin was found to be not only healthy (we told you so!), but also delicious.

These restorative properties extend to a great range of alcoholic drinks. We have just acquired a new vermouth, Carpano Antigua Formula, and just love the stuff. Like others, the base is fortified wine (so should be drunk within a few months of opening as it will oxidise, albeit more slowly than wine) and a host of roots and spices.

The word ‘vermouth’ is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon ‘wermod’ (wer – man and mut, courage), or ‘wormwood’ - one of the botanicals present in the mix (Artemisia absinthium , also an integral constituent of absinthe). Mr Antonio Carpano is credited with making the first vermouth and our new vermouth is supposed to be made in the original style. Stirred with bitters and a twist to make a Vermouth Cocktail it makes a really tasty beverage!

Italians are famous for their love of bitter alcohol. A bartenders’ favourite, the Negroni, is made with equal measures of sweet vermouth, Campari and Gin. This drink is a super aperitif and a great cocktail to make at home, as it is very straight-forward, only requiring building over ice. In Italy, it is said that to like Campari you must taste it five times, and I’d have to agree. Bitter and sweet it is a wonderful drink, but likely to make you pucker if you’ve never tasted it before. Incidentally the colour comes from the Cochineal beetle, which they grind to get that fantastic red, so not for vegetarians!

The cocktail is named after Count Negroni. At that time (1919) in Italy, the Americano cocktail - Campari and vermouth, topped with soda, and so named because the American tourists loved them, were all the rage. Count Negroni preferred his without the soda and a slug of gin instead, good man! The bitterness really prepares your stomach for dinner.

If the Negroni takes your fancy, why not also try a Sour Italian: Galliano, Campari, Strega with lemon, sugar and egg white. Another brilliant drink!

Absinthe has always been a good cocktail ingredient. The high proof means it acts like a seasoning in your drinks and lifts all the other flavours. If you’ve never tried a Sazerac or a Morning Glory Fizz (think early morning livener rather than…. Oh never mind!), I urge you to. Even if you don’t like anise, used in tiny quantities it adds another dimension to your drink.

All in all, come down and explore something different to drink. And perhaps it will do you the world of good!

Hannah.  

 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 have a couple of buffet options for parties, available at www.thehidebar.com/food.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