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The Hide Bar - Newsletter

Number 18, August 2008

As with other occupations, August is the bartender's holiday season. With customers away, we can finally have a few days to take stock, rest our shaking arm, stretch the stirring muscles and lay down the corkscrew. Having said that, the last few weeks have been as busy as ever, so perhaps it will have to be two days in Regent's Park rather than the fortnight chasing wild agave up and down the hills of Jalisco this year.

Not content with the status quo, We've made a few changes for August. There are a few new cocktails on the list, accompanied by glassware icons to help you anticipate the shape of your drinking vessel. We have a gramophone in the back room to give your 1920's cocktail drinking that final Noel Coward touch, and last but not least, we have a new food menu.

While the food was going down well before, we felt it just wasn't quite living up to the drinks. We've now changed a few suppliers and moved things round a little, and are very happy with the result. All our fresh meat now comes from The Ginger Pig, a past winner of the Observer Food Monthly’s Producer of the Year, and long-term residents of Borough Market. The 28-day-hung rib eye steak from their own herd of Longhorns is fabulous, now served with chips and Béarnaise, or with mustard in our lunch special minute steak sandwich. Pork and bacon are from their herd of Tamworth crosses, Lamb from Swaledales grazed on the Yorkshire moors and Free-range chicken from the Belvoir Estate, fed on local grain. Our cheeses and milk still come from Neal's Yard Dairy, of Borough Market and also based only 5 minutes from the bar. Our organic coffee comes from the Monmouth Coffee Company, freshly roasted less than half a mile away, and the bread comes from Ticino Bakery on Bermondsey Street, one of the oldest Italian bakeries in London. Finally our ice-cream comes from Jude’s, home-made in Hampshire from all natural ingredients.

We have a selection of lunch-only dishes for £5.99, including that minute steak sandwich, and Wild Boar and Chimay beer sausages from the Franconian Sausage Company, as well as an August promotion of a free drink with your meal - flyers available from the bar, as well as flats and businesses around Bermondsey Street now.

We hope to see you for a bite to eat some time soon.

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 at 7.30pm this month

Tuesday the 5th August, 7.30pm - Bitters
Bitters have been used to flavour drinks since the dawn of the cocktail, and prior to that as medicinal drinks. We'll be trying out the bitters that are currently on the market, and showing you some of our own creations as well as how to make them and what to do with them, using some classic cocktails as examples.

Tuesday the 12th August, 7.30pm - Punches
Punches are the life and soul of the party. We'll show you how to make some classic recipes and how you can create your own, as well as dishing out some glasses and cups from the bar. This will be more of an informal session held in the front bar with punch bowls. We'll be on hand to talk through the drinks, with a sample of each for everyone, then glasses available on special for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday the 19th August, 7.30pm - Beija Flor Cachaca
Beija-Flor is a single estate, handcrafted and small batch Cachaça made using environmentally sensitive methods. Adrian from CargoBrazil will be on hand to talk about the spirit and present a few cocktails from The Hide's selection.

Tuesday the 26th August, 7.30pm - Lan Rioja
Lan produce some of the most popular riojas in Spain. One of our suppliers will be over to present some of the different bottlings, and we'll have a little Spanish food on the side to aid your palates.

LAST BIT - BERRY DRINKS

Tis the season for all things berry. Black, blue, goose, rasp or straw, they're all now (reasonably) local, so what better excuse to try out some old and new drinks.

Firstly some old classics. One of my favourites is the Clover Leaf, a variation on the Clover Club from the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia around the turn of the last century (the original recipe did not contain the mint but was widespread in 1911 when the recipe was given in the New York Times and Washington Post). Both drinks originally used raspberry or grenadine syrup for most of the year, but are thought to have substituted raspberries when in season.

Muddle the raspberries then shake all the ingredients hard over ice and strain into a coupette.5 fresh raspberries

2 mint leaves
50ml Plymouth gin
20ml lemon juice
15ml grenadine or raspberry syrup
15ml egg white

Another classic, the Raspberry Cocktail, I'll recount in full from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1931 reprint). This recipe for 6 people:
"Slightly bruise a cupful of fresh raspberries and add 2 glasses of Gin. Soak for two hours and strain. Complete the mixture by adding a liqueur glass of Kirsch and 2 glasses of any White Wine which is not too sweet, such as Moselle, Graves or Chablis. Ice. Shake. Put a raspberry in each glass, and serve. This is a very refreshing summer cocktail."

Moving forward, the 1980's saw the creation of one of the modern classics, The Bramble. Dick Bradsell at Fred's Club in Soho was responsible for this excellent berry drink. You can always muddle some more into the shaker to give a fresher berry flavour. This a simple drink that's great to make as an aperitif for a dinner party, the tart flavours getting the palate going.

50ml gin
37.5ml fresh lemon juice
37.5ml sugar syrup
15ml crème de mûre

Shake the first three ingredients over ice, then strain into a rocks glass over crushed ice, drizzle with the mûre, and garnish with a blackberry.

Another good aperitif is the Strawberry Martini as made by Simon Difford of Difford's Guides. It's got a lovely subtle bite from the pepper. By replacing the pepper with 2-3mls of Balsamic vinegar, you get a Strawberry 'n' Balsamic Martini.

5 fresh (hulled) strawberries, muddled
60ml vodka
15ml sugar syrup (or to taste)
2 grinds of black pepper

On a more recent cocktail note, one of our opening cocktails (still available for anyone who misses it), was the Chilli Raspberry Martini.

60ml chilli-infused vodka
25ml raspberry purée
5 muddled raspberries

Finally, one from Rufus, the Spiced Dog Punch (so-called after an in-house canine squabble as he was making the drink).

Finely slice 1/4 of an apple, add 4 blueberries and muddle in a Boston glass. To this, add:

35ml Buffalo Trace bourbon
30ml fresh lemon juice
15ml Giffard Ginger of the Indes ginger liqueur
10ml Velvet Falernum (lime and clove liqueur)

Happy experimenting and drinking!

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

beija flor

Lan Rioja

raspberry

strawberry

blueberry