The Hide Bar - Newsletter

                                             

Number 6, August 2007

On time for once, this should hopefully find its way into your in-boxes on the 1 st of August. Hopefully an interesting diversion from work, or else potential holiday reading on the PDA!

It’s certainly the start of holiday season on Bermondsey Street this month, with a noticeable quietening in traffic over the last week. A great reason to sell some holiday cocktails, so we’ll be finding an excuse for a new cocktail special every day in August, all £5. Today (1 st), for example, is apparently National Day in Switzerland, so what better (if slightly tenuous) way to celebrate, than to sell chocolate martinis?

Chocolate Martini (white or dark)
2 parts Ketel One vodka
1part dark or white chocolate liqueur
1 part Crème de cacao
Dusting of chocolate powder
Shake hard and strain into a martini glass

Tomorrow (2 nd) is National First Aid Awareness Day according to the St John’s Ambulance and the Red Cross, so the Corpse Reviver will be Drink of the Day.

 Corpse Reviver (#2)
1 part Blackwood’s gin
1 part Cointreau
1 part Lillet
1 part Lemon Juice
Dash of absinthe to coat the glass
Shake hard and strain into a martini glass  

Whatever excuse we can find, there’ll be a new special up on the window each morning.

Thanks to everyone who has booked a tasting at The Hide in the coming months. We’re getting an increasing amount of interest in our party tastings, with Islay whisky, big New World reds and martinis all popular, along with more general cocktail classes to help improve your home concoctions. We are also putting together some great new cocktails for parties, tailored to the host or guest’s desires or style. There have been some interesting ones, including a flaming, dark, long vodka drink for someone with gothic tendencies and a magnolia garnished lychee martini for a botanical book launch. Please get in touch if you’d like us to put something together for you.

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.

This month (August), we have:

Tuesday the 7 th August, 7pm
Simon Difford, of the world-famous Diffords Guides to bars and cocktails, will be making some fantastic cocktails featuring St Germain elderflower liqueur. They should be ideal drinks for a balmy August evening (fingers crossed).

Tuesday the 14 th August, 7pm
Following the Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court the week before, we’ll be doing another real ale tasting. We’re planning to show some of the winning bottle conditioned ales and a few interesting bits as well. 

Tuesday the 21 st August, 7pm
Flips! Hannah will be getting out some old and some new cocktail recipes for flips, from those listed by Gerry Thomas in the 1880s up to some modern versions. Expect lots of egg, some cream, and some delicious spirits!

Tuesday the 28 th August, 7pm
One of our wine suppliers will be along to present some of our more unusual wines… A rare chance to try something off the beaten track without having to buy a bottle. It’ll include a dry Furmint from Hungary and the increasingly fashionable Gruner Veltliner from Austria amongst others.  

SPECIALS
As well as our daily special cocktail, we’ve got a few bottles of some great Belgian beers left from our tasting last month. They’re a little different and priced to sell!

We’ve also got a great selection of bin end wines at the moment – only a few bottles of each, but again, some great prices for what they are. Sadly we don’t have the room to keep stocks of everything indefinitely, but that’s good news for people looking for a bargain bottle!

The list currently looks like this, but as I say, only a few of each so better get in quick if there’s one you fancy in particular…

White
Macon Fuissé, Jaffelin 2005 (£22)
Shaw & Smith Sauvignon Blanc, 2006, Adelaide (£26)
Luigi Bosca Gala 3 2005, Argentina (£30)
Chablis 1er Cru ‘Vaillons’ 2003. Domaine Billaud Simon (£32)
Meursault 1er Cru Genevrieres (£55)

Red
Finca La Linda Tempranillo 2006, Argentina (£16)
Fairview Pinotage 2005, South Africa (£20)
Mahon Laville Bordeaux 2002 (£20)
Southbank Estate Pinot Noir 2005, New Zealand (£26)
Greenstone Shiraz 2005, Victoria (£32)
Paternoster Aglianico 2000, Italy (£37)
Mitolo G.A.M. Mclaren Vale Shiraz 2004 (£38)
Charles Melton Barossa Shiraz 2001 (£40)
Confuron-Cotetidot Gevery Chambertin 1er Cru 2002 (£42)
Chateau Cordeillan-Bages 2001, Pauillac (£43)
Chateau Talbot 1999 St Julien Grand Cru Classe (£55)

Random bit – Rufus this month.

Paul asked me to write about New York bars for Augusts’ newsletter when I told him that I was heading there for a few days with work, I think imagining tales of Milk and Honey, the Rainbow Rooms and Angel’s Share. So when I pitched up in Tarrytown, about an hour or so drive North in Westchester and home to more conference centres than you could shake a stick at I had a suspicion he might be a touch disappointed.

However walking down the unremarkable Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains after an afternoon of shopping in the pleasant but soulless Westchester Mall we stumbled across one of the best beer saloons I’ve had the pleasure to frequent.  The Lazy Boy Saloon and Ale House at 154 Mamaroneck Avenue has the best selection of beers I have ever seen. Anywhere. Period (as they say in the US).

Not that the place looks particularly out of the ordinary.  I mean it’s nice enough but it’s a pretty functional standard bar inside.  Sports screens showing the usual incomprehensible US sports and a long bar running up the right hand side of the place.  But then you notice the bottles of beer behind the bar – there are hundreds and every one is different. And then there are the taps on the bar.  There are so many crammed onto each station that the tags for each beer have to be turned sideways so that they all fit.

So a look at the menu (I have to admit – I pinched a copy it was too good – sorry Lazy Bar Saloon – we’ll send you one of ours if you want and definitely pour you a beer if you come by and visit us). There are 38 beers on draft (Anchor Steam, Blue Point Toasted Lager, Chimay Triple, Stone Arrogant B*stard, Smutty Nose IPA, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Lindeman’s Framboise, London Pride and on and on) and over 400 by the bottle (everything you can think of pretty much, though with a very notable exception of Meantime…).  Plus they were running the semi-annual Lazy Boy Extreme Beerfest with ten punchy beers ranging from the Oskar Blues Ten-Fidy, a 9.4% abv Imperial stout from Colorado to the Schloss Eggenberg Samichlaus Bier from Vorchdorf in Austria at 14% abv which is brewed on only one day of the year (dec 6 th) and aged for 10 months prior to bottling.  There are so many beers that the menu has to list them twice, once alphabetically and once by style.

So several hours later I had got through barely 1% of what was on offer; Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter, Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale, Blue Moon White Ale (served with a quarter wheel of orange much to the amusement of my Corona-drinking philistine companions – why orange in a pint was funny to lime lager drinkers was beyond me…) a pint of Magic Hat #9 (pale ale) and a stupendous El Diablo burger. Beer and burger heaven.

If you spend any extended period in the New York region, visit the Lazy Bar Saloon and Ale House in White Plains. You will not be disappointed.  Oh and a mention has to go to our waiter. He had the Samoan wrestler look down to a T but then somewhat incongruously raved about New Order when he found out we were English even going so far as to recite word for word the John Barnes rap from World in Motion. It takes all sorts…

Other stuff
Our back room is available for hire, and we love holding tailored wine tastings or cocktail classes. Just get in touch and let us know what you’d like to do. Likewise if you have any comments and suggestions, please email everyone@thehidebar.com.

Please pass this on if you like. If you’ve received it from a friend, you can also subscribe (or unsubscribe) by emailing news@thehidebar.com. Cheers!

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