The Hide Bar - Newsletter

                                             

Number 9, November 2007

What with the clocks going back and the evening dark from 4.30, our thoughts are turning to big bold reds, Port and hot cocktails. Hannah has waxed lyrical on the subject of the hot cocktails in our Last Bit below (I personally recommend a Brandy Blazer or Hot Buttered Rum) plus we’ve got some fantastic chunky reds in stock (La Bernadine Chateauneuf-du-Pape from Chapoutier is fantastic on a cold evening, but there’s plenty of choice), Meantime London Stout on the bar (softer, sweeter and fuller than its well-known Irish relative) and a massive Port tasting for you on Tuesday the 13 th. Maybe the cold evenings aren’t so bad after all.

Our main change for this month is in our opening hours. We’ve decided to give Sunday opening another try, so we’ll be open from midday until 11pm serving brunch and dinner. We’ve thought long and hard about what we’d like on a Sunday and then gone about arranging it, so we’ll have a DJ playing some jazz, soul and funk all afternoon, the Sunday papers and to top it off, a free Ketel One Bloody Mary if you mention the newsletter or bring along one of the flyers that’ll be appearing around the place soon. Our first New Sunday will be on the 4 th November, so please come along and try us out. The first one should be a particularly good party, and your chance to influence the musical themes for the weeks to come.

To fulfil seating requirements for all those Christmas parties, as well as to create a slightly more comfortable place to lunch or relax with your cocktails, we’ll be getting some new banquettes in over the next couple of weeks. Warm and cushioned posteriors all round. The new bar stools have already appeared, which excited me, but then I don’t get out much. If you have any other suggestions for how we can improve the layout, we’re always interested.

That’s about it for this month. Please see our Facebook site for little updates and gossip (‘people who like to drink at The Hide Bar’ if you can be bothered to type that in), and I might send out a little reminder about our Port & wine night in the next couple of weeks as there’ll be a ticketed optional extra tasting as well. The best way of getting in touch is still paying us a visit though. We look forward to seeing you soon and catering to your every drinking whim and fancy.

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.

This month (November), we have:

Tuesday the 6 th November, 7pm
Seasonal Beers – winter warmers and all the lovely spicy, malty beers that appear around this time of year. We’ll have a few from this country and a few from other great beer producing nations that get cold around November. An informal tasting led by The Hide’s staff as an excuse to get some nice beers in for the evening.  

Tuesday the 13 th November, 7pm
For what is possibly our best tasting of the year, we not only have a selection of fantastic ports, but also some brilliant Neal’s Yard cheeses to go with them. We’ll have a standard tasting with some cheese brought round and a few great ports, but we’ll also be reserving the back room for a ticketed tasting special, with a selection of cheeses and some of the finest ports in the world. Tickets will be £10, available in the week before the event and in limited numbers on the door – best booked as it’s already looking like a popular one.

Tuesday the 20 th November, 7pm
Tom, the very nice chap who represented Don Julio at our October tasting, will be back to talk about Tanqueray and make some Tanqueray cocktails. A much-loved gin, this is also a good chance to taste the fantastic Tanqueray 10, made with fresh botanicals to give a really lively taste. He’s also a great bartender, so you can expect some tasty concoctions.

Tuesday the 27 th November, 7pm
Hot cocktails. Given our piece below and in the forward, we thought we ought to give you a chance to taste them!

A night of flames, mulled wine and delicious warming things. Fingers crossed it’s a cold one as it’ll be totally inappropriate otherwise! We’ll be holding this one at the bar rather than the back room, as half the fun is the theatre of making them. The bar stools will be strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. The smell of cinnamon and mulled wine will be all-pervading!

Last bit
Since the clocks went back the nights have started closing in really early. Instead of reminiscing about sunnier days though, we have welcomed the hot cocktail back into our lives! The colder it gets, the more reason to tuck yourself into one of our comfy sofas with a chum and a steaming Hot Buttered Rum. Lots of you already know the Toddy, so we’d like to introduce you to several more, all equally delicious drinks. The cocktail is an American invention, but when it comes to hot cocktails, well, they are a part of our heritage. We didn’t call them cocktails back then; they had a rich array of exciting and unusual names. Possets, shrubs, flips, hot punches, negus, wassail, bishops. All English and all predate the American cocktail.

Hot cocktails have existed for hundreds of years. In Dickens’ time, fireside drinkers would break an egg into their beer, add some sugar and spice and plunge in a hot poker. Sounds bizarre we know, but we tried a variation at our flip tasting and everyone agreed it was really rather good. We’ve just got in the Meantime Stout, so I’m looking forward to trying it with that. This drink was called a Flip, and soon folk were adding cream and it evolved into a drink without the beer, and then into a drink everyone knows (but how many have tried?) the Eggnog. Not strictly for Grandma, this drink can be served hot or cold, both are sustaining and delicious. We mix up some brandy, rum, Madeira or whisky and add cream, milk, an egg yolk and some sugar (or maple syrup) and shake it up, then heat it. Double yum. Back in the days the ingredients for this drink were expensive and milk was a treat strictly for the rich.

In America the Hot Buttered Rum is still a Christmas tradition. Made badly it ain’t so great, but if you make it carefully, it is the perfect drink for these dark and chilly evenings. We make ours with aged rum, some honey and a small pat of butter in a mug, add some water and steam it. We grate some fresh cinnamon atop and that’s it.

Brandy Blazers. Now there’s a thing. A late night treat, and also a great fix for a cold. This cocktail is as old as the hills. We put some spices, sugar and then orange and lemon peel (for the lovely aromatic oils) and set the whole thing on fire. One of these is guaranteed to warm you up and put a grin on your face.

Now one we all know and love. Mulled wine (Glühwien or Glögg) is a favourite at Christmas, but for us, if it’s winter, it’s a good a time as any. Everyone has a recipe, but we think ours is best. Sweetened and spiced wine, what could be nicer? We can make you a Wassail too, which is a lovely mulled cider. The tradition of Wassailing actually meant to hang toast soaked in cider in orchards for the robins (who represent the good spirits of the trees). Lucky robins.

So if you are feeling a bit miserable now the warm weather and long days are gone, pop down to see us and we’ll chase those blues away!

Business card draw
To try and spread word a little more, we’re inviting all our customers to drop their business cards in the pot by the front door so we can add them to this newsletter mailing list. As a little incentive, we’re offering a bottle of something tasty to a random card pulled out of the hat once a month.

Congratulations to Martin Smith for winning October’s Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label! Please drop in with your business card to collect your prize.

November’s draw sees a twin prize of a bottle each of dry Manzanilla and a slightly sweeter sherry from Bodegas Hidalgo. Something to go with the salmon (the former) and the mince pies (the latter).

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