Kench & Bibesy - Jim Beam Stillhouse - Williams Ale & Cider House

Wednesday 20th November - After a boozy Tuesday (see here), Wednesday was supposed to be my night off, but Louis (of Tuck and Vine) & Amy dragged me back out again.  If I'm honest, it only took one text before I was on a tube to Barbican, one of the least convenient stops to get to in all of Central London (I live in the incredibly well connected Battersea).  This is where the Evans & Peel Detective Agency boys have launched their new place, Kench & Bibesy.

Upstairs is a an attractive restaurant & bar serving small plates of British food.  Chef Michael Harrison has developed a quirky little menu with oddly named dishes like 'The Fall of Jerusalem' (Jerusalem artichoke, chestnut & black truffle paté, spelt crackers, pickled walnut) and 'Pigeon, Fancier' (pigeon breast, barley, chocolate, hazelnuts, rowan berry).

I greatly enjoyed my 'Return of the Tail' (pulled oxtail, roast potato, braised red cabbage & pickled grapes) as well as a portion of 'All Carrot No Shtick' (rare breed carrots, sorrel hollandaise, Buttermilk & black pepper), but Louis was less convinced by Amy's Belly Pops (confit pork belly lollipops, squash purée, Bramley apple).

The fun doesn't stop upstairs though, for tucked away below the restaurant is another low-lit speakeasy with a hidden entrance.  I'll leave it to you to pull and push on various panels and objects before finding the relatively obvious entrance to this underground watering hole.

Where's the door? No, not that one.

Someone obviously had a load of spare stuffed squirrels lying around, as they await you at every turn down here.  It is a pretty small space (no bookings are taken) which keeps the atmosphere lively. After Louis & Amy rushed off, I decided to prop up the bar to investigate the drinks list.

All of the beers (also available upstairs) are from Wild Beer Co (based in Somerset), including Fresh and Scarlet Fever on draught, both of which went down very easily.  In the fridge there are more adventurous bottles such as Ninkasi (9% - New Zealand hops, apple juice, wild yeasts and champagne fermentation) and Wildebeest (11% - Imperial espresso chocolate vanilla stout).

The cocktail list extends to several pages, which doesn't bother me as a lot of TLC has gone into this drinks menu.  The marmite drink on the list is Campari Eggnog (campari, egg, cream & sugar) which grew on me very quickly.  Experimental Campari dust was apparently sinking too readily, so cinnamon may be shaken on top instead.  The rival for most bizarre drink is the Marraine - Croissant infused Vodka (surprisingly well achieved) stirred with Almond Liqueur.  The friendly bartenders kindly gave me a taster of some Finnish Cloudberry liqueur which I hadn't come across before - order the Lapland Collins to see it in action.

A few of the cocktails are also available upstairs (such as the sweet Oenological Manhattan that turns dry in your mouth) along with the beers & amusingly-described wines ("dark fruits with mafia hit", "a plum in your mouth, sir" etc).  Both floors work nicely in their own way, and I'm sure this is going to be a big hit with the locals.  Can the next one be in Battersea, please?

Campari Eggnog

Friday 22nd November - I booked tickets to the Jim Beam American Stillhouse experience at the Old Truman Brewery a couple of months ago and promptly forgot about it, so it was a pleasant surprise to suddenly see it all booked in and paid for (a bargain £5) in my calendar.  I sped over to Shoreditch after work to meet 6th placed Lee for some early evening bourbon.

We collected our bourbon passports and made our way in to the first room where we were greeted by the Master Distiller himself, Fred Noe (Jim Beam's great-grandson).  Seven generations of Beams (or Boehms) have been producing Kentucky bourbon for over 200 years, surviving through the Great Depression, two wars and Prohibition.

Fred was a very engaging host, amusingly describing his inevitable rise to the role of Master distiller. He encouraged everyone to drink Jim Beam Original "however you damn well want" whether it be neat, watered down, or in a cocktail.  We held our glasses (bourbon was free flowing throughout) up to the light, and had a good sniff (mouths open) before "chewing" it in our mouths.  One clumsy/sozzled punter displayed how not to drink it by smashing his glass a few minutes in to the tour.

The second room showcased the special Devil's Cut bourbon.

"As bourbon ages, a portion of the liquid is lost from the barrel due to evaporation—that's the "Angel's Share." After aging, when the bourbon is dumped out of the barrel, a certain amount of whiskey is left trapped within the wood of every barrel. We call that the devil's cut." 

This is then blended with 6 year old bourbon and bottled at 45%.  Two comedians with dubious accents were running this room, and took us through the legal requirements that must be fulfilled for a product to be called Kentucky Bourbon.  Write down your answers and check here.  They also informed us that, during Prohibition, Jim Beam turned his hand to coal mining and citrus farming:

"Luckily for us, he was no good at either otherwise we would be holding lemony coal not bourbon."

The last room was a cocktail bar with four drinks to choose from making use of different Jim Beam products including Red Stag Black Cherry (also available in Spiced Cinnamon, Honey Tea & Hardcore Cider flavours) and Jim Beam Honey.  There are several other Jim Beam creations that weren't on show such as Maple, Black, Jacob's Ghost and Signature Craft which you can read more about on the website.

Before we left, we signed a barrel from which we will be sent a bottle of whiskey in 4 years time, assuming they can still contact us then.  I find it hard to believe it will actually happen, but it will be a very pleasant surprise if it does!  It was a superbly run event and ridiculously priced at £5 - make sure you don't miss it next time around.

We made one more stop that evening to break up the walk back to Liverpool Street. I spotted the recently refurbished Williams Ale & Cider House (keeping up with the beer revolution) down the road from The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town on Artillery Lane, so we popped in with beer afficionado Sam to check out their 14 hand pulls and 7 taps.

Despite being so close to Liverpool Street, it wasn't busy for a Friday night and we managed to sit up at the bar.  It's a great looking pub, and it gets lots of extra points from me for having a free to play piano, and regular live jazz.

We started with the wonderful Five Points Pale before moving on to ales from ELB, London Fields, Camden Town and Portobello.  They have their very own "Spitalfields Brew" at 3.6% made for them as their house ale.

According to their website, they also have a quirky stew option on the food menu: 

"Our unique stew of the day will sit on the back bar and be served in mess tins, with a spoon and a wedge of bread. The stew will change daily and when it’s gone it’s GONE."

Williams Ale and Cider House is another top pub with great beer in London, and gives the excellent Water Poet some competition.  I do wonder what the Southampton Arms will think of the sign though... 

Evans and Peel Detective Agency - Ping

Wednesday 3rd April - Evans and Peel has been near the top of The List since I began blogging at the end of February.  A couple of minutes from Earls Court station, just off the main road, you will find a door marked Evans and Peel Detective Agency.  Before you press the buzzer, make sure you have your story straight.  This is no ordinary bar - on entering (or booking), you must describe an imaginary case that you want the kind detectives to solve.  You should book, especially if you want to go at the weekend, but you can walk in if you get there early - we went at 6.45 and were the first people in.

Natalie and Lauren arrived before me and told the Detective some tall tale about Natalie's flatmate not returning home after attending an ex-boyfriend's wedding.  They suggested I turn up and pretend to be the ex-boyfriend but sadly I received that text too late.  I instead went for some nonsense about a grand piano being mysteriously removed from my flat on the 40th floor without anyone noticing (my building only has 5 floors before you start getting any ideas).

The detective went along with my weak case and chatted about getting helicopter surveillance and checking that the building isn't "slanted like they are in Amsterdam".  After this bizarre discussion, she took my number and pulled on the bookcase next to her desk to reveal the hidden bar.  It may all sound a bit tacky, but frankly it was pretty darn enjoyable.  The bar looks great - candlelit tables, oddments scattered around, cosy corners, well dressed staff etc - and the drinks are worth the effort. My 'Sir John Eh' with pecan-infused bourbon was particularly impressive.  Order the Marminez if you want your drink in a teacup.  Beers are apparently poured through an antique radiator but we stuck to cocktails so I didn't see this myself.

They have wisely decided to offer food as well, with various snacks and sliders on offer.  I was particularly tempted by the Smoked Cheesecake.  You can also buy your own private drawer behind the bar to store your own drinks (decanted into a wax-sealed Evans and Peel bottle) which comes with a key, a private email address and a password. It would be worth visiting even without the fun on the way in, and if amateur dramatics aren't up your street then you can leave the talking to someone else.  Put it on your to-do list.

Evans and Peel cocktail menu

We decided to head down the road to try out Ping whilst we were in the area, where we joined by ping-pong enthusiast, Jason.  Ping is one of the many new London bars with table-tennis on offer - unlike Bounce in Holborn, the tables here are free!  You can get onto one of the four tables by asking the barstaff, or by trying to figure out their blackboard system.  We managed to get on for a half hour slot without too much trouble.  With the tables packed close together, and music pumping away in the background, there is a fun, party atmosphere whilst you play.

If you aren't keen on table-tennis but want to get involved, then you can play beer pong instead which I imagine is very popular at the weekends with the King's Road crowd that seem to have adopted Ping.  It was pretty full for a Wednesday night, so I can only imagine how sweaty it gets at the weekend.  It is decked out for clubbers, with suitably disgusting toilets.  The drinks are fairly standard but to their credit they have an interesting pizza menu, including a couple with roast potatoes on.  Desserts look good too, especially 'Ping Porn' - pizza dough smothered in Nutella, covered in various berries and nuts.  If you are feeling particularly fancy, order the £55 'Chandler Ping' - a frozen watermelon drink for sharing with friends.  As it says on the website, high 5 your barman when you order for the full '90s effect!  Ping won't be for everyone with loud music, a Chelsea crowd, and that lovely clubbing smell, but the pizzas and ping pong were enough to entertain me.

Ping Porn

Natalie and Lauren pick up two more Team List points each, with the former closing in on Tim's impressive haul from my weekend in Paris, and Jason gets his second ping pong based point after turning up at PUPP last month.

There are still a few tickets left for The Drowned Man : A Hollywood Fable - an interactive theatre experience from the award-winning Punchdrunk company.  It promises to be a fantastic event, and tickets will sell out.  Read more here.