Last night I went out for a drink! (I know, right!)

I paid a visit to a bar I’ve wanted to go to for years, but for some reason never gotten round to. Inspired by going for a birthday drink with Lovely Girlfriend’s brother, we made a trip. Purl in Marylebone is one of those ‘basement under a cafe’ speakeasy places that London does so well. This was not an exception!

After a slightly stressful getting there due to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD trying to get to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park (eugh! Normally I’m OK with it’s existence as long as I don’t have to go, but yeah) we wandered down the stairs into the warmth and led to a table through a room with a fireplace complete with stag skull over it and other interesting bits and pieces dotted around. Our table was far enough away from other people to stretch out a bit and not be able to hear others conversations. Yay!

Drinks wise I wasn’t disappointed either. Waiter asked us if we needed help so I asked about the rum drinks.

‘If you want something punchy – have this one’ he said. Along came a potion bottle in a cauldron of dry ice. The drink was very much a rum old fashioned – served in a bottle with cherrywood smoke – half of the drink was poured for me and then the bottle was restoppered to smoke some more and change the flavour. 

First round was a pleasant rum old fashioned. Second time through it was all of the noms! lovely and smokey and rummy and bittery and sweet all at once.

Next up was a bit of a dud note for me. It was mostly gin with lots of things to make it taste like hay. It succeeded in this rather too well – it just tasted a little bit too much of hay for me. I can see why some people would like it very much, it just didn’t do it for me!

Final drink on the evening was a whisky/bourbon/spices/cream affair. While really not my kind of drink it was really nice – a bit like having pudding. If alcoholic milkshakes (or baileys for that matter) tasted that nice, I’d definitely be a fan.Everyone else had great cocktails too. Will go again. Only slight niggle (niggle is a good word) was that they reminded us a few times more than was needed that we only had a two hour booking and they needed the table back. That being said, I’d probably have been all of the grumpy if we’d gotten there and our table hadn’t been ready! Swings and Roundabouts!