The Cocktail Trading Co. Development Bar and Table, Soho

The name is a mouthful. So too, in a tastier way, this new dive's dandy drinks. Crammed to capacity, just days after opening - "That's because they've got a great PR" quips the bar's star media massager, Anne Kapranos - tonight, the basement's 50-strong crowd of self-evidently satisfied soaks does not include Ed Burstell, MD of Liberty across the street. Phew! The main turn in Channel 4's highly watchable fly-on-the-wall TV series/ extended advertisement for the creaky old pile may be an affable sort, but the spindly American Mister Ed (the Talking Clothes Horse) gives me the pure heebie-jeebies. A modern-day Childcatcher, camp and slightly creepy in black duds by Dior, he loomed large in a particularly disturbing nightmare I once had that also involved Gok Wan and Mary Portas, and saw me wake up, gasping, convinced I was being strangled by a Paisley-print silk scarf. (Make of this what you will, Dr. Freud!) Cocktail Trading Co, on the other hand, is a discerning drinker's wet dream. Run as an 'ethical co-operative' by a trio of joshing patter merchants - friendly faces you'll likely recognise from London Cocktail Club and Steam and Rye is likely to succeed where others such as its immediate predecessor - the conceited 'no-brands' concept that was "And Co" - failed. Why? Because the raffish, retro wood-panelled pit is "Ding Dong" as Leslie Phillips would put it and £8 is a steal for real-deal drinks such as my deftly dispatched boulevardier or the solid gold sazerac that follows it. Fresh ingredients and attention to detail are part of the package. And while I'm more likely to snog not-half-as-sharp-as-she-thinks, oboxious ogre in a Worzel Gummidge wig, Katie Hopkins, than lock lips with jokey ideas such as Tu-Whit-Tu-Whoo-Woo - vodka, lemon, peach, sage, cranberry and prosecco served, tiki-style, in a red owl mug coiffed with pink candy floss - if wacky is your bag, it's done here with wit, style and substance. No more so, than in the guise of a Jim Beam, yuzu, ginger, plum and matcha tea Shanghai sour (pictured). Sipped through straws disguised as chopsticks, served in a waxed noodle container, garnished with a mound of the sort of Chinese chow Nancy Lam would wham bam your way, it's doable as well as dippy. Dippy, Cocktail Trading Co's sussed owners are decidedly not but you'd be daft to miss a production that will hopefully outrun Cats, Lord Wibbly-Wobbly's steaming pile of caterwauling crap that is, unfathomably, still pulling them in by the charabanc-load at The Palladium next door.

22 Great Marlborough Street W1F 7HG 7427 6097  www.thecocktailtradingco.com/

London Cocktail Week 2013

It’s back! From 7th - 13th October LCW celebrates the city’s status as World Cocktail Capital with a week of masterclasses, cool events, pop-ups and samplings. What’s more London’s best bars will be offering selected cocktails for just £4 to those with an LCW official wristband. For full details of what’s on and to get your wristband (priced £10) visit http://www.diffordsguide.com/london-cocktail-week and collect it at the LCW Ketel One  hub in WC2 

With 160 + bars taking part, you’re spoilt for choice but you’ll find me snarfing £4 ‘tails at these fine watering holes: Nola, Callooh Callay EC2; 5CC E2; Dabbous, Purl, London Cocktail Club, The Player, The Pink Chihuahua,The Blind Pig all in W1; Trailer Happiness, Lonsdale W11; Bunga Bunga SW11; Christopher’s, Dirty Martini WC2; Village East, Aqua Shard SE1; The Gilbert Scott,  Shaker and Co NW1; Barrio North N1; The Loft SW4; Eclipse SW5; House of Tippler SE 22. 

London Cocktail Club, Oxford Circus

With owner JJ Goodman's London Cocktail Clubs 1 and 2 firing on all cylinders in Goodge Street and on Shaftesbury Avenue, opening numero tres in a basement just off Oxford Circus makes commercial sense. After all, who doesn't need a stiff drink, shell-shocked after the cacophonous assault course that is Topshop where, last year, I spotted some Comme des Garçons tribute brogues I fancied. "Them (sic) shoes are the nutz, mate. What size is he after?" pipes up a pipe-cleaner styled as Harry Styles, motioning towards the entirely unrelated 18-year-old hovering beside me. Clearly, I am of an age when I should be shod exclusively by advertisers in the back pages Daily Express magazine. Next up, Comfi-Fit leisure slacks with elasticated waistband? I doubt the desirable chaussures I took a shine to were the work of Topshop heiress Chloe Green -  designer of towering infernal heels as drooled over by acrylic blonde Romanian pole dancers and midget tea-bag tanned slappers from Stoke. Next time Chloe pops in to ogle the shekels rolling into her inheritance's tills, she'd do well to fall into LCC3, located just across the street from Daddy's flagship schmutter emporium, afterwards. Garish, trashy, graffitied Chicano gangsta's crib; why, this dark dive bar could be in Miami or South Central LA. Or, indeed, East Harlem, once home to J-Lo's Latino salsa star ex hubby, Marc Antony- currently, lil' Chlo's beau. (Is it just me, or is this unlikely pairing up there with Simon Cowell and whatever his American babymother's name is in terms of "REALLY?") What she'll find, is a raucous rock'n'roll party pit, its fit-for-fun-lovin'-criminals rinses mixed by badass brutes that come on like wild-eyed Hells Angels but are probably called Clive and Colin, and take in stray kittens at the Cockfostersbungalow they still share with Mumsy. LCC3 is big on tequila - try a seriously hot-tempered chilli sling - as well as wacky LCC signatures such as squid ink sour or pineapple and cheese martini. Hungry? Feed your face chilli squid with margarita dip, hush puppies, and ‘Snoopy Doggy Dog’ from a range of franks in buns. Next up for Goodman, launching in 2014, is LCC 4 in Shoreditch - a hood that, to Chloe and her Made In Chelsea ilk (or in her case Made In Hampstead Garden Suburb, I imagine) - is as edgy as it gets. 

4 Gt Portland St. W1 7580 1960 

www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk

"potofgold" shoe and more like it are available from 

www.cjg.com/collection/‎

Reverend JW Simpson, Fitzrovia

When I drop in briefly at this new bar, en route to Michelin-starred scran in starrier surroundings, I feel slightly over-dressed. My formal suit is at odds with such dilapidated decor. The former basement  flat’s original tatty peeling wallpapers and tacky pastel tiles suggest a 10-bob-the-job walk-in knocking shop (knob rinse and rubber included);  my poncey attire suggests a heartless pimp here to extract his outrageous cut of some hapless old hoor's back-breaking daily grind. In such tawdry surrounds, once lived not a lady of the night but a man of the cloth - the eponymous vicar who has unwittingly given his name, if not his blessing (he's long gone to meet his maker), to this devil's playground. It's new from the Bourne and Hollingsworth boys  whose other Fitzrovia bar, all great-great Aunt Mabel's parlour, lies within staggering distance and wherein the fragrant Mary Queen of Shops once enquired of me 'Keith, why are so many lesbians so fat?' 'Eating out too often? A Dunkin' Donuts fetish? Sloth?' I mused. After a hard night  on the batter, I occasionally look like K D Lang might, found drowned in the Saskatchewan River, her floating waterlogged corpse undiscovered for a fortnight,  but I would have thought  Ms Portas better placed than I to answer her own question. Anyhow, I digress. Greek (via Glasgow) barman Dino knows his stuff: from a hatch in his claustrophobic cubby hole under the pavement above, he dispenses quality stirs and shakes in retro cut glass stemware, served, with comped snacks, by a towering Tilda Swinton-esque brunette with to-kill-for cheekbones. Try Prune Manhattan (£9.50), Rebourne Royale ('gin, lime and elderflower, but livened with fizz') and Tequila and Sherry Cobbler. Less appealing to this brothel creeper's tastes - not  being big on  Ribena-y rinses, pimped-up or not - is Port-Berry Stinger. If you fancy a grungy alternative to fancier Fitzrovia dives - Shochu Lounge, London Cocktail Club and Lucky Pig are all on my go-to list - come on down, but avoid Sundays: the Rev is busy worshipping with his flock elsewhere.

32 Goodge Street W1T 2QJ 3174 1155 info@revjwsimpson.com

London Cocktail Club, Shaftesbury Avenue

Camouflaging jovial JJ Goodman’s culinary shortcomings, cherubic charm and killer cocktails with an apparent in-built ability to  anaesthetise any doubting critics, saw the blond likely lad emerge as the unlikely winner of Raymond Blanc’s The Restaurant in 2009. His prize? A partnership with the chef that spawned not a restaurant per se (praise be!) but The London Cocktail Club, a rocking dive bar on Goodge Street. Building on its success, JJ has just launched son of LCC1 in WC1. In a dark, vibey den that’s a little rough around the edges, the pose is Jack Sparrow versus Captain Pugwash’s crew in a Tiger Bay tattoo parlour. Punk up in vintage Westwood pirate threads and lay into Army & Navy, one of several Seaman Staines-friendly tots, tipples and grogs served in tin mugs. Nelson’s Blood - champagne, port and lemon - hits you between the eyes while, going off-theme, LCC’s signature bacon & egg (white) martini, like Marmite, divides opinion. Me? I’d sooner spend £8 on a sweet Manhattan - even one garnished with an actual sweet (a wretched Haribo blob replacing the proscribed maraschino cherry) and too heavy on bitters to technically qualify as ‘sweet.’ Other gripes: no silverskin onions for a Gibson; utensils steeping in dirty water-filled pot plonked under our noses; an Irish barman’s iPod self-indulgence (a 30-minute Van Morrison medley). There's already a buzz about the place and I’ll grow to love the place, I expect, warts and all but as ever, JJ, the devil is in the details.

224A Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 7580 1960 www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk 

London Cocktail Club, Fitzrovia

Remember cherubic blonde JJ and his sweaty-under-pressure co-competitor James, the unlikely winners of Raymond Blanc’s 2010 TV gameshow, The Restaurant? While there’s no sign of the much-trumpeted prize, a restaurant to call their own, what you do get at their latest gig, The London Cocktail Club, are tricksy bar snacks: popcorn chicken; stuff on slates; penny chews for a pound; that sort of thing. Given the way the boys winged it when it came to full-blown cheffin' throughout the TV show's run, I'm guessing this will be it in terms of  culinary highs. Fair enough: the lads never claimed to be Marco-Pierre Turban or Vanity Ramsay. This, their second string operation, has been launched in tandem with Blanc and his on-screen sidekick, David Moore, baldy besuited boss of Pied a Terre, while the original similarly styled dive bar in Great Newport Street  trades on under a new monicker, The Covent Garden Cocktail Club.  Punky low-lit’n’loud, this narrow Fitzrovia basement rocks to a mix of classic hip hop, The Doors,  Springsteen and similar blue collar rock, the bartender correctly assessing that boy band-diggin' JJ should not be let loose on the bar's iPod. As 'bacon and egg martini' or 'squid ink sour' (no, really!) aren't exactly my usual tickets, I wuss out and go off-menu. There’s no faulting the liquid in my glass - a sexy Sazerac - but classics deserve better than a tumbler that might be called Krjap, were a certain Swedish store to stock such a nasty, flimsy item. Nor, will I tolerate an evil cake-mix glacé cherry masquerading as its maraschino bro’ in my Manhattan. I’m fond of the affable JJ - his commitment to cocktails is laudable and, largely, he gets it right - but as I've put it to him in the past, attention to small detail is what makes a good bar great. Tonight, JJ is neglecting his new baby for dinner with with some other baby, I'm told, but partner David Moore is in the house. Oozing professional bonhomie and inviting comment from this seemingly casual punter, he seems momentarily taken aback when the anticipated 'fabulous, darling!' fails to materialise. Recovering fast, he  breezily bats my quibbles into the long grass. To paraphrase: ‘What do you expect at £7.50? These drinks would set you back a bundle at the nearby Charlotte Street Hotel but, all the same, I’ll see what I can do, guv.’ Imagine Blanc’s face were one of his TV hopefuls as cavalier. Swing by JJ's joint by all means but, until further notice, BYO glass and cherries! 

61 Goodge St W1 7836 9553 http://www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk