Blind Pig, Soho

When your next door neighbour is Milk and Honey, you're in good company... and up against stiff competition, M and H’s head barman looks pretty satisfied with his cocktail when I spot him parked up at the butch copper-topped bar at chef/ owner Jason Atherton's new cocktail lounge upstairs at Social Eating House. As, based on the evidence of my first rinse of the night, well he might. Despite its iffy name, the ‘Ooh-Arr-Tinez’ - a Somerset cider brandy spin on a martinez - is a success. One barman totally nails a Plymouth dry martini - always a litmus test - where so many others drown the gin in vermouth: wet, wet, wet? Because my name's Marti Pellow? When I stray off menu, however, things  get temporarily wobbly - one enthusiastic soul suggesting vodka as a key component of a smoky mescal old-fashioned. Suggestion declined. Blind Pig owes its name to those American forerunners of the speakeasy where, to outfox the authorities, hucksters would charge a steep admission fee to spectate a (legal) novelty attraction such as a pig or a tiger in a blindfold, plying their guests with complimentary liquor while they were about it. At £9 for The Rosefield (Chase Marmalade vodka, Punt e Mes, apricot brandy and Fernet Branca), the admission price here is about right and the handsome, if not entirely original, room - all 1930s film noir, wood panelled gin joint - looks like the kind of place a femme fatale in a Mickey Spillane novella would meet a hired gun to plot her husbands's demise. I can live without some of the wackier elements on the menu: Skittles-washed Ketel One, pickle brine, popcorn-infused bourbon and choccy alcopops (not all in the same glass, mercifully) aren't high on my agenda; but factor in bar bites such as rillettes, mac'n'cheese, cod brandade and duck fat chips with aïoli, and I reckon this little piggy will bring home the bacon for his master. 
58 Poland Street W1F 7NR 7993 3251  www.socialeatinghouse.com

BYOC, Covent Garden

It should, strictly speaking, be called BYOB. BYOC, U C,  is not licensed to sell booze, merely to mix cocktails for 'guests' who bring their own hooch and pay a £20 entry fee. Served in vintage stemware, cocktails are created by adding non-alcoholic ingredients and garnishes from a rickety drinks trolley. This squeaky vintage prop -  rescued from a 1950s Terence Rattigan play by the looks of it - is wheeled from end to end of the underground bunker by owner, dapper Dan Thomson. The manoeuvre takes all of two seconds. The premise at this nanoscale bar is not unlike the deal at London's supperclubs - only supper, at BYOC, is limited to charcuterie, cheese and fruit platter. The ambience is cosy, clubby and convivial and fellow guests are encouraged to pool alcoholic resources. This gives busy bee Thomson - or a capable stand-in when Dan's off tending bar at Milk and Honey -  scope to rustle up all manner of old- and new-fashioned honeyz. Secreted in the crepuscular cellar of a small juice bar, with its scratchy blues and my-man-done-me-wrong torch songs, BYOC feels closer to the real deal than any other London 'speakeasy' - with the exception of frisson-inducing genuinely underground enterprises I can't name here, lest I find a horse's head in my bed after the cops close them down on account of my indiscretion. Testimony to Danny boy's drinks, we extend our 2-hour table booking  to four. After the ninth variation on a classic Tanqueray 10 martini - the one that involved pepper, grapefruit bitters..... and Cillit Bang kitchen cleaner for all I care by this stage - the next drink I remember, is the following morning's emergency Berocca. Annihilation never felt so good. In fact, I plan to sit out Armageddon in this get-bombed shelter. Just me, Dan, the entire stock of Gerry's Soho liquor store,  and a dozen fellow cocktail-lovin' cockroaches.
28 Bedfordbury WC2 . No telephone. For reservations info, see www.byoc.co.uk/

Bittersweet, Soho

Open to random lushes until 10pm, Bittersweet then morphs into a members-only DJ lounge. Sign up for free membership online if you plan to enjoy late-night cocktails in West Soho and can't crash Milk and Honey, The Player, The Groucho etc, etc, etc, etc. Set in a slightly claustrophobic submarine-like basement, as the Pinstripe Club, this was where Christine Keeler and Profumo trysted in a 1960s scandal that ultimately brought the government down. Latterly, it was the Kingly Club, whose cool cream leather Bond villain lair look has been ousted in favour of new pinky white decor that's sophisticated in a kind of early 90s Essex wine bar way - or like a 'Chicken Cottage's lavs' according to my date who clearly gets around more than I do. From a range of £9 classics that includes Aviation, Martininez (sic) and Sazerac, Negroni is fair, but  served over too many ice cubes, Vieux Carré quickly becomes too dilute.  Signatures include Vanilla Monk - vodka, Frangelico, Kahlua and cream; spirits by the bottle start at £120 (for Grey Goose/ Tanqueray/ ); and early-bird deals include £10 off champagne and half price wine and cocktails. Bittersweet’s sister is Dirty Martini whose two West End bars, on balance, I prefer.

4 Kingly Court W1B 5PW 0844 371 2550 http://bittersweetsoho.co.uk 

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