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/

Basement Sate, Soho

Around the time Teflon Tony hijacked Britpop for his own propagandist ends (and musos that should have known better were lured to smarmy Blair's lair for THAT Downing Street photo op), The Player was the Soho Oasis where Boys and Girls partied. Fast forward a decade and half: those giddy times are a distant Blur; Blair is (gasp!) GQ's philanthropist of the year - as opposed to 'lying warmonger of the century' - and, with most of the Britpop bands long since gone to the (wonder)wall, The Player closed. Into the void, hot on the heels of her hit bar Sherry Butt, a beau monde magnet in Le Marais, comes Basement Sate, a new drinking den from Irish coleen, Cathleen McGarry. Some of my friends are creaming themselves about the so-now, so-posh-Parisienne concept: cocktails et désserts. This old pudding? Not so much. The sweetest thing I'll brook when mainlining Manhattans, is the requisite maraschino cherry. Not, please, as a rookie JJ Goodman once served me, a glacé cherry - the petard by which the poor chap is forever hoist in my mind. Thank God I don't go a bundle on brandy snaps, blancmange (http://tinyurl.com/pxdgee8 whatever became of them?) Battenberg, Black Forest gat-o, Paris-Brest and the likes: Kim Kardashian's saddle bags in my slimline Slimane strides? Kanye imagine? But if mini vacherin (lime meringue and basil and raspberry cream) does it for you, try it here with vodka, beetroot, ginger and Moscato d'Asti coupette, beet me up. "Am-AZ-ing" coos one girly guest, enraptured. "Got any Twiglets?" I grumble - peckish, after my second martini. What other drinks I do try - eagle in the tub (gin, white port, Fernet Branca and ginger ale), for example - are just fine...sans puds. Basement's Sate's decor, however, is - in parts - a bit of a sunken soufflé. Hefty high chairs block access to the bar as effectively as Nazi tank traps on a 1940's Normandy beach; the prospect from the bar into an open kitchen is ugly and the Mulligatawny-tone den's soupy gloaming drains the barmen's boats of all life. Right the wrongs; pull in the pudding and prosecco massive and "Things Can Only Get Better" - as phoney Tony promised before that D-Ream turned sour.
8 Broadwick Street W1F 8HN 7287 3412 https://www.facebook.com/basementsate

Soho Grind, Soho

I'm at the launch party for this Soho cellar-ette, a cocktail bar on a coffee theme from Silicone Roundabout's mocha pimps, Shoreditch Grind. The PR chick - whom I've never met before - is on fire. Even after sixty shots of her client's richest ristretto coffee, I'd be lucky to be a tenth as bouncy, bright-eyed and upbeat as this beaming bird. If she ever jacks in the day job, she'd be a natural in Tenerife - selling time-shares by the dozen to even the most recalcitrant of tourists. An evenings-only funky white retro styled squeeze box, the basement shakes to banging beats. Cue He's The Greatest Dancer. PR girl, seemingly incapable of standing still, is down with the Sisters Sledge; throwing disco shapes, and Soho grinding like a dervish rubber dolly. Alt career plan C: pole dancer? Through a hatch, an ex-Tramshed shaker slings espresso martinis and flat white Russians (Chase vodka, espresso, Kahlúa and microfoam steamed milk), Tommy’s margarita, barrel-aged ideas and gin-out the jams - a smart way to use up your Mum’s Tiptree rhubarb and ginger jam, combined here with gin and Antica Formula. Beginning to feel hyper, I'm off. Is my edginess down to the caffeine or PR prancer who reminds me of a brunette Michaela Strachan, pasty Pete Waterman's partner in perpetual motion on essential 90's kitsch late night viewing for wired clubbers, The Hitman and Her. As I exit, I offer a parting shot. In the gay heart of W1, they've missed a trick: why no cocktail called Soho Grindr? 

19 Beak Street W1F 9RP http://www.sohogrind.com/ 

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

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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QV Bar, Soho

Gossip girl has the dish on an American pin-up whose love life, unlike his clean-cut hetero hero screen image, tends more towards dirty low-life. I need a seat and a stiffener: scandal is such thirsty work. Sipping a Harvard, a cognac-based Old Fashioned, I settle into a comfy, maple leather banquette for a Perez Hilton-style precis. We’re at QV, the smart new bar at 1920s Soho doyenne, Quo Vadis, nowadays in the capable hands of Sam & Eddie Hart also of Fino and Barrafina renown. The brothers have transformed ‘the bit of the restaurant nobody wanted to sit in’ into a timeless chic salon away from the hubbub of the main act. For bitchy têtes-à-têtes, it’s perfect. Seamless, discreet service delivers faultless cocktails - at £8, cheaper than at most glossy West End rivals and within reach of any Tom, Dick or Harry. Correctly prepared steak tartar, black pudding and duck egg, snails au gratin and a shoal of crispy baby squid are the type of bar food I crave: ‘trendy’ joints can shove their ‘pan-Asian tapas share-platter slates’ where the sun don’t shine. Which brings me back to Mr. Seedy. Lawyers are listening, so even after a carafe of lip-loosening Loire lovely Menetou Salon (£21), my cakehole remains zipped . What I can say is that with its walk-ins only policy, you’ll likely frequently find me at QV. Stand me a Manhattan: there’s every chance I’ll blab.     

26 - 29 Dean Street W1  7437 9585  http://www.quovadissoho.co.uk