The Lexington, Islington

Despite being recently tarted-up and rouged - scarlet flock wallpaper, crystal chandeliers and steer head skulls  - this old dame still comes on like a saloon in a seen-better-days cathouse in its spiritual home - Lexington, Kentucky. At its long Rhett Butler-butch bar, choose from around 100 American ryes and small batch bourbons, many of them - George Dickel Barrel Select and Sazerac 20 for instance - rare. Whiskey-based cocktails such as Boulevardier and Red Rye, a Manhattan made with Fernet Branca, are fine at £7 but with Kentucky and the South the theme, I’d like to see the julep jump out in all its juicy variations. Otherwise, there's wine from £18, Goose Island and Anchor Steam and London crafties from the likes of Hammerton and Sambrook’s. New on a menu that includes mixed mezze, and 3 for £6 pile-em-high tacos, is a range of pies - jerk chicken and sweet potato; rabbit, bacon, mushroom and cider ; ‘vegan shepherd’s pie’ etc - served with mash. Even at full capacity, you can hear yourself speak in the main bar. ‘Screaming guitars and thumbing bass’, says the website, are restricted to the club room above; its programme aimed at musos more inclined to Iggy Pop than Simon Cowell-pop. 

96 - 98 Pentonville Road N1 9JB 837 5371www.thelexington.co.uk 

The Whip, Mayfair

("Whip it! Whip it good.") 

The theme at this new cocktail spot above The Running Horse, a handsome Georgian tavern in Mayfair, is the Kentucky Derby circa that State’s most famous racehorse, Seabiscuit. Yes, I do know Seabiscuit never ran in America's most prestigious race: having once correctly answered 19 out of 20 pub quiz questions about horse races - much to the incredulity of Frank Skinner and Jonathon Ross on an opposing team - I'm a bit of a gee-gee fancier - and not in a Catherine The Great kind of way. A past relationship with a native Kentuckian also left me with a taste for the South's signature drink, the julep - as sipped by Scarlett O'Hara, if not Rhett Butler, a straight whiskey fan and a man after my own heart who was prone to declare 'I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening's over.' Of the seven advertised juleps here - whipped up by Peaky Blinder bartenders and served, comme il faut, through strainers in pewter cups - the bookies’ favourite is rye and raspberry. The rhubarb vodka version is a good each-way bet, but I'm not about to stake £10 stake on gin julep. Having had a sip of my mate's, I conclude it's lame. TBH I'd rather snog Clare Balding - not that she'd be up for it, I imagine. If your two lips don't do juleps, there's sours, fizzes, flips slings and tings built on a savvily edited range of premium spirits that includes citrussexy Navy Strength gin, Perry’s Tot. The Whip - like the Running Horse below, since autumn 2013 - is owned by James Chase of Chase Distillery and  Dominic Jacobs, a former bar director at Sketch. In a slow week for launches, it's my favourite newbie and although it's early doors, expect to find yourself jockeying for position at its bar by Grand National day.  
The Running Horse, 50 Davies Street, W1K 5JE 7493 1275 http://www.therunninghorselondon.co.uk