For Shoxditch slackers, sipping cool cocktails in The Shade is set to be the thing this Spring. At Made In The Shade - the name refers to a 1974 Lynyrd Skynryrd track, I'm told, not the Rolling Stones' first compilation album released the following year as I'd imagined - is located a few doors down from Ryan Chetiyawardana's liquid lab White Lyan (see review here http://tinyurl.com/lmuheyf ), but the approach to cocktail making is altogether less clenched; ice and fruity gubbins in drinks are not taboo here. In what was Bacchus Kitchen, still recognisable through a token makeover whose free-wheeling paint job and recycled furniture suggests a kooky Camberwell art student's bedsit circa Young Gifted and Black, head hooch honcho Jim Wrigley is on fire when we pitch up for the gaff's official launch. Dressed like a younger Sting, only cool and not precious with it, his opening gambit - a gin and cucumber lemonade cooler - is a picture; a stylish green swirly thing that recalls that 70s bedsit must, a lava lamp. Next cab off the rank is a whiskey, ginseng and rum old fashioned. Garnished with plastic toy figurines of the type found in cereal boxes aimed at kids (the 70's influence again), Tony the Tiger's dypso brother would doubtless rate it 'G-R-R-REAT!' I might not be fully on board with its hubristic title, UFC - as in the ultimate f****** cocktail - but it sure whets my appetite for more from where that f****** came from, signor!" Shame then, I'm booked in for dinner across town and will not, tonight, be wrapping my laughing gear around the likes of no sé - a mezcal espresso martini ‘on steroids.’ "Stay guys!" urges Jim,"have some soul food!" (The kitchen's speciality, and very good too, based on the canapes I try). "My mates are all rocking up around 9pm.. after the Press has gone." Hmm, shit-faced in the Shade at midnight? It's a look made for me; one I intend to acquire soon, @Drinksmithjim.
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