Cocktails at the Big Chill House & Bounce

For all my boasting that I could drink all day long, I proved this weekend that this definitely is not the case.

It was my best friend's birthday bash and when she announced it was likely we would be drinking for at least 10 hours, I saw this as a personal challenge to survive to the end.  Given my recent cocktail hiatus (unintentional) and also that I only had one cocktail the night before, I thought I best make up for it.


As the plan was to go to Bounce (www.bouncelondon.com/, 121 Holborn  London EC1N 2TD) later on, we did decide that given that we're not getting any younger, eating is definitely not cheating.  As I have proved and Sam has proved, we're much better people when we get to eat.  Therefore we went to the Big chill house (www.bigchill.net/house, 257-259 Pentonville Rd  King's Cross, London N1 9NL) for food and cocktails.

It felt almost illicit to order a cocktail at 12:30pm before I even ordered any food but  I liked the look of the cocktail options.  I tried a botanical garden first.

It had Tanquery gin, St Germain elderflower liqueur, apple and lime juice.  The thing about drinks like these is that they're a little like having Pimms, you drink loads and loads (which in my case I had 3), thinking it does you no harm as it's like drinking juice and then later on you realise how it hits you.

However, on the subject of drinks hitting you in the face, I then had a Jaywalking honey.  I coerced my friend to have it too, promising that the last time I had a whiskey cocktails (which I tried at party sponsored by Jameson whiskey, that's how I rolled once upon a time), it was really nice.  Plus this looked cute as well.

I should have known better than to be fooled by its girly exterior.  This is like the equivalent of a ninja, small but mighty.  Johnnie Walker black label whiskey, orange and lemon juice and honey.  It nearly bought tears to my eyes when I realised how potent it was.  I could hardly tell there was honey (and I have heard it is a good companion to whiskey) let alone anything else other than pure alcohol.  So I thought to myself I'm definitely not having that one again, except I kind of accidently did have another one.

Then onto Bounce.  I love this place.  I love really discreet doors that look like nothing's going on and then you get down the stairs and hit with a wave of table tennis and flying ping pongs (cue jokes).  You had to keep your wits about you not to get hit in the face by one, it was like some bizarre obstacle course.

I tried the pink one.  For obvious reasons perhaps but because it also had Absolut vodka, Lillet rose, fresh lemon, sugar syrup, raspberry and egg white.  It was sweet and really lovely.  I really enjoyed drinking it so had another one.

I also had a Ladies delight no. 2.  I have no idea what happened to ladies delight no. 1 but I wasn't complaining.  Beefeater gin, passionfruit, apple juice, vanilla syrup and lemon juice.  I love the idea of vanilla in a cocktails although I've never tried one and I really enjoyed it.  Obviously would have been better with Bombay Sapphire but I won't go on that tirade in this entry.



So these cocktails amongst shots and other drinks kind of led to my demise.  I remember bits and pieces of the night, amongst which I was telling my friend I will very likely end up alone in life, a self assessment of my state which led me to slinking off home shockingly early and then missing my stop because I was checking up on Twitter.   Oops.