Hamish! My furry little fox friend that the bartender kept encouraging me to pet. Yes, the mascot of this establishment is a dead stuffed fox named Hamish who sits atop the bar counter. He just stares with his steely eyes out onto the loud dimly lit bar, which is full of an interesting mix of after work happy hour suits and fashion savvy pre-gaming partiers, all sipping extremely pricey but finely crafted cocktails. Let's backtrack...
It's 7pm on a Tuesday evening and we're greeted with the possibility of not being able to get a table at Mark's bar due to a fully booked evening. Making rezzies at a bar on a Tues night?! Starting to feel like this city may soon cease to offer any chance of spontaneity, seeing as you apparently need to book your entire life in advance.
But we lucked out with 2 seats at the bar! Perfect, we can watch the mixology in action. In keeping with my tendency of being lazy and refusing to read extensive cocktail menus, I requested the friendly bartender to mix me up a concoction of a not-so-sweet cocktail with a bit of spice. Londoners tell me that ordering off menu is a New Yorker thing, I think it's just a prudent person thing when you're faced with a long menu filled with cocktails, each boasting a minimum of a half dozen ingredients. Ain't nobody got time for that. Or just me because, as mentioned earlier, I'm lazy.
The bartender hands me my drink. I'm soon sipping one of the best salt-rimmed spicy margaritas I've ever tasted. The bartender is simultaneously dancing to LL Cool J's "Doin It" while asking me how it is. The drink or the playlist and accompanying dance moves? The answer to both came in the form of two thumbs up from me.
Before heading into round 2, the bartender offered us a sample of the cherry infused slow gin concoction sitting in a glass jug on the bar. Smells strongly of cherry and is very tasty, but a tad on the sweet side for my palate. He explains that adding a bit of sparkling wine to it turns it into a "damn delicious" cocktail. I didn't take him up on his offer. Ended up going with an old fashioned, which was prepared to perfection. read more