In P.G. Wodehouse’s Cocktail Time (1958) the characters are frequently ‘lapping up martinis like a vacuum cleaner’. Wodehouse was living in the US at this point, and this was the era of the three-martini lunch. In the ensuing decades, the classic cocktail took a bit of a back seat. But the martini has made a mighty comeback.  

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Not put off by Sir Raymond ‘Beefy’ Bastable denunciation of the modern youth endlessly sitting around drinking cocktails, I went therefore to find London’s best. 

They are not always where you imagine. Archive & Myth is, ominously, underneath Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino. Gaggles of giggling ladies make their way past the nondescript entrance door, red-flushed faces evidence they’ve just stumbled out of Magic Mike whose bare torso can be viewed upstairs. The martinis are enlivened with everything from lichen liqueur to blackberry leaf Aleder. Sexy. 

Murder Inc is a dive bar that looks like it could be in New York rather than Soho. They do what is purportedly the world’s only blended gin martini – so who needs to choose between shaken or stirred? The fun is not limited to London: in Manchester, Speak in Code does a mean martini, with pickled pineapple and shiso vermouth. Meanwhile Kwãnt in Mayfair has some of London’s most unusual martinis –........

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