One of the world’s 50 best bars shares a recipe for an inventive tipple.

Walking into Nightjar in Shoreditch, east London, feels a bit like stepping back in time. Marketed as a “speakeasy”, it borrows from the atmosphere of 1920s Prohibition bars. As such, it is hidden beneath the street down a staircase in a small, dark space. The bartenders wear braces. If you’re there at the right time, a live jazz or ragtime band will be playing in the corner. And the drinks list is split into categories of Pre-Prohibition, Prohibition and Postwar – allowing the mixologists to delve into the past to concoct innovative (and potent) drinks for the present. While a lot of bars in London and New York riff on this theme, few do it as successfully as Nightjar. Indeed, it has finished in the top three of the World’s 50 Best Bars list for the past four years.

With this in mind, we were rather pleased to hear that it has just released a new bar menu. Highlights include the Mayflower – a Pre-Prohibition tipple that reimagines the classic from Mr William Schmidt’s 1892 cocktail book The Flowing Bowl, with dill and bee-pollen infusions. Or, if you prefer something a little more up to date, try the Cocktail a la Louisiane – which recalls New Orleans’s Voodoo culture. We doubt you have any bee pollen lying about the house, so we asked Nightjar to share the recipe for the latter, slightly more accessible, cocktail (which incidentally requires the store-cupboard staple monk’s pepper). Try it out, below, or head in for a tipple and let the professionals do the work.

barnightjar.com

Serves one

Ingredients:

45ml Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve 30ml Mancino Rosso Amaranto 5ml Bénédictine 5ml Grand Marnier 1 pinch agnus castus (monk’s pepper) 2 dashes absinthe

Method:

Stir all the ingredients together and serve in a cold coupette.