Merchant House is just off Fleet Street and aims to celebrate the best whisky from Ireland and the Scottish coastline. Wanting to change people’s preconceptions of whisky, they have developed a varied cocktail menu to tempt even the most reluctant. Rather than focusing on brands, the menu is all about the flavour and enjoying your drinks.
Tucked away down a side street the bar itself is cosy and welcoming. As the nights are drawing in (sob) this is a place we could happily settle into for the night. There are tables but we’d recommend sitting up at the bar so you can chat to the friendly and knowledgeable bar staff about the (literally) hundreds of different whiskies they have. The menu is long and varied so if you’re indecisive like us, this also means you can easily ask for recommendations!
We started off with a Stolen Child, a mix of grain whisky, dry vermouth, apple and blackberry cordial and liquorice bitters. It had the perfect blend of sweet and sour, to be honest if we’d tried it blind we would have had a hard time identifying whisky as the alcohol in it. We also sampled an Old Fashioned, the classic whisky cocktail! At Merchant House rather than just one standard version, they will mix you an Old Fashioned according to your tastes – choose from rich, spice, raisin; light, floral, tropical; honey, orchard, green… Don’t worry, your friendly bartender will help with the choices! We even got to try an Old Fashioned made by a machine! We’re not 100% convinced it’s the future but if robots are going to take over the world, they may as well make us a nice drink while they do it!
A selection of nibbles are also on offer, including meat and cheese boards which seem the perfect fit for a bar like this. We can sip whisky cocktails, nibble on our food and pretend we really are as sophisticated as that makes us sound!
For more information, visit: http://merchanthouse.bar/
