There's little more exciting than a new restaurant that also promises top notch cocktails in London - we already have so many wonderful places but I'm always interested in new restaurants too. So I popped down to the newly opened (they still had the door locked when I arrived!) Bull in a China Shop in Shoreditch a couple of weeks ago to check out their whisky cocktails and oriental influenced food menu. Bull in a China Shop is the second offering from brothers Stephen and Simon Chan who already own The Drunken Monkey dim sum bar further down Shoreditch High Street.
As excited as I was, I was also a little nervous - I'm not the biggest whisky fan. I don't dislike it, but I just don't drink it that often. When I have tried it I've always been pleasantly surprised so I'm always up for it, especially in cocktails made by real whisky lovers as they must know what they're doing! I started with the Apricot High Ball - a mix of Nikka whisky, apricot jam, apricot brandy and soda. As I sat enjoying my cocktail and waiting for my friends to arrive I chatted to Daniel who talked me through the whisky offering at Bull in a China Shop. The whiskies served in the bar have been sourced from Scotland and Japan and include such rare bottles that they are literally one of a kind - filled with whisky from now defunct distilleries that will never produce whisky again. Shots of these special whiskies, such as the Karuizawa 1981, retail at around £40 a pop. Expensive, but when you think that it is the last bottle of this whisky in the world then it all comes into perspective. Others are so rare that they're named by their cask number - Hanyu 2000, Cask #921 costs £25 a shot.
