Fix yourself a drink with London's DIY cocktail bars

There’s something liberating about mixing your own cocktail. At least that’s what bar manager Elliot Davies assures me as I nervously begin shaking up my gin and beetroot concoction at new, DIY cocktail den Genuine Liquorette in Fitzrovia.

Apparently I’m the first person to mix these two specific ingredients. It feels like a triumph, until I spill purple liqueur all over the bar as a group of guests walks in. Davies doesn’t mind.

“It’s all about not being scared to get behind the bar,” he says, pointing to a reach-through beer fridge from which visitors can help themselves. “Our bar is your bar.”

This New York-inspired cocktail bar, which launched this autumn, wants to turn London into a city of bartenders. Downstairs, the place is arranged to feel like a bodega off-licence: shelves are lined with fresh ingredients, garnishes and spirits. Customers are invited to create their own cocktail, including the name. It’ll then be mixed up by an expert bartender, and bottled for you at the shop counter, so you can drink it, take it home, or order 10 for your next dinner party.

In parallel, Davies will be running a masterclass in his cocktail lab on the floor above, teaching 16 budding mixologists at a time how to shake and stir their own drinks. The two-hour tutorial covers eight varieties of cocktails, before a seven-minute make-your-own challenge at the end.

Winners will compete in a final every few months, and the champion will have their own cocktail added to the menu. Though every graduate gets a prize: complete the masterclass and you can come back and serve your own drinks behind the bar at any time — just point to your picture on the wall.

“We’re giving you the tools, the knowledge and the technique to be your own bartender,” Davies explains. Isn’t he worried people will abuse the position? “Because we’re inviting people behind the bar, they’re always a bit apprehensive. We’ve yet to come to a situation where people go wild.”

He’s on to something: bespoke is booming. Worship Street Whistling Shop in Shoreditch lets you concoct your own cocktail and bottle it yourself; Shochu Lounge at Roka in Fitzrovia offers the chance to infuse your own Asian spirit; and TT Liquor on Kingsland Road hosts both standard and molecular cocktail masterclasses in its room upstairs. Meanwhile, Double Barrel in Charing Cross is doing whisky workshops, and Martello Hall, Canova Hall and their new sister Cattivo in Brixton offer gin cocktail masterclasses plus a class where guests can make their own gin.

The boom is down to Londoners’ curiosity, says TT Liquor’s events manager Jake Rogers. “People want to educate themselves and learn how to make things in the right way — and they love anything that’s theatrical.”