
Drinking With Present Company
Dealing in finesse without the flex, Liverpool’s Present Company is a glowing testament to the notion that sophisticated needn’t mean showy
words by Will HALBERT
In the Best of Company
When talking about a bar like Present Company, it’s all too easy to fall into the usual clichés of decorative, journalistic nomenclature like hidden gem and best kept secret and such like. But Present Company is, in truth, neither of those things. Hell, the bar had a reputation long before it even opened its doors back in May.
And with good reason too. Both Simon Thompson and Jake O’Brien Murphy – each an industry veteran and veritable powder keg of rebel-rousing, northern charm in his own right – have long since cut their teeth on the bar scenes both north and south of that quintessentially-British, geocultural divide.
Having met at the East London cocktail institution that is Callooh Callay, the duo have since returned up north to shake things up a little. And shake they have. Their drinks menu is a masterclass in sprezzatura; a studied nonchalance that offsets the intellectual depth and sensory heft of their creations. Make no mistake, these are learned, complex, and downright bookish concoctions, but you won’t see Jake, Simon or the team sweat it. Such is the way of things at Present Company, where bar-raising is business as usual, and humility comes by the pint. EJ

Featured Libation
Death at the Party
An intriguing product of a small-scale fermentation programme that sees a homemade strawberry vinegar shot through with a few aromatised wines, Death at the Party is part guilty pleasure, part statement of intent. Boasting an approachable-yet-deceptively-complex profile, it’s just as likely to please the casual, weekend drinker as it is the more seasoned imbiber, and that’s exactly the point.
Death at the Party is both a crowd-pleaser and a subtle flash of Present Company’s creative credentials. It’s also a solid liquid metaphor for the drinks menu itself. Eschewing the typical industry penchant for peacocking heavy hitters, Present Company strive instead to create an organically- shifting, dynamic drinks selection that invites rather than intimidates. ‘Bartenders can often be their own worst enemies, and pretension is the real death of the party,’ says Jake. ‘This is a fun reminder to lighten up and enjoy the trade.’
Present Company also offer Death at the Party to takeaway by the bottle, with artwork by the superlative, Flora Grosvenor-Stevenson (@_florabyflora). EJ
Get the Round in:
Jake Murphy
What was your main aim with Present Company’s menu?
It’s just a clever pretext to let the team experiment, really. It’s very much a living menu: It’s forever changing, and some cocktails will often only stick around for as long as we can the ingredients are in season. That keeps things fun, and hopefully sparks a few conversations along the way.
In that case, what are the criteria for what does and doesn’t make it onto the menu?
It’s a meritocracy, and the only metric is deliciousness. It has to taste good, and it has to be scalable. Simple as that really. The current menu, for example, has three gin drinks, two tequila drinks and zero whisky drinks. If you think about the modern canon of the cocktail menu, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But I’d rather have a selection of excellent drinks that don’t tick all the category boxes, than a list of mediocre drinks that do.
Any recent concepts that didn’t quite make the cut?
There’s one! It’s not so much that it hasn’t made the cut, but we haven’t realised its full potential yet. We’ve been working on a series of ritual serves for dark spirits. It all started with a bottle of Clynelish 14 – our all-round, house favourite single malt. We wanted a simple bottle pour, using different wood extracts, tinctures and small amounts of complex sugars to elevate the profile of the liquid itself. The really interesting development is how the drink changes at different temperatures and dilution. Over the past two months or so, we’ve spent hours pulling our hair out trying to refine the idea. We have seen how delicious it can be, it’s only a matter of time before we crack it.
Does that mean you’re consciously moving away from the category-based cocktail menu?
In a sense. It’s more a case of category Darwinism. Only the strong survive. Categories can often get in the way of that mentality. As good as a cocktail gets and regardless of what base it has, you should always be looking to better it.
Even if it means replacing favourites like Death at the Party and Duster?
Especially if it means losing drinks like Death at the Party and Duster! I want to kill drinks. If we have to take Death at the Party off the menu because we’ve come up with something even better, well, that’s a pretty good problem to have. Benchmarks should never be finish lines.