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Essential Journal

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The World’s Best Bars at Your Doorstep

Speakeasy At Home brings the award-winning cocktails of Swift, Nightjar and Oriole right to your door

Words by Will Halbert

Ever heard of a boomerang? Not the timelessly hilarious artefact of Australia’s aerodynamic mastery, but the clandestine, bar-to-bar, hand-to-hand delivery service? The premise is simple; loyal patrons and off-duty bartenders run small drinks (sometimes shots, often cocktails) over to neighbouring bars who (as is polite and customary) return the favour by ferrying over their own concoctions. Such contraband is typically carried in takeaway cups and air-tight, cellophane-clad shot glasses to ensure safe (and secret) passage.

The legality of the boomerang eludes me (in a don’t-ask-don’t-tell manner of blissful and convenient ignorance) but my ten-year tenure as a bartender was peppered with these midnight runs. As with anything bar-related, it started in New York and enjoyed a tight-lipped, Fight Club level of secrecy – which is to say that everybody on the circuit knew about it.

Anyway, Swift, Nightjar and Oriole – familiar faces on the fabled top-fifty list of the worlds best bars – have teamed up to create Speakeasy at Home – a cocktail home delivery service. These are world-class bars dealing in top tier libations, so their packaging has evolved somewhat from the makeshift vessels of my younger days. Still, having ordered up a couple of pouches of Swift’s East 8 Hold Up, I’m not only awestruck by the quality of the drinks, but humbled by the continued energy and ingenuity of the UK bar scene. 

I also feel old. Cheers.

Check out Speakeasy at Home’s offerings here.