Thursday, 31 January 2019

The Swan, Ash Vale, GU12

Date: January 2019

Last weekend, I decided to visit some relatives who live just outside of London. As well as an opportunity to catch up with family, having not seen them since Christmas, I thought I’d make the trip even more worthwhile and see if they make their lime and sodas any differently outside of the capital. The Swan is in a village called Ash Vale, located in the Surrey/Hampshire borderlands. I’ll be honest and admit I don’t know which county it belongs to. Not much of an issue really but given that I’ve been coming here for over two decades and have even had several stints living with my relatives when in between places in the city, I probably should have taken the time to look more closely at the map. The postal town is Aldershot (in Hampshire) but the postcode is Guildford (in Surrey), making it all very confusing for this city boy to get a sense of where he is. Once you take me outside of the land of Underground roundels, I lose my bearings a bit.

My local geography is so sorely lacking that during one of the spells I lived here, I got very lost on an evening run around, ended up in Aldershot town centre, had to jump the ticket barriers at the train station without paying and get on the next service to Ash Vale because I had no idea how to get back. Still over 6 years and many more visits back here later, I have absolutely no idea where I got lost.

What I do know is that my relatives live about a ten minute walk down the road from this pub. Thanks to other local pubs closing down, it’s the only establishment within a reasonable walking distance. Ash Vale is an unremarkable place best noted for its two trains an hour commuter service up to London Waterloo and its reasonably sized Budgens-turned-Co-op on the main road through the village. To be fair to it it also has the Basingstoke Canal and a large British Army firing range that is open to the public when the rounds are not going off. An evening jog through its trees with the sun setting on the munitions huts, mounds of earth and big shooting targets makes for a surreal experience.

As for The Swan itself, it has gone through many changes of clothes since I’ve been going. It is clearly an old building but has attempted to opt a modern feel inside. Pubhistory suggests its origins lie in the 1911 White Swan Hotel, whose publican was Edwin Tupper, licensed victualler, and you get that sense as you enter. It has large fireplaces at either end of the building and wooden beams a plenty. GetSurrey says it was once a military tavern, which would also make sense given the area its located in. 

It occupies a pleasant spot right on the canal and is good for drinking outside in the summer. In spite of that, I remember this place being a lot nicer when I was a kid. I don’t know whether it's the seemingly frequent changes of management that have contributed to the different atmosphere or whether the closure of other pubs in the local area has led to a ‘diversification’ of the pub’s clientele (read: more rough people go here now) but the place just doesn’t feel the same. Given that you’re also paying South Eastern prices at the bar (something which my born and bred Northern grandfather never fails to point out when he’s down here) you wished it would get it’s act together a bit. Still, as it’s the local (and only) pub that you can walk to from my relatives house, I was left with little choice as to where to meet them as I stepped off the crowded South Western Railways train on a sunny Sunday afternoon. 

As on many of my visits to this part of the world, I arrived in Ash Vale with a promise to myself not to drink any alcohol. It might be coincidence or it might be a subconscious reaction against the fact that, like many middle class white collar commuters, my relatives spend many weekends numbing thoughts of early morning train rides via consumption of the vast quantities of beer and wine stored in their garage. I suppose if Armageddon should come you do need to have the basics in stock.

To clarify, they’re not getting hammered in a way you might see on a typical English high street on a Friday night - that’s us millennials who, along with the many other things we’ve destroyed, have ruined casual drinking to the extent that it's no longer really acceptable to make headway into that stash of good red wine over Tuesday night's dinner. Still, I'd be fucked if I consumed two bottles of wine or 6 bottles of strong lager, weekend night or otherwise, and yet they seem to take it all in stride. Practice I suppose. Drinking for the baby boomers is a fine art and one they've perfected through years of experience. 

So for whatever reason, I wasn't drinking on the occasion of this visit either, meaning I had only one real option for a good time down the pub.

Appearance:
This was a good looking pint of lime and soda. It just looked refreshing. The glass was wet with condensation from the cold liquid and the cordial was a crisp, vibrant green as it mingled with the bubbles from the soda water. The fresh lime quarters floating on the surface were both literally and figuratively buoyant, almost attractive in their voluptuousness. If this had appeared on Tinder, I'd have swiped right.

Taste:
The initial sip was a hydrating burst of bubbles with just the right hint of lime flavour for the top of a lime and soda. Second sip was just as good and showed just how well this drink was mixed. The soda water actually tasted like as it should, namely fresh water with carbon dioxide gas added to it, as opposed to something from a plastic bottle that was used as a mixer for a party, discarded when the party finished and then left to deflate alone in a cupboard for several months after the hangovers had subsided. The cordial too was good quality. It tasted like lime without any of the dodgy chemicals that are palatable in other lime cordials. Whatever different chemical they used to stop the bleach cupboard aftertaste of many other coridals definitely works. Maybe I'm still buzzing of whatever the mystery substance is but it was top notch stuff.

Price:
I have to confess that this was paid for by a family member, so I can’t really comment on the price but, given the quality demonstrated in the other judging criteria, I bet it was very reasonable, in fact too cheap if anything. Having said that, if a family member is going to buy you a drink with your Sunday lunch you should probably get something alcoholic. Even if that does mean a Greene King IPA.

All I can say is that maybe the rumours are true and quality of life is better outside of the Big Smoke.

Sources 
Pubhistory: https://pubshistory.com/SurreyPubs/Ash/Swan.shtml 

 GetSurrey: https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/warm-up-ash-vales-swan-10450638

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

The Grocer, Old Spitalfields Market, E1

Given the cold weather and the fact that it's the third week of January - so Dry January is nearly done! - I thought for this latest entry I'd revisit the late summer and post an old review of a place I've been to many times in all weathers. Hope you're keeping warm and if you do happen to know a recipe for a mulled variant of lime and soda, let me know.

Date: September 2018

Is it Spitalfields Market or Old Spitalfields Market these days? Either way I know I’m not talking about the wholesale fruit and veg market that takes places in the early morning from Monday to Satruday on the fringes of the Olympic Park in Leyton (E10) - turns out that’s called New Spitalfields Market anyway.

In any case, there I was on a Thursday after work, after dinner and with a mate, so what better to do than see out the last day of my working week with a refreshing glass of the good stuff. The Grocer has become something of a Stammkneipe (that’s German for the local) for weekday evening rendez-vous with my friends owing to the buzz generated in the City on a weekday evening, the vast array of tantalising culinary options in the market building surrounding it and - the main reason - the fact it is convenient for where we all work.

To give it some credit, it is a nice looking pub with a decent outdoor terrace situated under the roof of the market hall so you won’t get wet if it rains. It looks like what might be described as a ‘traditional British pub’ but has a modern feel to it too. It’s probably a gastropub, but then again most pubs seem to serve food these days. I couldn’t find out much about the pub’s history in the three minutes I spent googling ‘The Grocer pub Spitalfields Market history’ but I did find that there were apparently once as many as seventy pubs in the Spitalfields area, although not all existing at the same time. Now there are a measly ten. According to what I could work out from this list (see the sources section for the link), the nearest one to what is now The Grocer was probably the Pendennis Castle, which was situated at 1 Lamb Street and demolished in 1884. So there you go, some history

Down to the review as always

When I ordered at the bar, I was asked whether I wanted fresh lime or lime cordial. I’m yet to decide if I like this question or not. On the one hand it shows a level of care for the customer that is to be commended - consumer choice is, after all, the only real choice we have these days - but on the other it can come across as slightly idiotic. The best answer to this is of course both and, in my opinion, a bartender should know that instinctively. Too flustered from being confronted with this dilemma of choice, I forgot to ask for the fresh slice of lime and so was left with a pint glass of weak looking lime cordial and soda water, accompanied by several hundred thousand ice cubes. 

Appearance:
Paying and taking my seat on the outside I watched my drink closely as the green tinge of the cordial blended well with the green tiles of the pub in the background. Owing to the aforementioned quantity of ice cubes, my hand was nearly frozen by the time I placed the glass on the table but the beginnings of a very mild frostbite in my fingertips did nothing to allay my fears that the ice would just dilute the minuscule amount of lime cordial further than the soda water had already done. It did look like a weak one. Without the lime quarter it also felt slightly bare. Even a quick stir with a finger couldn't do anything to make it appear more appetizing

Taste:
Perhaps unsurprising then that this lime and soda was very low on flavour. The lack of zing from a bit of fresh lime made this even more noticeable (I’m not bitter about it, I promise). It was refreshing though and went down easily, however I do remember thinking that I might as well just have had a glass of sparkling water. At least the cordial didn't have a chemical aftertaste that some do. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t memorable either. 

Price: 
I bought it together with a single vodka soda (a drink which sounds even more disgusting than what I was drinking). That one came with a fresh lime quarter in it (really, I’m not bitter) and together they came to over £6 so we’re talking over £2 for the non-alcoholic cocktail. Not cheap but its in keeping with other places I’ve been to in the area. Yes, it might the city of London but I’m still not a banker. 

So I guess I can say that this place is ok for lime and soda. Forgettable is what I’d term it as. A shame as it is quite a nice pub. 

The pub itself is worth coming to, especially on a late summer weekday evening as you can sit and watch the world go by from the outdoor area. I’ve never eaten here and have rarely drunk anything other than the lime and soda so my comments on anything else are somewhat redundant. It was a pleasant evening and the drink itself was just a way to keep my whistle whet as I talked in depth with my mate about the state of our respective love lives. A very long conversation indeed. 

Sources:
List of pubs in Spitalfields Market: http://www.spitalfieldsforum.org.uk/history/

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

The Northcote Arms, Francis Road, E11

Date: January 2019

You might imagine that the evening of the first Sunday of January would be a quiet time for a pub in an outer London Borough such as Waltham Forest but then you’ve probably never been to The Northcote. That said, neither had I before this visit and it’s fair to say I was reasonably surprised to find it full of life as I entered its doors at about 7pm on Sunday 6 January.

The Northcote is known for its Sunday drag nights so I suppose they’re always quite lively but this one in particular had that last blow out before the holiday ends feel to it. It was, after all, the night before the first Monday of the year. 

The pubhistory entry for The Northcote suggests that it’s an establishment that’s been around a while. It was taken over by Tuesday Roberts back in 2014 and offers an array of entertaining events from puz quizzes and bingo to the aforementioned drag nights. It has a Muga stone oven pizzeria (the pizzas here looked amazing and I wished I hadn’t eaten before coming) out the back and also hosts other guest caterers throughout the year. All this and a healthy offering of local beer together the mass produced staples on draft make it quite the local hotspot. The crowd itself was a mix of the younger types (perhaps those who’ve moved into the area), couples with dogs and a solid old man contingent for whom this has probably been the local going on decades. It has a real modern East End community feel to it. More information on the pub and some interesting articles about it are in the sources section.

It being a Sunday there was always little chance of me ordering an alcoholic beverage. In addition, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to cut back on alcohol, starting with doing Dry January. It’s not that I am a big drinker - I’m not - and I do like a beer or G & T, but I have recently really started to dislike the effect alcohol has on me. I’m not just talking about the customary hangover, I also mean the sensation of being drunk. I’m a massive lightweight so a couple of pints into a session and I’m as good as gone, but there’s also something about the feeling of being tipsy that hasn’t been sitting well with me for a while. I’ve given myself a limit of ten times when I can get drunk this year. I don’t want to give up completely - how else will I ever talk to people I don’t know?! - but I thought it best to start the year as I mean to go on.

Admittedly, as I got to the bar and looked at the life going on around me: people dancing to the music, chatting with vigour and my mate sipping his San Miguel contentedly, I was tempted to get a drink. Then I remembered my resolution. However, I thought I’d at least put one of my dancing shoes on and live a little. So I bought myself a non-alcoholic beer. Bavaria 0.0%. Do not recommend. About a third of the way through the bottle, as the realisation of my error became apparent, I knew that my next round had to be the classic non-drinkers' refresher. A lime and soda.

Appearance:
My mate walked back to our table his pint in one hand, in the other a pint glass glistening green in the light of the stage where the drag act was belting out Britney Spears. I knew I’d made the right choice. This is a proper pub that does proper drinks (non-alcoholic beer offering aside) and the lime and soda is no exception. The pint glass was filled to the brim. It had ice cubes, it had fresh lime, it had enough condensation on it and the balance of cordial to soda water looked about right. Top marks. 

Taste:
As I had expected from its appearance, it's a solid and uncompromising beverage. Lime and soda’s Ronseal equivalent. I did have to mix it a bit (with my finger not a straw #noplastic) but the flavour of the soda water was well balanced out with the right amount of cordial and the fresh lime quarter, which added just the right amount of zing to keep my taste buds interested before getting down to the thicker, sickly sweet taste of the cordial congregated at the bottom of the glass. This drink did everything you’d expect of a lime and soda. It quenched my thirst, it was drinkable, it endured. It is what it is and it's ok with that. That's how I like my lime and soda.  

Price:
This one was bought for me so I don’t actually know. We did stay for one more round after this but, it being late and having work the next day, I only fancied a half. A pint of lager and a half of lime and soda cost me less than £5 so I imagine the best mocktails here are cheap. As it should be. 

I’ve lived in this area on and off for a few year and have often passed this pub on my way down Grove Green Road so I’m glad I finally dropped in. It’s obviously a great hangout for newcomers and old timers alike and if you did want to get on it on a Sunday this would be the place to come. Maybe I’ll return to get a more inebriated perspective on the atmosphere at The Northcote when Dry January is over, we shall see.

As for the lime and soda itself, it's proper pub lime and soda. It’s good value, comes in the right quantity (pint glass or half pint glass) and is served with a smile. That’s all you really want from your local isn’t it? 

Sources
Pub’s website: https://thenorthcotee11.com/ 

Pubhistory entry: https://pubshistory.com/EssexPubs/Leytonstone/northcot.shtml

https://www.whatpub.com/pubs/ELC/13959/northcote-arms-leyton 

 A short interview with the owner: https://www.leytonstoner.london/2015/04/14/ich-bin-tuesday-roberts-owner-northcote-e11/ 

How they brought drag to The Northcote: https://www.leytonstoner.london/2015/03/26/i-started-sunday-drag-nights-northcote/

Tuesday, 8 January 2019

Kings Stores, Widegate Street, E1

Date: December 2016

To kick things off properly on this blog, I thought I’d post a review of a lime and soda I had a while ago now. This is the first review I ever wrote and looking back, it’s probably the occasion where the idea for this blog initially came about (yeah, ok it has taken me a bit of time to get it started). This should give you a flavour of what drinking lime and soda seriously is all about.

I visited the Kings Stores on Widegate Street sometime in December 2016. Unusually for this late in the year, I found myself not wanting to imbibe. Perhaps because it was still early in the month and I was aware of what was to come - Christmas 2016 was indeed quite the period of excess intoxication. Upon finding myself huddled up with friends in the warmth of a pub looking to escape the winter weather, I decided to go for my usual non-alcoholic beverage of choice. The humble lime and soda. Cue groans from my friends and cries of “it’s December, live a little”. Luckily for my liver, and of course for you dear reader, I ignored them and ordered it anyway.

Before moving on to my review of the beverage itself, I thought I’d give you a brief history of the Kings Stores. I am not a historian, and especially not one with a special knowledge of public houses, so most of this has been lifted from much more accomplished and knowledgeable sites such as pubhistory,com and pubology.co.uk. I’ve put links at the bottom if you want to read their entries on the Kings Stores (should that have an apostrophe? Research provides no concrete conclusions).

Nestled between the City and Spitalfields market, the pub’s website describes it as a “real hidden gem attracting a diverse crowd”. To be honest, I have no recollection of whether this is the case, although I’m sure it is. After all, when has marketing spin ever been a lie? At the time it was just a convenient place for me and a group of friends to meet what with it being almost equidistant from each of our respective workplaces. I’ve probably been into this pub several times but as with many a winter weeknight gathering, they all blur into one in my mind.

According to my sources, the Kings Stores started life as the Hoop & Grapes, opening in 1819. It was rebuilt in its present form in 1902 and has been known as the Kings Stores ever since. It is currently owned by Greene King. Given the age of the pub you might expect good things of their ability to craft a classic drink such as a lime and soda. Let’s find out.

Appearance:
It seems like they know what they’re doing here, as they slide the sober version of a Thunder Thursday tipple over the top of the bar into your hand. The glass was pleasant on the eye. Nice and tall. Not a pint glass though but furnished with just the just the right amount of ice cubes. Not too many to the glass look crowded and create the feeling that you’ve lost out on some of the drink, like a bad mojito, but not so few that they were lonely floating around in a sea of watery green. It also came with a fresh lime quarter bobbing gently on top of the bubbles. The addition of fresh lime isn’t always a given and should never be taken for granted when drinking lime and soda.

Taste:
Excited by the exquisite presentation, I had high hopes as I lifted the glass to my lips. First to note is that freshness, the real lime works! Mixed in with the lime cordial and soda water it transports you to a place where limes grow on trees beneath blue skies and warm sunshine, evaporating all of your troubles. It lifted my spirits - of which there are none in this drink - and cleansed my palate. Sadly, the space created by this cleansing process left behind just enough space for the actual taste of the lime cordial to create a big green mess on my newly refreshed taste buds. The balance of the drink was way off. The initial soda taste had been rejuvenating but was overpowered by the lime cordial which wasn’t the most palatable. Paradoxically there also didn’t seem to be enough of it and the drink wasn’t strong enough for me by some distance. I feel that if I’m going to subject myself to an evening of this stuff, at the very least I expect it to taste of something stronger than the abomination that is Volvic touch of lime or whatever it’s called. Give me a super strength Robinson’s cordial any day and the Kings Stores needs to top theirs up. It was neither sweet nor sour and even the fresh lime couldn’t save it. If I’d wanted real hydration, I’d have drunk from the tap.

I did find this drink refreshing but it was let down by a combination of the ‘interesting’ after taste of chemicals from the lime cordial along with it’s weak mixture of the key ingredients. It’s like the Coors Light of lime and soda.

Price:
£2.25! Yes that’s right, it was £2.25. I know this is the City of London and we’re all supposed to be rich bankers but come on, it wasn’t a coke! Even disregarding the quality, this is still way too much for a lime and soda. I might as well have paid double that and had a beer (maybe triple it). Definitely not worth it at its price point, but I guess the pub does have quite high running costs to cover.

Would I recommend a lime and soda at the Kings Stores? I have given the lime and soda here here a bit of a hard time but there are positives.

It is a looker. If you’re out there to impress your finance friends without endangering the health of the economy - or your liver - by making big decisions with a massive hangover the next morning then this is the drink for you. If you fancy a refreshing and re-hydrating summer beverage on your way to that big meeting then go for it.. But if you’re after the depth of flavour of a craft non-alcoholic beverage then this will not meet its aim. Be wary of the price and maybe just pay for a coke, lemonade or ginger beer if you’re not drinking.

Much like a Coors Light it's good on the right occasion. That said a lot of time has passed since I was last there so maybe I need to be back to give it a second try.

Sources:
http://www.kingsstores.co.uk/ 

https://pubology.co.uk/pubs/2176.html

Thursday, 3 January 2019

Make mine a lime and soda

I woke up feeling groggy. It was New Year's Day 2019 and I was hungover. Again. 

My hangovers normally consist of the same things as other hangovers: sore head, dry mouth, aching body, queasy tummy. Most of us are familiar with the drill. It has been that way for most of my drinking life. Recently however, I have noticed the presence of something new in my hungover consciousness: existential dread. This is an emotional reaction and involves things like replaying all the things I did and conversations I had from the night before, cringing with deep embarrassment, feeling like I need to apologise to everyone I know and ultimately coming to the conclusion that I'm an arsehole. This feeling - the existential dread - lasts for the rest of the day and then subsides until the next time I'm hungover, which is normally about a week later on the next available weekend morning.

To avoid beginning and ending my weekends in this sorry state, I have sometimes initiated periods of self imposed sobriety. Although remaining teetotal can often start out quite difficult, especially on a Friday evening after a week of work, I usually appreciate going a while without a drink. Such experiences have brought my attention to many things: the effects of alcohol on other people, the isolation of being the only person on a night out not drinking, the importance of alcohol in the social fabric of our culture, the simple joy in waking up on a Saturday or Sunday morning without that feeling of physical and emotional discomfort.

However, perhaps the one thing I became most aware of is the frequency with which I go to places like pubs and bars, where alcohol is the main focus. They’re where I celebrate special occasions, where I meet my friends after work or where I might choose to watch a big football match. Going to these places when you're not drinking means you become pretty familiar with the variety of the non-alcoholic drinks on offer. It’s all the usual suspects: coke, lemonade and sometimes a non-alcoholic beer. Each trip to a licensed establishment becomes an exercise in deciding which of these staples to drink rather than the usual pint. 

There's only so much coke or lemonade I can drink. They’re so sweet that it’s impossible to match drink for drink with your friends who have chosen an alcoholic tipple. Unless, of course, you want to be bouncing off the walls, induce early onset diabetes and rot your teeth all in the name of a big one. I also tend to drink these drinks so quickly that I’m left sitting there an empty glass for most of the night, which feels a bit sad. Non-alcoholic beer can also be problematic for the non-drinker. Whilst the variety and quality does seem to be improving, it is far from a safe bet in many places. Most pubs do have an option now but it's not always the best (see: Becks Blue).The bonus of a non-alcoholic beer for me is that I can drink it more slowly than a coke but again, after a couple, what's the point? I don’t feel any different other than a bit bloated. 

This used to leave me wondering what exactly I could or should order at the bar when I wasn’t drinking. What else was there on offer for the non-drinker in the UK's bars and pubs? Of course, in my naive sobriety I had missed the obvious answer. Sitting on the button of the bar gun and the shelf behind the bar, right in front of me all along. A drink rooted in the history and culture of Britain's teetotalers and occasional non-drinkers alike. A timeless classic. Nothing other than a lime and soda. 

What is a lime and soda? Well, it’s pretty simple. It’s soda water mixed with a bit of lime cordial and sometimes topped with a fresh slice of lime. It's makes for the perfect non-alcoholic pub beverage. It's easy to make, not as sugary as a conventional soft drink, pretty cheap, low calorie and offers the perfect taste balance between being palatable enough to drink but rank enough to stop you downing it in seconds. 

In spite of it’s apparent simplicity, my experiences of ordering lime and soda in bars and pubs have proven to be anything but simple. What I have discovered whilst ordering this in establishments across the country is just how varied a drink it can be. If you think you need to go to a craft beer place, tap room or wine bar for a full variety of beverages for your Friday night drink, I challenge you to order a lime and soda at every stop on your pub crawl instead. You’ll get an idea of what I mean. Sometimes it even varies in the same place with each new order! It’s the drink to give you an enthralling experience for those sober sessions.

What kind of variety am I talking about you ask? Quality and price are the standout variables but I’ve had it served to me in a range of ways, in differing quantities and have even once had to tell a bartender how to make it. 

I’ll start with quality. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that there is no standard lime and soda. Some places mix their lime and sodas well and others just dump all the ingredients in a glass and see what happens. Some places use cordial that tastes of lime and others appear to use cordial that leaves you questioning the competence of the Food Standards Agency to have passed it fit for human consumption. Think a chemical aftertaste akin to licking the bench of your school science lab. In fact there are even some places that use no lime cordial at all, instead presenting you with a glass of soda water with optional slice of fresh lime.

Then there’s price. There can be few other consumer products that vary so wildly in price as a lime and soda. As far as I know, lime cordial is not a substance that must be extracted from the ground through complex processes of engineering, therefore making it vulnerable to changes in supply level. Nor, to my knowledge, are either of the main component parts of a lime and soda traded as commodities and consequently subject to the forces of the market. I’m happy to be corrected on this of course but until I am, I will always be left wondering why the price of lime and soda can differ so greatly from place to place. To give you an idea, I have sometimes paid absolutely nothing for a lime and soda but then paid nearly £3 somewhere else. Even in the same pub I have paid two different prices for two different lime and sodas, and it’s not just me that seems to have this problem either. Doing a little research I found these articles from people who’ve had the same problem:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/drinkers-face-ripoff-prices-for-lime-and-soda-as-pubs-cash-in-on-dry-january-a3165791.html 

https://www.weeklygripe.co.uk/why-is-lime-and-soda-so-expensive-at-the-pub

It’s utter madness.

In spite of all this uncertainty, lime and soda remains my preferred non-alcoholic pub order. I’ve had quite the journey of discovery so far drinking it, and that is in essence what this blog is about.

I’ll be posting reviews of the different lime and soda experiences I’ve had at all the bars and pubs I’ve been to when not drinking alcohol. I’ll try to weave in a bit about the pub or bar along with an assessment of the drink and I may even throw in some tidbits about what I was doing there on there particular occasion I’m writing about. It’s my life through lime and soda.

As I don’t intend to spend the next few years of my life deliberately visiting licensed venues just to sample their version of the nation’s favourite ‘mocktail’ this is very much an as-and-when it happens thing. Sometimes there might be a lot to write about and other times less so. I have some reviews I’ve written about the lime and sodas I’ve drank over the past couple of years since I started this adventure so some of the entries might be a bit dated now. I am however currently a few days into dry January so there’s a good chance there’ll be some more recent reviews coming soon.

You’ll get an insight into what I, an occasional non-drinker who’s had more than my fair share of lime and sodas, value about the drink and how I like it to be served. But, whether you’re a lime and soda drinker or not, do not take my word as gospel. I am not some sort of lime and soda messiah come to enlighten bartenders and drinkers alike. My criteria for what makes a good a lime and soda might be different from yours. Remember that these are just my thoughts about a soft drink and, no matter how culturally important this beverage is and how controversial you think my opinions are, there’s no need to get rowdy in the comments section. Let's all enjoy this wonderful drink together.

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to get out there yourself. Whether you’ve decided to drink alcohol or not, why not make your next round a lime and soda so you too can chug your way through an exciting bubbled filled, green tinged taste sensation, regardless of how odd it tastes or how much you've paid for it.