English Spirit: Cross-Country Drinking At The Soho Hotel’s Refuel Restaurant

Think ‘cocktail’, and your mind probably goes international. It might be the zing of a margarita, the Tuscan flavours of a refreshing spritz, or the sun-drenched fruitiness of a piña colada. What you’re probably not thinking of, though, are the drizzly expanses of the English countryside. 

The Soho Hotel’s ‘Nine Regions Cocktail Menu’ focuses on the best that England has to offer

That’s why it’s a pleasant surprise to see British flavours celebrated at Refuel, the restaurant and bar tucked into the Soho Hotel’s cozy lobby. Their ‘Nine Regions Cocktail Menu’ focuses on the best that England has to offer, turning to the country’s nine distinct regions to celebrate their home-grown goods.

So, to try it out, I popped in there with this magazine’s editor Nina for cocktails and a catch up. It turned out to be the perfect pairing, as we slowly nattered our way through the menu, journeying across the country without leaving Refuel’s sofa.

The drinks Refuel serves are designed to shine a light the produce we can find right here at home

And journey we did. From up North all the way to Land’s End, we made our way through the best of what England can offer. We tried the sweet stylings of ‘North East’ wildflower mead, made from sustainably farmed honey, and the rich depths of ‘South East’ walnut liqueur, aged in bourbon casks.

The plush interior of a Soho hotel may not make you think of trekking through a forest or park. But as a chef and a keen forager, I’ve always been enamoured with what grows around me, which is often reflected in my menus. The drinks Refuel serves are designed to shine a light the produce we can find right here at home, so to try someone else’s approach to championing locally-sourced ingredients was a treat.

Getting to taste my way around England from the comfort of London was an exciting novelty.

Despite my interest in local produce, I’m woefully underexposed to what this country has to offer, largely due to never having learned to drive. Getting to taste my way around England from the comfort of London was an exciting novelty. Not that you’d want to try driving after diving into this cocktail menu, filled as it is with the finest English spirits. Even if this will never replace leaving the comforts of London and actually visiting the rest of England, it feels like Refuel is challenging the capital’s centrality by not only serving regionally-inspired drinks, but championing local producers and ingredients.

Visit the website of Firmdale Hotels, the parent company behind the Soho Hotel, and you’re greeted with the stories of each of these growers, some even identifiable by name. And the research that has clearly gone into developing this menu shows in the quality of this menu’s offerings. I now want to visit Luke and Suzie’s bee farm up north, and try Hereford’s special variety of blackcurrant called Pixley Black, which is made into a dazzling cordial with the addition of nothing but sugar and water.

Drinks aside, as a nation our greatest export is our humour. So I can safely say my favourite part of the menu is the tongue-in-cheek cultural references throughout. For ‘North West,’ you’re served the cocktail equivalent of a cuppa—North Yorkshire vodka is combined with rose tea cordial and English Breakfast—complete with sugared shortbread on top. But when it comes to humour, though, the cherry on the cake is the miniature Bakewell tart floating atop ‘East Midlands’ as a nod to Derbyshire. 

My favourite part of the menu is the tongue-in-cheek cultural references throughout.

As a West Country boy, ‘South West’ spoke to me with its focus on the apple. It came in a martini glass topped with a candied crab apple, an ode to those you’d get at a county fair. It was so pretty, in fact, that the candied apple sadly tumbled to the floor as I posed for a photo with it. Either that, or I was perhaps one too many cocktails down by then.

However, my personal favourite had to be ‘Yorkshire & Humber.’ In honour of Yorkshire’s rhubarb triangle, it’s packed with the plant’s tart flavour in the form of rhubarb gin and a rosehip and rhubarb cordial. I was pleasantly surprised by its almost bubblegum flavour: there’s something intensely pink about rhubarb, and this cocktail captures that quality perfectly.

Needless to say, once we’d come to the ninth region, we were rather sozzled. Having drunk our across the length and breadth of the country in mere hours, though, this is no surprise. After all, there’s nothing quite as English as getting ratarsed, so it certainly felt fitting at the moment. Even if it wasn’t as enjoyable the next day.

Photos by Barney Pau