Absinthe, like adidas Sambas, Nottingham Forest and, sadly, Donald Trump, is cyclical in its vogue. Though this romantic Victorian drink is no longer given to French soldiers to fight off malaria, nor propelling the brushes of Van Gogh or the ink pots of Wilde, there are London bars once again traversing the great absinthe plains.
One is Quo Vadis in Soho, another is Nightjar in Old Street, another the Green Bar at Wilde’s old haunt, Hotel Café Royal. At both, the green fairy is served a la Belle Epoque, in a glass urn to be shared and tickled adoringly by sugar.
I saw recently two chaps sharing absinthe with avidity. They were holding silver spoons and being hotly European, sipping their green liquid in between rolled up cigarettes. But that was at an old wooden bar in Barcelona. The closest quarter in London is probably Bar Tabac in Kentish Town, a pocket-sized place with an illuminated red sign outside and a handful of wooden tables in a mismatched room within.
The bartenders here will serve you absinthe in a glass. Or they will mix you a Holywater cocktail, where the medicinal liquor appears aflame inside a lime turned inside-out. You too will become convex if you drink enough of these. Relief from this can be found in the house wines, £6 each.
Tabac is a mesmeric place. The sort of bar you see in a film where a cool woman does not want to talk to a man wearing a duffel coat for about 35 minutes until he plays her something melodic on his guitar in the rain. If they marry they will divorce, naturally, but in the meantime they’ll have a supple time at Tabac, drinking absinthe before graduating to whisky sours, later little French beers. Call this bar semantics.
I’m a little loath to write about Tabac because it really is that good and I’d rather afford myself a seat. But do visit. Admire the brass fox knocker on the toilet door; order a drink; become a character in a film, detached from the toils of our unimaginative world; traverse the absinthe plains.
Drinks from £6. 16 Fortess Road, NW5 2EU, tabacbar.co.uk
