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Soho Residence offers 'opulent gin parlour, a botanical feel and grown-up fun & late night partying

I like some cocktails. There's no hope for me, is there?

TBH my main dislikes for them are the price, mixer to alcohol ratio and the wankspeak over their production and consumption. The jeeshie "oo let's have coctales…" No. Let's have a proper grownups drink.
 
At least it's still open until 3am every day. Like the O Bar was.

It's just a shame that there's hardly any regular bars which do this. I'm sick of having to leave perfectly decent boozers at 11pm because of outdated licensing laws. I don't want to pack into some trendy 'botanical gin parlour' just because its late. I just want another pint, in the same place I started drinking already. Without shitty music and door staff.

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It's been a while since I was last on tinder but about a year ago it seemed that in every other person would use the brief few words to describe themselves to say something about how they're partial to a gin.
 
And the fucking wait for everyone else stuck behind while they get made :mad:

^^^ THIS X 100.

Immense faff, and waiting around, for a couple of G&Ts to get scientifically measured out and poured into oversized wine glasses. Jesus. What a load of nonsense.
 
I'm sick of having to leave perfectly decent boozers at 11pm because of outdated licensing laws.
This isn't really true anymore - in most places it's totally possible to get a later license if you want one. Most pubs still close at 11 or 12 on a weeknight because there's no customers after then...
 
This isn't really true anymore - in most places it's totally possible to get a later license if you want one. Most pubs still close at 11 or 12 on a weeknight because there's no customers after then...

The fact they have to go through the application at all seems to perpetuate the fact that most places still stop serving at 11pm though. I've been in plenty of pubs where they've thrown the lights on bang on 11pm, and are rushing people to get out like they're in fear of the authorities.

I've never seen this in other cities quite to the extent I've seen in London. Other similar cities like NYC, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam all seem to have a much more relaxed bar culture with plenty of late places, where if they get quiet, they just stop serving. But at least let you finish up in peace without putting all the lights on and shouting at people to finish their drinks.
 
I wonder if that's more a cultural thing where bar staff are used to doing it and know that's what needs to be done if they want to get home? Other countries maybe have a more embedded culture (and some kind of financial incentive for the staff to not want to walk out the door bang on closing - i.e they get paid!)

Agree that being pushed out suddenly is a pain in the arse but I don't blame the staff if they're not getting paid beyond a certain time.
 
Yet it's only in London where I'm routinely having to down drinks quickly because of being hussled out of the door by eager staff already spraying down tables with cleaning fluid by 11:05

I get that if they're on a rota and want to go home then fine, but so many times it's a half full pub on a Friday night, and they're turfing out punters because their license doesn't allow them to continue serving. There should be more flexibility built into the system. Having to apply for permission to stay open late. Load of shite.
 
What's happened to London? I've not been out drinking there in many years, but even before the licensing laws were relaxed a few years ago it was never very difficult getting a late drink, without having to go into some hideous nightclub. The number of late-night shebeens and suchlike was the envy of the rest of the country...
 
You're years out of date - as I said, fancy gin is mainstream now. My mate does an annual gin festival, and the attendees are far from hipster - just people who like getting pissed for the most part.

Is anything still 'hipster' now? All the signifiers of hipsterdom seem to be about a decade old now.
 
What's happened to London? I've not been out drinking there in many years, but even before the licensing laws were relaxed a few years ago it was never very difficult getting a late drink, without having to go into some hideous nightclub. The number of late-night shebeens and suchlike was the envy of the rest of the country...

It's a couple of years old but this BBC article suggests that as of 2016 there were only 30 nightclubs or bars trading with a 24-hour licence in the whole of London.

What's happened to London's nightlife?

The problem, as I see it, is that instead of just allowing a blanket free to stay open until 4am law change for all bars, they still insist places make an application. So most bars that aren't clubs, or trendy drinking places, don't see much point in going through the process, but in so doing they just entrench the culture whereby only select rowdy/trendy bars and clubs stay open late. And the rowdyness is exacerbated by the fact that more people pack into these places because there are only a handful of them. And they're usually always shit places with door staff insisting on ID and blaring music.

So people associate all night drinking with noise and hoards of people getting pissed, and making noise and pissing outside. So even when applications are made, there is a high chance they will get opposed because of resident fears about increased hassle. If people were just allowed to remain in their original bars of choice, there wouldn't be this massive rush to drink up, people wouldn't get so noisy, fighty and vomity outside, and everyone can chill the fuck out. Like they do in other (Non UK & Ireland) cities.
 
Is anything still 'hipster' now? All the signifiers of hipsterdom seem to be about a decade old now.

It all seems to have merged with the mainstream - I don't think anybody would blink an eye now at somebody with facial hair and a whimsical tattoo putting a photo of their craft beer on Instagram - "hipster" seems to have become just a synonym for "pretentious."

Or maybe the fact that I see hipster stuff as totally normal suggests I have spent too long living in hipster-heavy neighbourhoods...:D
 
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To be fair, I recall the O Bar as being particularly awful - sticky floors and horrendously overpriced jugs of cocktails. That was a long time ago, maybe it had improved.
 
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