Black Rock is London’s most incredible whisky bar
This is London’s only whisky bar with a 185-year-old oak tree acting as a whisky dispenser
World Whisky Day is fast approaching, and for some, this can induce a minor state of anxiety. “If I don’t like whisky, does that make me less of a man?” “Is it spelt with an ‘e’?” “Is it the same as cognac?” are a few of the embarrassing conundrums that can sometimes eclipse true appreciation of this golden liquid.
Thankfully, Tristan Stephenson and Tom Aske, the men behind London’s much-loved Worship Street Whistling Shop, last year opened a new bar solely dedicated to whisky, which promises to reinvent and universalise the spirit. With more than 250 bottles from around the world lining the room in glass cabinets, this subterranean whisky library seeks to educate rather than intimidate. Rather than mock novices for ordering a dram of cherry-flavoured whisky for instance, the team behind Black Rock encourages it (so long as you move on to the harder stuff in due course).
The crown jewel of the bar, however, is not a dram but the décor. Doubling as a table/bar station, a 185-year-old oak tree lies across the room. The trunk, cut in half and coated in resin, serves as an interactive cocktail ageing system at which guests can sit, drink and observe through the glass top. Two channels have been carved so different whisky cocktails can be poured directly from the end of the trunk. If Black Rock can’t convince the haters, nothing can.
9 Christopher Street, London EC2. 020 7247 4580