Inside track on trendy development in watering holes for discerning drinkers

Ruin bars – there’s a concept to conjure with. Nothing to do with long- discontinued chocolate treats. Not even connected to Mother’s Ruin from the days when gin was the opium of the masses and not a fashion fad for the discerning lush. Mind you, it was so cheap back in those Hogarthian days that it would seem that your average Londoner drank 14 gallons a year. I’ve always said I should practise more…

But no. Ruin bars are, apparently, trendy hostelries tucked away in decrepit historic buildings across much of eastern Europe including major cities such as Budapest and Prague. They have become the go-to watering holes for the cognoscenti and those who can still convince themselves it’s a good idea to go out for a drink.

There are those of us, of course, who are – to paraphrase the words of comedian Peter Cook when asked about viewing plays full of sex and violence – getting that at home. And while I would not go so far as to say my domestic arrangements are exactly ruined, I don’t see any purveyor of shiny property porn queuing up to film them for Grand Designs any time soon.

But out there in the world, if such a notion still exists in these inward-looking times, collapsing castles have become gin palaces, abandoned apartment buildings have been turned into cocktail havens, and dilapidated warehouses now play host to hordes of shabby-chic bohemians.

This may have been pre-Covid, of course but with vaccines looming, surely it is only a matter of time before going out becomes the new staying in and the A-list is sipping happily on the French Quarantini, the Antibody Spritz and the Long Island iced Test & Trace.

Why I am not on the collective mailing lists of these crumbling dives I do not know but, as with many things drink-related, I feel I may already have something closely resembling the inside track on this supposedly highly contemporary development in self-indulgence.

Many years ago, a quartet of us repaired to the Old Bank Bar in Dundee’s Reform Street (remember the halcyon days when you could go to a pub with pals without a booking, a facemask, a tape measure for the social distancing and a 2021 vaccination date?) after work on a Friday.

Much conviviality and silliness (and absolutely no food) ensued, with the result that by mid-evening, we were all just bung full of jollity, Southern Comfort and Gordon’s which (this shows just how long ago it was) was more or less the only type of gin you could get in those straitened times.

Given that this gathering was made up of four of the loudest women in the world at the best of times, let alone with drink taken, suffice to say we were making our presence felt. So much so that when the long-suffering then husband of one of this scary Gang of Four came to give us all a lift home, he obviously knew straight away that we were still in the place from his parking spot at the other end of the street.

His reaction (he still came in and he still took us all home, which says a lot for the man’s grit and backbone, if not his judgment) was succinct, if not altogether flattering. “Ah heard ye afore Ah saw ye. Then Ah cam’ roond the pillar and saw ye. Ye were like fower derelict buildins…” (He was from Forfar and spoke as he found).

So, I do, you might say, have previous on putting the ruin into ruin bar. Somehow, however, I think the descriptive title given to these characterful drinking dens was

intended to refer to the premises rather than the clientele.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to avoid the T-word this week. Even I, possessor of a vivid, not to say tortured, imagination, have found it difficult to think of anything to say about the situation across the pond that has not been said or written a million times already.

Suffice to say that, once the current incumbent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue decides (or has it decided for him) that even he does not have enough unsupported delusional bravado to brazen it out any further, I am looking forward to being able to understand something – anything – that a president of the United States says.

On the other hand, on the principle that The Donald’s spirit is alive and well and living in 10 Downing Street, our own dear PM certainly gave him a run for his millions when he spoke of the “distant bugle of the

scientific cavalry” racing over the hill to save his face and possibly his job prospects, with a workable Covid vaccine.

However, having witnessed the current stramash of resignations, foot-stamping and infighting apparently engineered by his present fiancee (soon to be ennobled as Lady Macbeth, no doubt), the best advice must surely be not to let himself get Carried away…

It is only a matter of time before going out is the new staying in

GOOD OLD DAYS: Remember when you could go to a pub with pals without a booking and a face mask?